While I was writing yesterday’s post on the brain’s response to pain I stumbled across another related article. It addresses the hoary old argument of pain tolerance in men versus women. It’s commonly said that women have a higher tolerance and this article claimed to have found a reason for that – estrogen.
One way estrogen helps women to cope with pain, he says, is by increasing the availability of endorphins — brain chemicals that help dampen the pain response.
When estrogen levels are high, there’s an increased number of areas in the brain where endorphins can “park.” The more “parking places” available, Zubieta says, the more endorphins there are on call, waiting to flood the body with “feel good” chemicals capable of overriding pain signals.
According to the article in yesterday’s post, brains all react to pain in a similar way. How individuals respond is down to social conditioning and secondary factors like the production of endorphins. And based on this article, women have a natural advantage on the endorphin front. When it comes to bragging rights, I’m not sure this really helps. It implies that it’s not down to simple mental toughness or fortitude. Women (in general) just have more natural opiates floating around their brain.
More pertinently, for the purposes of this blog, it makes more wonder if women tend to experience a more intense subspace. The rush associated with endorphins is a big part of subspace, and having more on tap would suggest a potential for a deeper experience. The fight or flight reaction is also part of getting into subspace, and that’s another thing men and women experience differently. Both sexes produce cortisol from the adrenal gland under stress, but women produce more oxytocin which counters the effect of cortisol and creates more relaxing and nurturing feelings. I know from personal experience that my subspace contains elements of all these things, from the rush of endorphins through the edginess of adrenaline to the calmness of oxytocin. But if men and women typically produce different proportions of these it would suggest the subspace they experience might typically be different as well.
Whatever the science of all it – and I’m most definitely not an expert – it does give me an excuse to feature some hot F/f artwork.
This artwork is by Shiniez and you can find a lot more on his Deviant Art pages.