The 400 asses
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Can we distinguish love and desire? In a book that combines intimate narrative with scientific investigation, neurobiologist Stéphanie Cacioppo summarizes the latest discoveries concerning our love stories… Or sex stories.
It is possible to desire someone without loving them. The opposite is also possible. Are the two phenomena dissociated? “Yes and no”, answers Stephanie Cacioppo. In The Power of Love (Flammarion, released on September 4), the neurobiologist provides an overview of the work carried out with her husband – John Cacioppo, founder of social neuroscience, who died of cancer in 2018. He was the man of her life. She dedicates this book to him, which addresses many questions, such as: what is desire? What is love? Obviously, the researcher being a brain specialist… Her answers are cortico-centered.
Stéphanie Cacioppo shares a statement: “I love you with all my heart” is a false expression. It should be said “I love you with all my brain”. Same thing for sex. “My beeep is on fire” should be rephrased: “My fifth lobe is in a state.” Or, to put it in other words: “It’s the vortex in my cortex.” Because that’s where things happen, she said. Not in the heart, nor even in the biiip (put here “pussy”, “tail”, “prostate”, or other), but in the cerebral hemispheres or, more precisely, in that part designated as the insula. The insula, or insular cortex, is an inverted pyramid-shaped structure hidden deep in the middle of the brain, at the intersection of the major lobes, hence its Latin name meaning “island”.
This brain area, for a long time
