Women's Dating

The Dark Side of Sexual Chemistry

Dr. Wendy Walsh

Written by: Dr. Wendy Walsh

Dr. Wendy Walsh

Known as America's Relationship Expert, Dr. Wendy Walsh is an award-winning television journalist, radio host & podcaster, and the author of three books on relationships and thousands of print and digital articles. More than 1.5 million people follow her sage advice on social media. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and teaches in the Psychology Department at California State University Channel Islands and has been the host of "The Dr. Wendy Walsh Show" on iHeart Radio's KFI AM 640 since 2015. Walsh is also a former Emmy-nominated co-host of "The Doctors," as well as former host of the nationally syndicated show "EXTRA." She was named a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2017 after speaking out about harassment at a major news network.

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Edited by: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of journalism experience to ensure DatingAdvice articles have been edited for overall clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Gwinnett Daily News, and The Gainesville Sun covering lifestyle topics.

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To say the date was “hot” is an understatement. Entranced by the delicious whiff of compatible pheromones hovering over the candlelit table, the man and woman barely spoke.

They did giggle in embarrassment and avert their eyes from time to time to break free from their longing eye lock.

As the date progressed, they both felt goose bumps and flutters of exciting bio-chemicals in their stomachs.

This is what people call sexual chemistry.

It is as intoxicating as heroin and can be just as dangerous. It is this seductive cocktail of attraction that makes people engage in dangerous sexual behavior.

Sexual chemistry is a captor who blindfolds your rational brain, unhinges your steering wheel and releases you as a blind driver.

And, ironically, sexual chemistry is what every person hopes they will find on a date. Because it feels so goooood.

In days of old, when sexual restraint was in vogue and sexual opportunity was scarce, a legend grew that sexual chemistry was something the lucky few had.

It was the holy grail of love, if only one could find it.

Flash forward to today’s high-supply sexual economy where sexual opportunity has exploded, sexual restraint has become a quaint eccentricity and sexual chemistry has become a requirement.

Dating has become a high-speed audition process. If sexual chemistry isn’t found with one partner, there must be something wrong. Right?

 

“Sexual chemistry makes you blindly move too fast,

coupling up before you have evaluated a partner.”

Well, not exactly.

In a ground breaking Brigham Young University study of more than 2,000 couples, the greater the sexual chemistry early on, the worse the relationship outcomes.

People with good sexual chemistry early on simply did not stay together longer.

Psychology professor Dean Busby explained his results to me this way:

“The mechanics of good sex are not particularly difficult or beyond the reach of most couples, but the emotions, the vulnerability, the meaning of sex and whether it brings couples closer together are much more complicated to figure out.”

Sexual chemistry can steer you from good relationships.

It makes you blindly move too fast, coupling up and adjusting your life before you have evaluated a partner as a truly compatible mate.

In the early stage of a relationship, sex is important. But down the road, when couples reach the stage of mature companionate love, those with the hottest sexual chemistry early on feel like something has died.

They confuse sex with love and when their sex life transforms, they feel they have fallen out of love.

The path to a healthy relationship is a road of slow love.

Photo source: freewallpaper4.me.

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