Communication is always a great place to start, but here’s a biological trick you can use to jump-start intimacy and bonding with your spouse: play with the wife’s breasts. Breast-play releases the hormone oxytocin which stimulates bonding and feelings of intimacy.
Larry Young, a professor of psychiatry at Emory University and co-author of The “Chemistry Between Us” (2019), believes that men’s love of breasts is simply that human evolution has co-opted an ancient neural circuit which was originally designed to strengthen the bond between mother and infant.
Oxytocin is nature’s “love drug,” and nipple stimulation, be it from an infant during breast feeding, or from a man during coitus, floods a woman’s brain. This helps the woman focus on the task at hand. Quite simply, when men bit, nibble, suck, or caress women’s nipples, he helps her body release oxytocin in the woman’s brain producing a bonding experience.
According to Young, attraction to breasts “is a brain organization effect that occurs in straight males when they go through puberty…Evolution has selected for this brain organization in men that makes them attracted to the breasts in a sexual context, because the outcome is that it activates the female bonding circuit, making women feel more bonded with him. It’s a behavior that males have evolved in order to stimulate the female’s maternal bonding circuitry.”
What’s more, nipple stimulation for women apparently triggers the same areas of the brain as genital stimulation.
For many women, nipples are erogenous zones. A new study may explain why: The sensation from the nipples travels to the same part of the brain as sensations from the vagina, clitoris and cervix.
The study, published online July 28 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, is the first to map the female genitals onto the sensory portion of the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers noted which brain areas become active when women touch various parts of their bodies. The genital-sensing brain areas in women roughly correspond to the same areas in men, but the nipple finding was a surprise, said study researcher Barry Komisaruk, a psychologist at Rutgers University.
“My speculation is that this could be the basis for many women saying that nipple stimulation is erotogenic, because it stimulates the same area as the genitals,” Komisaruk told LiveScience.
So if you’re feeling distant or disconnected from your spouse, along with communication invest some quality time in breast-play. The oxytocin released will help you bond together and strengthen your relationship and intimacy.
(See also: How to play with breasts.)
If tbey dont get aroused, they might get sleepy!
Haha that’s funny :) Well bonding isn’t all about arousal.
Tangential to this conversation, I highly recommend adult nursing. Obviously, it’s not for everyone, but it’s really amazing for anyone who wants to try it.
We did it when my youngest was still nursing. It scratches all the same breast play boxes in terms of oxytocin release for her and it’s insanely to drink milk directly from your wife. The husband gets the same kind of oxytocin benefits, times 2. There’s a very real “milk drunk” effect, but also even he physical sensation of suckling can release oxytocin for the husband.
We didn’t do it regularly enough to keep her milk supply up, so when our last child was weened, my wife stopped lactating. We do still enjoy “dry nursing” once or twice a week though—for 10-15min “per side.”
I’ll add that for anyone who is really committed, it is possible, through enough regular stimulation to “relactate” after children are weened. It’s also possible to start lactation even if the wife has never had children.
I don’t think she’ll ever go for it (I definitely love it more than my wife), but I’ve told her that if she wanted to work on consistent stimulation to get back to relactating, I would be 100% on board with drinking her enough to keep it going.
Thanks for sharing. I don’t think this is something we’ll try, but I’m sure you’re not the only ones out there.
I concur with much that I have read in this article. Breast play can be very enjoyable and bonding for a couple. It just takes communication and patients. Husbands especially need to know how his wife likes her nipples sucked or if she may not care for that so much. As to Andrews comment, sometimes being playful my husband will pretend that I am nursing him. It is all in fun though and not something we plan on doing.
Breasts and nipples are my wife’s “ON” buttons!
Breast stimulation can be such a powerful means of bonding between husband and wife, even outside the bedroom.
Frequent touching of my wife’s breasts is a form of affection that both of us enjoy and has become almost akin to kissing for us.
Few things feel more intimate than a good night spooning with my hand caressing her breast.
I am happy to say that aside from periods of sickness or physical separation not a day has gone by where she has not felt my touch on that part of her body.
Spooning is the best!