From the Coolidge Effect to the Dopamine Threshold (Part 1)

Although loving someone is so difficult, why do so many people still so recklessly enjoy the wonderful feeling of cheating and having affairs?
Furthermore, there's the "wise man's time," a phrase we often use to describe "entering wise man mode" or "instantly becoming bored." What is "wise man"? It's when you see everything in detachment, calmly and peacefully looking at her, and your desire remains completely undisturbed.
I believe many men have experienced this: after you're done, the video in your hand suddenly loses its appeal; the goddess beside you suddenly doesn't want to be touched anymore; and the inner fire seems to have extinguished.
This kind of "wise man's time" is actually the first topic I want to discuss today—the "Coolidge effect."
This term comes from an old story: it's said that US President Calvin Coolidge and his wife visited a poultry farm. During the visit, Mrs. Coolidge asked the farmer how he could produce so many incubatable eggs with such a small number of roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his roosters performed their duties dozens of times a day.
"Please tell Mr. Coolidge (implying that he should also be more diligent)," the First Lady replied emphatically.
Upon hearing this, the President asked the farmer, "Does the rooster always serve the same hen?"
"No," the farmer replied, "there are many different hens."
"Please tell Mrs. Coolidge," the President replied in the same way.
The deeper humans delve into their own understanding, the more they discover that most mammals, even with a mate present, have no desire to engage in any further sexual activity for a period after mating; this phase is called the refractory period. Conversely, if a new and attractive mate appears at this time, this refractory period is greatly shortened, and sexual interest may even arise immediately. This effect exhibited by animals towards new mates is known in psychology as the "Coolidge effect." This illustrates that most mammals require excitement, novelty, and stimulation in "love" to continuously secrete a hormone called dopamine; if only with the same object, this hormone level drops rapidly. This effect, when applied to humans, can be explained in a very crude way as "behind every goddess you idolize, there's a man who's had enough of her."
Many men can't understand this. "God, she's a goddess! Are you just showing off?" they might think. But if you understand the "Coolidge effect," you'll understand.
The classic example is that many men, despite having a beautiful wife, still cheat on their wives, even if those women are far less attractive.
Zhang Yuqi is considered a great beauty, a goddess in the hearts of many men, with her 88-60-88 measurements, a top-tier sex symbol in the entertainment industry. Yet, her ex-husband, Mr. Wang, still frequented brothels! The
"Milk Tea Sister" is considered both beautiful and talented, yet Mr. Liu still cheated on his wife, even though the other woman wasn't particularly attractive.
This is actually due to our biological genes; humans can't give birth to seven or eight babies at a time like other mammals. As humans have become more intelligent and their brains have grown larger, childbirth has become a very dangerous process.
In an era of low birth rates and poor sanitation, our ancestors initially sought to maintain stability through monogamy to ensure survival and successful reproduction. However, they discovered that relying on a single partner to pass on their genes carried inherent risks. Therefore, driven by natural genetics, people conforming to the "Coolidge effect" began to want to leave more offspring to ensure their genes wouldn't disappear. Over tens of thousands of years of evolution, we gradually solved the problems of low birth rates and poor sanitation, but the genes adapted to the "Coolidge effect" were preserved.
I once read a sentence in the book *The Selfish Gene*: "Humans are actually carriers of genes, slaves to genes," and the sole purpose of genes is immortality. How can immortality be achieved? One way is to live longer, and the other is to continuously reproduce. Tragically, genes clearly chose the latter; because they don't care about individual life, they only care about how to achieve immortality more efficiently (it doesn't matter if you die, as long as your genes are passed on).
Therefore, you'll see many animals die immediately after mating or laying eggs. When I was a child, my family raised silkworms, and they really did lay eggs right after emerging from their cocoons, and then die very quickly afterward.
Humans are the same. Why do a woman's bodily functions decline after childbirth? Because from a genetic perspective, your mission is complete; it no longer needs you. On the contrary, it hopes you won't take up too many resources from future generations, so it will eliminate you. This is what is meant by "the most fleeting thing in life, youth fades like flowers falling from trees," or the common saying that women age quickly (of course, there are also a few women who are reborn through a "second reincarnation").

