Nautilus

How Sex Is Like Your Thermostat

The systematic study of sexual feedback is woefully thin. This blind spot is unwarranted considering how common sexual problems are, and those problems can often be traced back to flawed feedback loops.Photograph by starmanseries / Flickr

Have you ever stopped to consider how sex is like a thermostat? Sex may not sit in a beige box on your wall (or it might, no judging) but there are some striking similarities. The common ingredient is feedback.

Both sex and your thermostat depend on feedback loops. They work like this: 1) An action produces a result. 2) Information about the result then influences the subsequent action. 3) Repeat. Your thermostat, for example, measures the air temperature, then turns on or cuts off when it crosses the set point. Action of the heater or air conditioner

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus3 min read
Making Light of Gravity
1 Gravity is fun! The word gravity, derived by Newton from the Latin gravitas, conveys both weight and deadly seriousness. But gravity can be the opposite of that. As I researched my book during the sleep-deprived days of the pandemic, flashbacks to
Nautilus5 min read
The Bad Trip Detective
Jules Evans was 17 years old when he had his first unpleasant run-in with psychedelic drugs. Caught up in the heady rave culture that gripped ’90s London, he took some acid at a club one night and followed a herd of unknown faces to an afterparty. Th
Nautilus10 min read
The Ocean Apocalypse Is Upon Us, Maybe
From our small, terrestrial vantage points, we sometimes struggle to imagine the ocean’s impact on our lives. We often think of the ocean as a flat expanse of blue, with currents as orderly, if sinuous, lines. In reality, it is vaster and more chaoti

Related Books & Audiobooks