We have all used this one, haven’t we? Anyone that has had a few beers and copped off with someone they maybe would not find attractive normally has used the beer goggles excuse once or twice, but one scientist has now proven that the beer goggles myth is just that – a myth.
A senior researcher from Durham University has explained how the opposite sex can transform from unattractive to attractive over the course of a few beers. Dr. Amanda Ellison from the university discovered that the area of the brain that wants us to mate keeps functioning, basically until we pass out. This concludes that we can still assess how visually appealing the opposite sex is.
Dr. Ellison, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at Durham commented: “Alcohol switches off the rational and decision making areas of the brain while leaving the areas to do with sexual desire relatively intact, and so this explains beer goggles. We still see others basically as they are. There is no imagined physical transformation – just more desire.”
The decision making area of the brain is essentially shut down first by alcohol; this is the area that normally functions when we are sober and determines, logically, whether we are attracted to the person or not.
“It is rather a fluke of nature that alcohol closes down the section of the mind that stops us acting on impulse long before it deadens the ‘reptilian’ part responsible for our sexual urges,” commented Dr. Ellison.
The lecturer went on to confirm that having eaten even a bag of peanuts could help, the salt aiding the retention of water. Once the brain began to dehydrate, logical thinking returned.
So no more claiming it was the beer that made you do it. Oh, you knew what you were doing…
