The brain—as every psychobabble and (as you are seeing) thinking-skills aficionado is sure to remind you eventually—is arguably our major sex organ. So it should be no surprise that sex is never far removed from our thoughts. Which is amazing, since, as one scientist has noted, nobody is ever known to have died from a lack of it.

How far removed?

Well, that’s been a lively sex-on-the-brain issue lately. An online polling company (not to be confused with “a major scientific research institute”) has claimed that a typical male thinks about having sexual intercourse (not to be confused with a hug or a handshake) an average of 13 times a day, or about 5,000 times per year. A typical female? Only five times daily, or about 2,000 times per year. On average, how often do men actually have sex? About twice a week, this outfit reports.

One reason women don’t have more of it may be due to what often seems to be foremost on their mind when they do think about having sex. Condoms.

Men’s issue bloggers know to expect a deluge of comment any time they mention the “c” word. One frustrated respondent wrote, “Picture wrapping your vagina in a Walmart bag before sex, and you’ll have some idea of how condoms can feel at their worst.” One comment about condoms is sure to followed by another, not infrequently from a woman reader. The above male comment prompted this female comment, “I mean, couldn’t I at least wrap my you-know in a bag from, say… IKEA?” Another shared, “Oddly enough, the biggest condom whiners I’ve ever been with both had STDs that could’ve been prevented if they’d wrapped up their junk.”

How big an issue is it to get a condom on a male when the lovers aren’t in a long-term, committed relationship? This devilishly clever, potentially offensive (so be warned!) piece of French graffiti animation about AIDS prevention probably offers a solid clue.

All of which is to observe that the subject of sex and the brain is as controversial as ever. But that’s not to say that we aren’t beginning to clarify some important matters:

Good sex (and good jazz) requires the prefrontal cortex to take a powder.
Specifically, the left lateral orbitofrontal and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortexes. The former policies self-control over basic drives like sex. The latter can lead to a suspension of judgment and reflection. Diminish both their outputs, and you can apparently liberate the libido. Brain imaging studies show deactivation of the same areas of the brain in jazz musicians. Ergo, good sex is really a zonked-out brain improvisating! The “play” question then becomes do you screw or do you riff?

Don’t hug the lug unless you are serious, sister!
Why not? The Big O’s. Oxytocin and the ovaries. One expert has issued this caution to women: “The effects of oxytocin can be incredibly disarming to a woman. Female animals injected with the stuff seem to throw caution to the wind and cuddle up with the first available male. And that is why, when women ask me for advice about men, I warn them, ‘Don’t hug the guy unless you plan to trust him.’” The ovaries produce testosterone. One woman with “arousal dysfunction” joined a scientific trial where some participants wore a testosterone patch. She blamed the patch when she suddenly had a desire to throw herself into the arms of a cousin at a funeral. The problem? Her patch was a placebo. The testosterone was of her own making.*

The Mars versus Venus thing is a brain issue.
Bestselling author John Gray was on the right track: men and women are from different planets. Their brains, that is. And the list of male-female brain differences is growing ever longer. Researchers are astonished that this hasn’t been realized sooner. But then most test subjects—human or animal—have been male. For example, only now are we realizing that women get better pain relief from the opioid painkiller nalbuphine and men from morphine. “It’s scandalous,” one Canadian researcher says. “Women are the most common pain sufferers, and yet our model for basic pain research is the male rat.” Often, men don’t understand brain differences as they affect sex, either. Therapists still marvel at how quickly the male brain can begin to suspect that its female partner is having an affair if she’s just not in the mood. (After all, if she doesn’t want sex with him, it must be because she’s getting it somewhere else.)

Forget the G spot. Think B spot.
This just in!!! A new study of 1,800 women at King’s College, London, suggests that the legendary G spot (a supposedly bean-sized vaginal area said to be the female body’s prime erogenous zone) is a myth. But never mind. Dr. Daniel Amen is a clinical psychologist and brain-imaging junkie. He wants to show you some pitchers. (No, not dirty ones.) Pictures that suggest that the right temporal lobe—Amen’s B spot—is “the seat of orgasms.” (You can learn more in his book, Sex on the Brain: 12 Lessons To Enhance Your Love Life.) The B spot, the good doc says, is what can make love dangerous. He likes to talk about former astronaut Lisa Nowak. She donned adult diapers so she could drive hundreds of miles nonstop to confront a romantic rival. Amen thinks going into space may have affected her B spot!

