Sex and violence, they pair well. I assumed that this was mostly pop culture glorifying masculinity through association with aggression and sex… but there’s apparently a tight biological link. Multiple regions in the brain have now been identified as containing cells specific for behaviors related to aggression or mating. Studied mostly in male mice (because mouse brain are pretty similar to human brains), manipulations of vomeronasal organ, amygdala, and hypothalamus can alter mating and aggressive behaviors [1]. As expected, these regions all connect to each other. This makes intuitive sense, because mating and aggressive behaviors are both important social behaviors strongly tried to pheromones in other mammals.
Anyway, I was surprised to see just how convoluted these two social behaviors are in our head. Maybe affection and anger really is on the opposite ends of the same spectrum.
[1] PMID: 26849838
Originally posted on Instagram February 18, 2019
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