 Love and romance are usually explained through the words of poets and musicians, but that hasn't stopped psychologists and neurobiologists from offering their own scientific and clinical takes on the subject of passion. So what is passion? Love can be passionate, but so can sexual desires. So how do we tell the difference? We're here to take a look at what the experts have to say about love and sex so you can decide if what you're feeling is really love or intense sexual chemistry. Sex and attachment. We express and feel love in a lot of ways. We have love languages and attachment styles that tie into our psychology and make us who we are. How we express our sexual desires is no different. They also relate to our attachment styles and can tell us a lot about how we really feel about our relationship expert Dr. Emily Impett conducted a study that explored the relationship between attachment and sexual expression. These attraction styles relate to sex specifically and may not be your overall attachment style. What she and her colleagues found was that an anxious attachment style to sex led people to want to please their partners. Sex for people with anxious attachment was about expressing love. In other words, it had a purpose beyond lust and didn't replace other aspects of love and romance in the relationship. People with avoidant attachment style were more likely to simply use sex to avoid conflicts. Their relationships heavily depended on sex to survive. In other words, their relationship was built on sexual chemistry and not love. If you feel like you and your partner are only ever having sex and not doing much else, that can be great. You may both have a high libido and suit each other in that way, but this can also say a lot about your or your partner's desires. What are your goals when you have sex? Are you and your partner caring about each other's needs? When you have sex, you take responsibility for someone else's safety, comfort, and pleasure. In another piece of research by Dr. Emily Impett and her colleagues published in Current Sexual Health Reports, they discuss what it implies when the needs of your partner are a priority. When we prioritize our partners, it cultivates desire. Our desire for them and their desire for us grows. It can come from genuine care and appreciation. You may want to provide the best experience possible because you know that you want to be with this person for a long time. Having great sex encourages that long-lasting bond. But once again, if it seems like the entire reason the relationship exists is for sex, that could be contradictory to this goal. Ask yourself if the goal of sex for both of you and your partner is to express love to please one another, or if the goal is something more temporary than one-sided. Just because the sex is good doesn't mean there is a real connection. You can have bad sex, but still be cared for and appreciated in a genuinely loving way. It all depends on what you actually want out of it. Is there literally romantic chemistry? Obviously, this isn't something you can check for yourself on a chemical level, but you can become aware of your own thoughts. How often do you find yourself, for example, mesmerized by the symmetry of their face, wanting to make them laugh, or genuinely wanting their opinion? Compare that to how often you feel a sexual urge around them. Are you able to be in their presence and not think about sex? It's easy to get these feelings confused as neurobiologist Samir Zeke writes in the Neurobiology of Love published in Feb's Letters. Release of dopamine puts one in a feel-good state, and dopamine seems to be intimately linked not only to the formation of relationships but also to sex, which consequently comes to be regarded as a rewarding and feel-good exercise. This is why it's important to identify your own desires. If you're honest with yourself, do you feel an urge to express romantic love with your partner without the end goal being sex? Do you want romance and love with this person for the sake of it, and when you do have sex, do you feel the same after sex? Maybe you think your goal really is a romantic connection and sex just happens to be a product of that. That's true for a lot of people, but if you're still questioning your or your partner's desires, ask yourself what it's like after sex. Do you still want their company, even if there won't be more sex? Is there still desire after sex? A desire for love and affection? Or do you feel like you want to be by yourself? If you find yourself switching off after sex, in other words, you don't really feel like talking or hanging out after sex, that could be the result of only having sexual chemistry and not real love, as Dr. Samirzaki continues. Sexual arousal and orgasms deactivate a region in the frontal cortex that overlaps the deactivated region observed in romantic love. For a brief period when aroused, sex does become the focus. But if you're in love, those romantic feelings should come back after sex. Sexual chemistry cannot and should not replace love permanently. Hold onto love if you have it. If you don't have love, but you do have sexual chemistry, make that known to your partner or friend with benefits. As long as it's safe and healthy and you both benefit from it, enjoy it while you can but don't be afraid to pursue real love when you do find it. If this video taught you something new or gave you some perspective, let us know in the comments and don't forget to leave a like. If you want to continue to learn more about psychology, subscribe to Psych2Go for more videos like this. Thanks so much for watching. Until next time!