Why Drinking Makes You Horny, According to Science

They don’t say “tequila makes your clothes fall off” for nothing.

Imagine this: it’s late at night, you’re 5 drinks in at the bar, and you are feeling it. You know what else you’re feeling? Horny. Sound familiar? 

There’s no denying that booze can make people hot and bothered. But if you’re wondering what happens in your drunk-ass body that makes you so frisky — the magic actually happens in your brain.

Time for a quick neuroscience lesson: Alcohol slows down thought processes and cognition by depressing the cerebral cortex, which is the command central for memory, attention, perception, thought, language, awareness, and all that good stuff. That’s why you take on the devil-may-care persona after a few drinks.

Now for the sex part. Sexual desire and arousal comes from a few parts of your brain, including the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, pituitary, and mainly the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).

The amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and pituitary — which work together to control your intrinsic sexual impulses — aren’t affected by alcohol. However, your OFC, which is all about decision making and mate preference, is depressed by alcohol, and with your complex thought processes zonked out like that, all your brain is good for is eating, breathing, and sex. Basically, you turn into a primal sex machine.

This is also what contributes to beer goggles. Think about it: your mate preference is gone, cognition lifeless, and sexual desires amplified, so naturally you’re going to find everyone around you hot as hell. 

What’s more is that alcohol also mimics certain neuromediators like acetylcholine, serotonin, GABA, and NMDA, directly binding to their receptors, making you feel relaxed, happy, and horny. Add everything together in a booze-fueled math equation, and it all makes sense.

So next time you throw back a couple shots and start to feel that familiar fire in your loins, you know exactly why. Cheers!