u/psychologyofsex

From the article:

To see how the brain operates following repetitive periods of oxygen deprivation, scientists turned to advanced imaging technology. A study published in the Journal of Neurotrauma utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of forty-one young women. Twenty of the participants reported a recent history of frequent sexual strangulation, while twenty-one participants had never experienced the practice.

The methodology focused on scanning the participants while they rested quietly. This approach allowed the researchers to measure the spontaneous fluctuations of blood flow in the brain without the distraction of a specific task. The scientists analyzed the density of these neurological signals and evaluated how well neighboring brain regions synchronized their activity.

The results indicated a distinct imbalance between the two sides of the brain among those who frequently experienced neck compression. The researchers observed lower neurological activity and reduced synchronization in the left hemisphere of the brain. At the same time, they observed unusually high activity and synchronization in the right hemisphere.

This type of inter-hemispheric imbalance is frequently documented in medical literature among patients suffering from mood disorders or depressive symptoms. The brain scans also revealed hyperactivity originating from a region known as the angular gyrus. This specific brain region acts as a major hub for processing sensory information, regulating emotions, and maintaining conscious awareness.

If you grew up in a context where love was inconsistent, emotionally distant, or unpredictable, your nervous system may have learned to associate “intensity” with “connection.” When love did appear, there was often a sense that it wouldn't last, which can lead to trying to "make the most of it." Over time, that urgency can register as intensity. So connection and intensity were braided together along with anxiety. 

Link to full scientific report: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-02917-2

In this study, people who opened up were more satisfied with their relationships at the outset than people who remained monogamous, suggesting that people who open up weren't doing so because they were struggling. Given that they were highly satisfied with their relationships going into it, there wasn't much room for relationship satisfaction to further increase, which may be why there was no discernible effect.

From the paper:

Women more often than men experience no orgasm at all during a session of heterosexual partner sex—an orgasm gap of 19.2% was found (20.4% of women versus 1.2% of men), indicating that more women than men do not experience orgasm during heterosexual partner sex.

Women experience orgasm more than once more often than men—a reversed orgasm gap of 13.0% was found (24.2% of women versus 11.2% of men), indicating that women do experience orgasm more often than men more than once during a session of heterosexual partner sex.

This “heterosexual orgasm gap” favoring men is numerically compensated by a “reversed orgasm gap” favoring women, as it was also found that a higher percentage of women than men do experience orgasm twice or more during one partner sex session. Women who do not experience orgasm showed lower sexual satisfaction and self-esteem, lower frequency of partner sex, and orgasm (solo plus partnered), and higher levels of sexual distress, inhibition, and psychological symptoms. The use of sex toys during partner sex was lower for them as well. This result, together with the result that the use of sex toys predicted the number of orgasms experienced during partner sex for women, suggests that experimentation with sex toys or other techniques diverging from PIV sex might be considered to improve orgasmic and sexual pleasure for women.

In situations involving subtle abuse, participants were much more likely to recognize the emotional and physical dangers when the victim was a woman. When a man was the victim of subtle abuse, participants tended to view the behavior as more commonplace and less worthy of police intervention.

The study also found that LGBTQ+ participants expressed lower levels of concern about coercive control compared to heterosexual respondents. LGBTQ+ participants were more likely to view controlling behaviors as commonplace and less likely to view them as criminal acts.