This explains why single men, especially married single men, make up the vast majority of the 69 Paradise. Behind almost every energetic married single man is a wife who has become sexually frigid due to various physical and mental reasons after childbirth. Because of this, many people who have frequented the place for years are disappointed to find that truly genuinely interested couples with a shared sexual interest are extremely rare. The so-called couples are often just husbands with a predatory mindset, the husbands seemingly there to have their way with other men's wives, their own wives appearing as mere props or simply a deceptive gimmick. This severe asymmetry in resource matching leads to an extremely low success rate, resulting in rampant "fantasy" that permeates the place, a mere formality…
The truth of life is indeed this cruel!
How can people ensure the continued transmission of their genes? The answer is obvious: more sex, more sex with different members of the opposite sex.
This often leaves us humans in a state of extreme dilemma. On the one hand, we crave a devoted and romantic, timeless love; on the other hand, we are controlled by the genes of ancient organisms, desiring to have sexual relations with more members of the opposite sex. Thus, we often find people around us who, despite having an exceptionally outstanding and beautiful partner, still seek out other members for sexual encounters.
Although we have evolved civilization in just tens of thousands of years, our genes are still those of millions of years ago. They are unaware that in such a short time, we have solved the problem of survival. We are no longer attacked by wild animals, we no longer go hungry, we have sufficient capacity to feed our children, and the infant mortality rate has greatly decreased…
Most importantly, we humans have emerged from the jungle through monogamy, giving birth to civilization, and we have developed a sense of morality. However, our genes are unaware of these changes, or rather, they haven't had time to evolve into more advanced genes. (Genetic evolution is generally measured in tens of thousands or millions of years.)
This is a very interesting concept.
How exactly do genes drive us to constantly engage in sexual activity with more members of the opposite sex? The answer is dopamine.
Dopamine controls our body's reward mechanism, which drives us to do various things, such as eating, having sex, taking risks, etc. Basically, dopamine is behind almost every behavior; the "Coolidge effect" is also due to dopamine.
Novelty is one of the main reasons for triggering dopamine secretion. When we encounter a new person of the opposite sex, the brain secretes dopamine, prompting us to have sex with them. After orgasm, dopamine secretion is inhibited, prompting us to seek new people of the opposite sex, hence the concepts of the honeymoon period and the plateau period.
When two people first get together, the novelty makes them passionate, like dry tinder; but this doesn't last long, the novelty quickly fades, replaced by a long plateau period; hence the saying "seven-year itch"—marriages may become boring and monotonous after seven years due to the routine and ordinariness of married life, and once this period of burnout is reached, a crisis test is inevitable.
A saying has gradually circulated online: "To love against one's own nature is the most romantic thing in the world." But I want to say: Please, never use the "Coolidge effect" as an excuse for infidelity.
Psychological research has found that humans not only have dopamine at work, but also secrete oxytocin, a hormone that gives people a very comfortable sense of belonging and security; moreover, the more familiar and intimate the relationship between two people, the higher the level of oxytocin produced.
This is like passion versus love; a sense of secure belonging doesn't necessarily lose to novelty and excitement; different physiological bases naturally lead to different psychological reactions.
Getting back to the point, it's undeniable that dopamine is like the body's reward mechanism. When humans possess this reward mechanism, we strive to pursue our goals and dare to take risks; often, behind everything we expect, obtain, achieve, and satisfy, there is the shadow of dopamine; behind it lies endless things that bring you joy, but also endless traps that leave you empty.
Have you noticed? When you hear a new song you like, it feels like discovering a new world, and you want to listen to it on repeat. But after listening to it again and again, that feeling slowly fades, and it even makes you a little annoyed, until the next song comes along.
The saying "seven-year itch" exists because everything you wanted in the beginning has now become a habit, and you've become numb to it. When any new emotion is presented to you, the "Coolidge effect" produces dopamine, which constantly drives you to pursue and change. So we keep pursuing new people of the opposite sex. Inspired by this, I think we should give our partners more new experiences, such as role-playing, new venues, new expectations, and so on.
Eileen Chang once said, "If you marry a red rose, over time, the red becomes a smear of mosquito blood on the wall, while the white remains the bright moonlight before your bed; if you marry a white rose, the white becomes a grain of rice stuck to your clothes, while the red is a cinnabar mole on your heart."
What we cannot have always stirs our desires, because it is human nature: we quickly become accustomed to the same thing and gradually become numb to it; I distill this into a mental model called "habituation numbness." At the same time, we constantly pursue novelty and new stimulation; I distill this into another mental model called "pursuit of novelty." Becoming accustomed to the past and seeking novelty in the future is human nature.
For a repetitive activity, whether listening to music or making love, each time we repeat it, dopamine levels drop. To achieve the same feeling of pleasure the next time, we need a higher stimulus in the present moment so that the dopamine levels don't drop—commonly known as "satisfaction."

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From the Coolidge Effect to the Dopamine Threshold (Part 1)

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