My wife pointed out this article to me. Seeing a beautiful woman triggers a pleasure response in a man’s brain similar to what a hungry person gets from eating or an addict gets from a fix, scientists say… Researchers showed a group of heterosexual men in their mid-20s pictures of men and women of varying attractiveness, while measuring the brain’s responses through computer imaging. The beautiful women were found to activate the same “reward circuits” as food and cocaine do, study author Hans Breiter said. Breiter said evidence that beauty stimulates these primal brain circuits has never been shown. He said the findings counter arguments that beauty is nothing more than the product of society’s values. “This is hard-core circuitry,” Breiter said. `”This is not a conditioned response.”
I’m going to have to ask my wife what she makes of it. It explains, in part anyway, our fascination with nudie mags and strip joints, I suppose.