Diana Peragine

The infant brain expects to be exposed to language, to attachment figures, and might be primed to learn from them, right?

But most importantly, our adolescent sexual experiences, and this is where we get to the brain side of the equation, actually tend to coincide with this really interesting window of brain development where the reward circuits that underpin emotion, motivation, where those circuits mature faster than the sort of cognitive control circuits that inhibit them,

And this imbalance endows positive emotional experiences with special salience, special persistence in memory.

I mean, the films, the books, the movies, the events that we like the best, that we remember the best as adults.

They're often the ones that we discover in adolescence and early adulthood.

So if this reminiscence bump or this memory bump extends to other sources of pleasure, like our very first experiences with sex, they may be the most memorable ones that we ever have and might actually pattern our interest in sex as adults.

Happy to be here.

Thanks so much for having me.

Right.

I mean, well, we're really talking about when it comes to this gap in particular, I think the myth is really centered on, again, where it comes from than really the size of the gap, right?

You know, this libido gap between genders, it's been a staple of punchlines, headlines, party conversations for decades, right?

We're talking about gender gap that's, you know, it's pretty large, about as large as the gender difference in weight.

And one that's, you know, pretty reliable.

It's been replicated across, you know, 500 or more studies in the past 24 years, 25 years alone.

And across that, you know, long and sort of girthy body of research, three or four women do report less interest in sex than men.

The question is, or I think the controversy is more about where that gap is coming from.

Right.

Is it a natural one or is it something that, you know, we acquire over time?

Right.

I mean, that's a, it is a good question.