The brain just can’t let the subject go.
And I’m not even going near the sex-on-the-brain problems of Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Mark Sanford, David Vitter or Elliot Spitzer. Instead, I’m going to talk about the compulsions of the Christian housewife who blogs at “Beyond the Pale.” On Dec. 16, she asked, “Is there sex in heaven?” Jesus never said never, she noted. Good thing, too. “[If] he’d flat-out said, ‘Well, kids, tough break, but no one will be gettin’ wichoo in heaven,’ all kinds of sex-crazed flaky goobers like me would say, ‘Seriously?…. Lemme get back to you on that salvation thing, Jesus…….’” On Jan. 13, she was back with “More sex in heaven.” Reassuring her readers that going to heaven doesn’t mean you are going to end up being a “little Hindu floaty thing.” Good thing, too. She said, “[If] MB wants to be a floaty thing in heaven, I am going to be royally pissed. I need the feel of his arms available for me forever.” MB is her husband.  (”My Beloved.”)

But I can’t be all serious all the time about the subject of Valentine’s Day and sex-on-the-brain. I have to tell you one joke.

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and his wife are visiting a poultry farm.

During the tour, Mrs. Coolidge inquires of the farmer how his farm has managed to produce so many fertile eggs with so few roosters. The farmer proudly explains that his roosters perform their duty dozens of times each day.

“Perhaps you could point that out to Mr. Coolidge,” pointedly replies the First Lady.

The President, overhearing the remark, asks the farmer, “Does each rooster service the same hen each time?”

“No,” replies the farmer, “there are many hens for each rooster.”

“Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs. Coolidge,” replies the President.

I don’t know whether President and Mrs. Coolidge ever actually visited a poultry farm or had such a conversation with its owner. But the Coolidge Effect—named after the joke—is real. Human males who ejaculate ususally can’t have sex with the same female without a rest. But if a different female enters the picture (and the room) right away … well, hello, Mr. President! More physical and emotional complications in the ever-winding road that has emerged to keep our species around.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

_________
*Actually, as one neuropsychologist has explained, the sex-on-the-female-brain thing is a bit more complicated. Let’s say a woman spots someone interesting. The picture travels the lateral geniculate nucleus to her visual cortex, which evaluates the “mate potential.” If it’s a go, the news is sent to the signal-boosting amygdala, which passes the spark to the hormone-controlling hypothalamus. The word next goes to the ovaries, for a release of testosterone. That’s when the left lateral orbitofrontal and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex get involved, shutting down inhibitions, judgment and reflection. Or something like that. At least when it’s a male being eyed by the female.

For example, I don’t trust automobile dealers. Not a single one of the lot, anywhere on Earth—not a whit. There is nothing in my experience or observation that indicates they deserve to be trusted. The car lots and auto showrooms of the world are marinated in greed, untruths and shady gamesmanship.

For similar reasons, I do not trust big-time politicians. Not a single one, anywhere on Earth. Now, there are some whom I admire more than others. But I don’t fully trust any of them, and you shouldn’t either. Because sooner or later, every prominent politician’s integrity goes on the auction block. And nearly all will claim righteousness or feign piety or swear ignorance or innocence when they sell out, and very few ever get indicted or penalized.

Admire Their Courage, But Be Cautious of Their Power
I do not trust cops. Not a single one, anywhere on Earth. I often admire their courage. And I find their job so fascinating that one of my favorite TV shows is Fox’s “Cops,” on Saturday night. But when you are in the clutches of a policeperson, for a brief but parlous time, you are at their total mercy. For that instant, they can be judge, jury and executioner. You can die, or be beaten, or be framed for a crime on the mere whim of the person behind the badge, and many victims around the world are, every day.

I do not trust ministers, priests, imams or rabbis. Probably most clergy people I’ve met are “good people,” and I’ve liked some of the ones I’ve known best a great deal. They often act sacrificially in admirable ways. They can provide wise, helpful counsel for many at difficult moments. But none I’ve ever met would I trust fully with my deepest questions about what it all means. Those who profess to respect my questioning show suspicions of being in camouflage; those who oppose it can be downright scary.

And now I must confess to a growing distrust of what I’ve come to call the New TrustMe Gurus of the business marketplace. There has been an explosion of them. They are promoting and peddling everything from nasal sprays to social networks and networking to books that tout things like the Joseph D. Pistone technique for winning friends and influencing people.

You may remember Pistone. He was the FBI agent who spent six years infiltrating the Bonanno crime family. In their new best-selling book, Trust Agents, digital marketing consultants Chris Brogan and Julien Smith admire how Pistone, using the alias of Donnie Brasco, won the Mafia’s trust by simply hanging around bars until the goons came to accept him as part of the scene. The point Trust Agents’ authors wish to make: you need to build up trust with your target markets before you make your move, not as you are making it.

Go Straight to the Heart of the Matter: the Pituitary Gland
Now, I’m willing to concede that many of the techniques in Trust Agents have value and are ethically light years ahead of the methods being advocated by some of the promoters of oxytocin, the “love hormone.”

Researchers from Zurich to Atlanta to Houston to Los Angeles are captivated these days by what happens when they squirt a few atomized drops of oxytocin into people’s (and rodents’) noses.

