Emotions are just biochemistry

That goes for orgasms and libido, just as it goes for happiness and sadness, love and pain, and all stages of awareness. It’s all very chemical, with hormones and neurotransmitters the main players. Sensual input and emotional output are an overlay, through which neurobiochemistry communicates with the outside world.

It’s in our genetic constellation that certain biochemical states appear pleasant and others don’t. There is a wide range of variation, as some people even consider certain manifestations of pain, including suffocation, as erotic, and others have a very limited capacity for love.

There are, in principle, two methods by which we can interfere with our brain chemistry.

Either pharmacologically, via the supply of chemicals, or non-pharmacologically.

Good non-pharmacological methods are many forms of sexual activity, other pleasurable endeavors, from food to music, thrills like skiing or rock climbing, physical exhaustion by running or biking, or hypnosis and meditation. The purpose of all the above is the endogenous release of neurochemicals that make us feel good.

On the other side of the strata are chemicals that directly induce positive feelings, of which opiates are the best example. On the right opiates, one feels good whatever one’s actual condition. Philosophically, opiates are one of the greatest achievements of mankind, as they allow us to engineer a gentle death.

And then, there is a wide range of possible pharmaceutical interferences with our existence that do not make us feel good directly but enhance our natural potential to feel good.

Sildenafil citrate, tongkat ali, marijuana, yohimbe, and dopaminergics, even though they are very different one from the other, all are used because they enhance our potential to feel good on the sexual route. Testosterone and tongkat ali have effects on the male physique, and can make users feel better when looking into a mirror.

That governments regulate some of these substances has nothing to do with how useful they are for the individual. It’s also not that governments prohibit substances out of concern for the health of their citizens. If that were the case, alcohol would have been banned long ago. Substances are banned for a complex constellation of ideas on the part of those who have the power to decide, and many of the ideas are simply false.

The bottom line is: that some substances make us feel good by intervention with brain chemistry speaks in their favor, not against them.