In Japan, it is evidently common knowledge that guys get horny when tired. Here in the west, on the other hand, I have never heard it from anyone except my own journal. And I doubt I have had a significant impact on Japanese culture yet…
Feminists may be right when they say that the brain is the body’s largest sex organ, but for us males it is rather the other way around. Â There seems to be a primordial rivalry between our two heads, so to speak: When one falls asleep, the other wakes up. Â Healthy men have erections during 80% or more of their REM sleep, even when the dreams are not explicitly sexual in nature. Basically, unless the dreams are scary, they will be accompanied by sexual arousal.
It should not really surprise anyone, then, that lack of such sleep is followed by an upswing in sexual temptations. Â Actually, this is not entirely unique for sexuality: Â People are also known to gain weight if they don’t get enough sleep.
In my own life, I notice my running low on sleep by getting dry eyes, cold sores, and the women in the city becoming sexier all at the same time. Well, many of them at least. Â Also, writing at such a time is not necessarily a good idea. Â I realize that the last chapter of my current novel may need a serious rewrite or there will be a PG warning.
So yeah, the brain really may be our largest sex organ, but it can be put to better use than that, in my opinion.
Luckily I am not in a life situation where I can actually “make serious mistakes with regards to the opposite sex” to quote our favorite Venusian. Watching myself with detached curiosity, I may even learn something about human nature again. Well, about a rather unusual human’s nature perhaps.
Or I could go get some sleep, I guess.