Loving Him Without Losing You by Beverly Engel Read Free Book Online

access or verbally express their feelings as well as women, most people attribute this to cultural condi- tioning alone. But another factor at play is that from early on, the female brain is generally superior in terms of basic verbal ability.
    According to Anne Moir and David Jessel, the authors of Brain Sex, women have a more efficient brain organization for speech, which is located in the front of the left hemisphere, while the same function in male brains is found both in the front and back—a less efficient distribution.
    All through life, female verbal abilities, especially about emotive content, are on average superior to male verbal abilities. It has been observed during neural imaging scans that the male brain is less active and there is less cross talk between hemispheres, which, in turn, creates less verbal expression.
    Testosterone also affects boys’ ability to communicate emotionally. While some boys are readily able to put their feelings into words at age nine, by the time they reach sixteen many are less able to do so. While we can attribute some of this to the fact that boys are discouraged from being emotional as they grow older, the primary reason is that the amount of testosterone surg- ing through the body and brain throughout adolescence causes adaptations in boys’ emotional systems that cut down the emphasis on feelings in their speech.
Men are more independent than women.
    The way the male brain is structured, combined with higher levels of testosterone, propels boys and men toward independence-seeking activity. According to Anne Moir and David Jessel, both boys and girls whose moth- ers had taken extra male hormones during pregnancy were found to be more self-sufficient, self-assured, independent, and individualistic on a standard personality questionnaire. Those whose mothers had taken female hormones were more reliant on others.
Men do not need to be emotionally connected to a woman, nor even sexu- ally attracted to her, to have intercourse.
    Even though the biological drive to reproduce is very strong, men must be sexually aroused in order to have intercourse. For this reason, the human brain is wired to make it possible, through the use of fantasy, for men to become sexually aroused even when they are not attracted to a woman or don’t have enough energy for intercourse.
    Conversely, for the average woman to become sexually involved she must lower her defenses and allow herself to become vulnerable. Most men are capa- ble of having sex with someone without going through this process. Spurred on by their hormones, men can more easily have sex while their emotional walls are still up, so they usually don’t have the problem of losing themselves. Not only does the average woman need to become vulnerable to have sex,
    she also continues to open up each time she repeats the act with someone. The closer she becomes physically, the more involved she is emotionally. This is partly due to the fact that, contraception notwithstanding, with every act of sexual intercourse, a woman may be facing a potential new life.
    Even those men who lower their emotional walls and fall in love tend to bounce back from lovemaking easier and faster and are able to maintain their separate identity better than women. We seldom see a man so lovesick that he can’t do his work, so preoccupied with his lover that he talks about her all the time with his friends.
Boys and men are less likely to use pain as a bonding agent.
    Testosterone propels boys and men toward quick tension release, not only in the sex act but even in their response to physical pain. A boy is far less likely to cry when he is hurt, especially one who has reached puberty. Not only has the acculturation process taken hold by then (“big boys don’t cry”), but also boys and men are hardwired to release tension quickly rather than engaging in an activity such as crying, which not only prolongs the release of tension (as compared to a quick curse or a