When George W. Bush made the astonishing appointment of Eric Keroack as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the federal Department of Health and Human Services, I started doing some research.

Apparently he is a real doctor and a fave of the Christian right because he can ‘scientifically’ explain the cause of promiscuity (skdadl had some fun with this theory at pogge).

Here’s the bit skdadl also quotes:

In women, a more positive relationship with her mate is associated with higher levels of oxytocin. This suggests that a woman’s previous sexual relationships can alter the release of the biochemical “super-glue.” If a woman’s sexual history is sufficiently adverse, she will lose her ability to bond in the current relationship. An interesting finding in oxytocin research is the likelihood that oxytocin inhibits the development of tolerance in the brain’s opiate receptors. The excitement of sex is partly credited to endorphins exciting opiate receptors. As a human relationship matures, fewer endorphins are released. If sexual relationships are well bonded, though, the oxytocin response maintains the excitement despite how few endorphins are released. This keeps excitement present between oxytocin-bonded couples. In the same way, though, these studies reveal the rationale behind an inability of some to stay bonded in seemingly good relationships. People who have misused sex to become bonded with multiple persons will diminish their oxytocin bonding within their current relationship. In the absence of oxytocin, the person will find less or no excitement. The person will then feel the need to move on to what looks more exciting.

Sometimes Keroack calls oxytocin ‘God’s super-glue’; note that here it is ‘biochemical super-glue’.

Here’s how the Christian right uses this info at a site called The Marriage Bed (Bold is mine.)

There’s more. Oxytocin plays a significant role in our sexuality too. Higher levels of oxytocin result in greater sexual receptivity, and because oxytocin increases testosterone production (which is responsible for sex drive in both men and women) sex drive can also increase. Moreover, this hormone does not just create a sexual desire in women, coupled with estrogen it creates a desire to be penetrated (that is, it makes her want intercourse).

So I wondered about this super-glue. Oxytocin is a ‘mammalian hormone’. In females, it has important roles in childbirth and lactation. It also acts as neurotransmitter in the brain and ‘is involved in social recognition and bonding, and might be involved in the formation of trust between people.’

(wikipedia also notes this at the top of the entry: ‘Oxytocin should not be confused with oxycodone hydrochloride whose trade name is OxyContin.’)

There is synthetic oxytocin used as a medicine to induce labour and in animals to facilitate birth and increase milk production.

Quack Keroack makes the research on oxytocin sound recent, but it’s not. I found studies from 1999 onward.
This one, from The Economist is dated June 2005.

To probe oxytocin’s role in promoting trust between people, the
researchers invented a game. This game involved an “investor” and an anonymous “trustee” in whom money, in the form of “monetary units” worth 40 Swiss centimes (32 cents) was invested. Investor and trustee never met, and were allowed to interact only once. In addition to being paid for their time, participants were able to cash their monetary units in at the end of the game, in order to get the proper economic juices flowing. Each investor received 12 units. He could choose to keep all of them, or to give four, eight or all 12 of them to the trustee—which would result in their value being tripled. The trustee then chose whether to reward or abuse the investor’s trust by sharing a portion of the proceeds with him.
All the investors and all the trustees had something sprayed up their noses before the experiment started. In some cases, though, there was no oxytocin in this spray. Of the investors who were sprayed with oxytocin, 45% invested the maximum of 12 units, while only 21% of those who received the control spray did so. On average, the oxytocin-sprayed group transferred 17% more money to their trustees than the control group.

So, there is something to the quack’s claims.

Next, I figured somebody must be making real money on this stuff and sure enough, I found Liquid Trust. It is touted specifically to salespeople, singles, and managers and employees. A two-month supply, presumably used daily, costs $49.95 US.

The study from 1999 I found at a site called The Hedonistic Imperative.

Here is its manifesto:

This manifesto outlines a strategy to eradicate suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is ambitious, implausible, but technically feasible. It is defended here on ethical utilitarian grounds. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology allow Homo sapiens to discard the legacy-wetware of our evolutionary past. Our post-human successors will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world.

Apparently, oxytocin is going to play an important role in ‘paradise-engineering’.

Other neurohormones, transcription factors, opioids, tyrosine-hydroxylase activators, oxytocin-releasers, receptor density-regulators, intra-cellular second- and third-messengers, phosphorylated proteins, and genetic repressors and promoters which are implicated in the modulation of mood, emotional tone and psychophysical pain will be reconfigured too as the biological program unfolds. The details are messy and complicated.

Messy and complicated, eh?

So, perhaps there’s a silver lining here. The appointment of Quack Keroack may result in increased funding and research into oxytocin, the hormone of hedonism. And that’s a good thing for us hedonistic, atheist commies.