Feelings of Winning Can Be Equal To Pleasures of Sex, But At What Costs?

Experts says sex sells. But can merely performing stimulating activities such as reading Legal Pub generate the same feelings? Researchers say yes. Scientists report that some nonsexual things can get our brains the same pleasure as sex. For example, according to experts at Baylor College of Medicine, a baby's smile can activate a region in the mother's brain which produces feelings of euphoria. Similar findings have been reported associated with the euphoria of winning. Not surprisingly, the same can be said of having money! Japanese researchers have attempted to scientifically link money to pleasure centers in the brain. While intuitively it makes sense that getting a raise or promotion at work generates pleasure, hard earned dollars are being spent to prove the relationship.

Anecdotal British research suggests that shopping can also stimulate feelings of pleasure. MindLab International (sponsored by retailer T.J. Maxx) correlates shopping with a euphoric experience similar to kissing. The study suggested that women who were shopping experienced elevated heart rates up to 192 beats per minute while shopping. (This may not only replace the need for sex, but the need for exercise as well!) CNN LINK

Even without such studies, it has long been understood that winning can generate the type of euphoria. But it is, perhaps, only in hindsight, that the costs of those feelings of victory are truely known. For example, in the 1980s, Heidi Krieger won medal after medals for East Germany in the shot put. Krieger claims her body changed into a man after ingesting steroids that coaches said were vitamins. Krieger is now a man and has been renamed Andreas Krieger after a sex change operation in 1997. He claims that he was fed so many steroids by coaches that he suffered physical and emotional problems. Krieger became attracted to women and felt like a man. After her operation, she became a man. Watch Krieger Body Changes. Kriegeris now married and runs an army surplus store.

Steroids in athletics may soon be past history. Speculation is that growth hormone has for the most part taken the place of steroids. Next on the horizon will be performance enhancing gene therapy. If gene therapy becomes a reality, then the pressure to win will have succeeded in conquering man kind. Will such tainted victory still produce the euphoric pleasure that has come to replace sex in a sterile society?