“Female sexual turn on begins, ironically, with a brain turn off. The impulses can rush to the pleasure centers and trigger orgasm only if the amygdala- the fear and anxiety center of the brain- has been deactivated. The fact that a woman requires this extra neurological step may account for why it takes her on average three to ten times longer than the typical man to reach orgasm.”

“During times of physical separation, when touching and caressing is impossible, a deep, longing, almost a hunger, for the beloved can set in. We are used to thinking of this longing as only psychological, but it's actually physical. The brain is virtually in a drug-withdrawal state. During a separation, motivation for reunion can reach a fever pitch in the brain. Activities such as caressing, kissing, gazing, hugging, and orgasm can replenish the chemical bond of love and trust in the brain. The oxytocin-dopamine rush once again suppresses anxiety and skepticism and reinforces the love circuits in the brain. From an experiment we also know that oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner- sealing the bond between huggers and triggering the brain's trust circuits.”

“Women have less direct relationship to anger...When a woman "bites" her tongue to avoid expressing anger, its not at all socialization. A lot of it is brain circuitry. Even if a woman wanted to express her anger right away, often her brain circuits would attempt to hijack this response, to reflect on it first out of fear and anticipation of retaliation. Also, the female brain has a tremendous aversion to conflict, which is set up by fear of angering the other person and losing the relationship. Instead of triggering a quick action response in the brain, as it does in males, anger in girls and women moves through the brain's gut feeling, conflict-pain anticipation, and verbal circuits. Scientists speculate that though a woman is slower to act out of anger, once her faster verbal circuits get going, they can cause her to unleash a barrage of angry words that a man cant match.Typical men speak fewer words and have less verbal fluency than women, so they may be handicapped in angry exchanges with women. Often when I see a couple who are not communicating well, the problem I see is that the man's brain's circuits push him frequently and quickly to an angry, aggressive reaction, and the woman feels frightened and shuts down.”

“Male love circuits get an extra kick when stress levels are high. After an intense physical challenge, for instance, males will bond quickly and sexually with the first willing female they lay eyes on.Women, by contrast, will rebuff advances or expressions of affection and desire when under stress. The reason may be that the stress hormone cortisol blocks oxytocin's action in the female brain, abruptly shutting off a woman's desire for sex and physical touch.”

“The pleasure of living and the pleasure of the orgasm are identical. Extreme orgasm anxiety forms the basis of the general fear of life.”

“He’d performed like a well-oiled automaton last night, blocking out the reality of the woman taking her pleasure beneath him, banishing images of Billie that rushed time and again through his thoughts and threatened the steely control he maintained over his own orgasm. When at last he’d let himself go, one fevered word had pounded through his brain. Billie.”

“They tell us that women make loud noises during sex “from the Lower East Side to the upper reaches of the Amazon”, overlooking the fact that as far as the Amazonian tribes are concerned, signs of female sexual enjoyment are sometimes discouraged and the existence of the female orgasm is often not even recognized. In all of these tribes where we have had the information, female sexual pleasure is either a non-issue, discouraged, or sex is as private and as quiet as possible.”