Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss by John Tierney: A Singletude Response

On January 12, Dr. Larry J. Young of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center caught up with New York Times reporter John Tierney to discuss a world without love.

Well, all right, not a world devoid of any form of affection. As singles everywhere know, romantic love is not the holy grail of human emotions. There are plenty of other opportunities to give and receive love in familial and filial bonds. Nevertheless, the prospect of manipulating romantic attachment has captured our collective imagination since we were drawing on cave walls, inspiring everything from Wiccan love potions to self-help books. Now, Young believes we may be on the verge of some scientifically verifiable spell casting.

In Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss, Young reports that oxytocin, a hormone that contributes to bonding during sex, has been used in a nasal spray to increase feelings of trust and empathy and theorizes that it may have future applications in troubled romantic relationships: "If you’re in a marriage and want to maintain that relationship, you might take a little booster shot yourself every now and then," he says.

Now try explaining that collection of syringes to your spouse: "I'm sorry, honey, I'm addicted to love."

However, Tierney is more eager to see the new technology used to inhibit the twitterpated and points to research by Dr. Helen Fisher and Dr. J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., which suggests that antidepressants can suppress the neurochemical response to the body's attempts to pair us off. In addition, reduced levels of oxytocin (in prairie voles, at least) and vasopressin (in prairie voles and human males!) have been shown to weaken the urge toward monogamy.

Hmmm. So, in other words, ladies, if he doesn't call, maybe he's just not that into vasopressin?

Tierney pushes it a step further, proposing a "love vaccine" that would restore the likes of Britney Spears and Larry King to their right minds. (Although, in the case of the former, there would, of course, have to be a mind to restore first.) As Tierney puts it, "Spouses going through midlife crises would not be so quick to elope with their personal trainers; elderly widowers might consult their lawyers before marrying someone resembling Anna Nicole Smith." The days of report cards complaining that Little Johnny kisses the girls at recess would recede into mythology as love vaccines were administered with every infant's dose of Measles-Mumps-Rubella.

While the findings covered by the NY Times are interesting, how plausible would a love vaccine really be? Moreover, would we want one? Tierney notes that a love stimulant could provoke feelings of lust for inappropriate objects of affection but fails to acknowledge that a love vaccine could have a parallel effect, making it difficult to form emotionally healthy bonds with the people we do care about, not to mention the potential for these kinds of drugs to become the next generation of roofies!

On a more philosophical note, although singles may sometimes love to hate love, I'd be curious to find out how many would actually want to eradicate romance. In an era in which more adults than ever before are single, are we as a society ready for romantic love to go the way of bustles and elbow-length gloves? Are the majority of singles reaching the conclusion that life is better without it? Or, on the other hand, if we had the option to help love along a bit, perhaps some of those very singles who seem the happiest in their solitude would be the first lining up for samples. One way or the other, it would be fascinating to see what the possibility of engineered love, if you will, would reveal to us about ourselves.


Do you like the idea of a love potion or a love vaccine? Would you use either? If so, in what circumstances? Do you have any ethical concerns about using such drugs? Do you think singles today are getting tired of romantic love, or do you think it's something most singles still want?


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