Past Event

Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships

Science writer Kayt Sukel will be giving a talk about her new book on love, sex, and the brain.

From the Book Jacket:

Philosophers, theologians, artists, and boy bands have waxed poetic about the nature of love for centuries. But what does the brain have to say about the way we carry our hearts? In the wake of a divorce, science writer and single mother Kayt Sukel made herself a guinea pig in the labs of some unusual love experts to find out.

In each chapter of this edgy romp through the romantic brain, Sukel looks at a different aspect of love above the belt. What in your brain makes you love someone-or simply lust after them? (And is there really a difference?) Why do good girls like bad boys? Is monogamy practical? How thin is that line between love and hate? Do mothers have a stronger bond with their children than their fathers do? How do our childhood experiences affect our emotional control? Should you be taking an oxytocin supplement to improve your luck in love? Who is most at risk for love addiction? In her search for truth, Sukel also has an fMRI during orgasm, ponders a cure for heartbreak, and samples a pheromone spray called Boarmate.

As science allows us a more focused examination on the intricate dance between the brain and our environments, we can use it to shed new light on humanity’s oldest question: What is love and why does it torture, delight, and transform us so?

Fiercely honest and wonderfully funny, Sukel can offer no simple solutions for the curveballs love throws our way. But after reading this gimlet-eyed look at love, sex, and the brain, you’ll never look at romance the same way again.

Bio:

Kayt Sukel earned a BS in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University and a MS in engineering psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. A passionate traveler and science writer, her work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Scientist, USA Today, the Washington Post, ISLANDS, Parenting, the Bark, American Baby, and the AARP Bulletin. She is a partner at the award-winning family travel website Travel Savvy Mom, and is also a frequent contributor to the Dana Foundation’s many science publications. Much of her work can be found on her website, including stories about out-of-body experiences, computer models of schizophrenia, and exotic travel with young children. She lives outside Houston and frequently overshares on Twitter as @kaytsukel.

Her first book, DIRTY MINDS: HOW OUR BRAINS INFLUENCE LOVE, SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS, is an irreverent and funny tome that takes on the age-old question, “What is love?” from a neurobiological perspective. Called “a fun and insightful read,” by Scientific American Mind and “a serious, informative and highly entertaining survey of the neurobiology of sexual attraction,” by the Washington Post, DIRTY MINDS offers a fresh and honest take on that crazy little thing called love.