Oxytocin (not to be confused with oxycontin, a morphine-like drug associated with the death of DJ AM) is the short polypeptide hormone released by the pituitary gland. Within a few minutes of inhaling the drug in sufficient quantity, trust becomes a five-letter word for everything from let’s make a date (or set one for nuptials) to where did you want me to sign to let’s spray the whole Middle East with this stuff. The New-Age-in-a-spray-bottle effect seems to last for two to four hours.

Liquid Trust® was reputedly the first oxytocin spray on the market. (There is now also a Liquid Trust Enhanced.) Sellers of LT have this advice for their business customers: “Use Liquid Trust in creative ways around your workplace. Before important presentations or meetings, spray some Liquid Trust around your desk or conference room [sic] see the magic happen. You could even spray some on memos or reports that you have to hand to your manager! Although they cannot smell it, Liquid Trust is there and working to increase trust in you.” [Go here for more tips, like spraying LT on thank you cards to your clients.]

The Trust Equation Is Still the Same: Stand and Deliver
However, it is neither the outpouring of glib “Chicken Soup for the Marketer” books nor the wretched excesses of the new Mary Kays of the oxytocin receptor industry that has triggered my disgruntlement for the new TrustMe movement in business. I’m simply disappointed that trust has been monetized and commodified and its pursuit irrationally “scaled” to the point where it is sure to be devalued when the trust bubble implodes.

The newly evangelical TrustMe movement in business simply isn’t producing. I know this because people who keep making me promises as part of the new TrustMe clique simply aren’t delivering, not any more than before. Tantalizing hints of imminent breakthrough developments tipple off the lips and fingertips as easily as ever—never to be heard of again, just as before. Expressions and pledges of networking solidarity arrive en masse, only to wither like last week’s flower bouquet. It’s the same old, same old, not the New Millennium.

What I think has happened is this: the TrustMe/social networking edifice is built on sands underlain by the same old human deep-water rip tides and whirlpools, and nobody has been doing any real core-sampling. While the neurocortex poses, the limbic circle and the reptilian brain continue to dispose.

Trust is still what our deepest instincts have always said it is: a very small circle. Earning trust still requires what it has always required: showing over time that you can deliver consistently on honest promises. You can have a thousand people in your LinkedIn network and three thousand Twitter followers and Facebook friends out the kazoo, and nothing fundamental about the trust equation changes. Commit + follow-through, again and again = trust.

The Danger is Seeing Trust as a Numbers Game
Meanwhile, the demands of all that networking have made it nearly impossible for more and more of us to carry out the basics that can, over time, lead to the kind of trust that the new TrustMe business and social networking movement has been hoping to benefit from.

The experts call this “strategic trust.” This develops slowly, usually requiring years. It is very fragile, and can disappear in a finger’s snap. It happens, if it happens, because people stay around. They keep their promises. They radiate dependability and integrity in their actions. They reveal more and more of themselves and eventually, over time, become a “sum that is greater than the parts” in the experience and expectations of people for whom they count and on whom they count.

Few things are more fragile and require more tending than strategic trust. I’m not seeing very much of that emerging from the new TrustMe movement, and I don’t expect that it will. And that’s going to be very disappointing to a lot of folks.

They bought into the idea that trust-building can be a numbers game. And that being trusted is something that can be demonstrated and benefited from by showing up more and more often along the long tail of the Internet. By the time they figure out the truth, the authors of things like Trust Agents and the inventors of Liquid Trust will be long gone. And with them will go the only money anyone will make out of all this talk about how important it is to send word at the speed of light to an ever-growing myriad of message addicts (or message ignorers) of just how trustworthy you are.

Trust Values Are Eroding, Across the Board and the Seas
While Nero is fiddling, Rome shows signs of burning down. In its summer report on the top 10 trends for 2010, McKinsey, the big consulting company, says trust in business is declining. McKinsey points out that falling trust levels increase transaction costs, lower brand values and bring greater difficulties attracting customers and retaining talent.

Dr. Eric Uslander, the trust-studying scholar at the University of Maryland-College Park, says generalized levels of trust have been declining in the United States for more than 30 years. The decline is substantial. While not the same as “strategic trust,” generalized trust is a barometer of sorts for the overall economic health of a society and its business environment. In poorer countries, both strategic and generalized levels of trust are abominable, and getting no better. This is, of course, one of the chief reasons that they are poor.

So trust is as important as ever. Too important, I think, to be left to the TrustMe Movement. This is my advice: don’t put a lot of trust, time or money in following the TrustMe hype. The last thing you need to do is let the TrustMe folks cause you to devote so much time to trying to network with people you hope you can trust and who will end up trusting you that you have no time to prove yourself trustworthy. Call that a fatal attraction to trying to do trust on the cheap.