The News of the Worldadvises women seeking long-term committed relationships to beware the perils of the oxytocin induced ‘sex haze’

There’s nothing wrong with sleeping with someone early on, but it can impair your judgment. When we get down and dirty, our bodies secrete the hormone oxytocin, which is nature’s way of making us bond with the guy lying next to us – even if, logically, you would rather gnaw your arm off at the elbow in the morning. Walking around in a sex haze is dangerous. Trying not to fall in love while sleeping with someone is like having that second drink when you have to drive. You may not go over the limit, but it’s risky. So stay sexually sober for a while, and listen to what’s going on in a man’s mind before venturing further south.

Victoria Costello, writing in the respected Psychology Today blog, gives similar warnings.  She speaks of the powerful and volatile effects of oxytocin love chemistry and how the only way for a woman to avoid succumbing to it is to delay having sex with a new partner :

Once two lovers find their way to bed, it’s oxytocin that makes their first orgasms peak physical and emotional experiences. Further down the road, it’s the very same oxytocin that helps turn down the heat from the initial attraction phase by shifting to the production of those bonding chemicals that characterize long term mature love.

Psychologist Linda Savage also warns of the dangers for women between oxytocin and sex.  She claims that it is oxytocin that creates a high for women after sex and that having sex just for this high can eventually deaden one’s desire for any sex at all.