Stress wrecks you
You scream at your kids.
You hate yourself after.
You lie awake at 3am, chest buzzing, thoughts running.
You drag through the day half alive.
You reach for carbs, chips, cigarettes, booze.
Anything to quiet your head for ten minutes.
It wrecks your sleep.
It wrecks your gut.
Your gut is tight while your belly swells.
It makes your skin break out and look ten years older.
It drags your mood into the ground.
Your patience rots.
Nothing is as it should be.
You nitpick on autopilot.
The people who love you stay clear.
The people you love get hurt by collateral damage.
This is not bad energy.
This is not bitchiness.
It’s hormones drowning you.
Cortisol. The primary stress hormone.
It spikes when you sense threat.
Except the attack never ends.
It keeps you at war long after the battle is gone.
It is not bad vibes. It is hormones.
Cortisol is the big one. Your adrenal glands release it when you feel threatened.
Discovered in the 1930s. Measured in blood since the 1950s.
In short bursts, it saves your life.
When it never shuts off, it breaks you down.
Stress chemicals are not abstract.
They loiter in your blood and steer your body.
They wreck your heart.
They push blood pressure up until vessels burst.
They scramble blood sugar control until you get diabetes.
They weaken your defences so every cold and flu hits harder.
They drag you down into depression (McEwen, 2007).
Doctors, healers, yoga teachers, therapists. Everybody works to do the same thing: lower cortisol and balance hormones.
Stress can be relieved.
The question is how fast, and how long does the relief last.
The hormones that rule the body
Cortisol is one of them.
It keeps the body on high alert.
For short bursts, it protects life.
When it stays high too long, it breaks the body down.
Oxytocin. The chemical that makes you feel happy (Heinrichs, 2009).
Your brain releases it when your nervous system feels safe.
When you can hear yourself think.
When everything that needed doing is done, and you get one clear moment of peace.
When nothing feels like it is about to hit.
You do not need to nitpick.
You do not need to scream.
Your stomach starts working again.
Your hands warm up.
Your shoulders drop.
You can laugh with your child.
You can look your husband in the eye and see the man you married.
That is oxytocin working.
Dopamine. The chemical that makes you act (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015).
You see a penny on the street.
You remember the rhyme, find a penny, pick it up.
You bend, pocket it, and smile.
That lift in your chest is dopamine signalling something good could happen.
Now you are humming "Pennies from Heaven".
It is clearing your in-tray because tomorrow you are on vacation.
It is your child asking: "Mommy, if I am really good, can I get an ice cream."
It is him buying you flowers and dinner because he might get laid.
That is dopamine at work.
The brain releases it when you act and turns it off when you stop believing action matters.
That is when you binge, scroll, snack, drink, and swipe.
Hollow hits to keep you occupied.
Short sparks that burn out.
Dopamine rises when effort meets outcome.
When you lead and make something happen.
That is dopamine working.
Prolactin. The chemical that brings calm (Krüger, 2002).
It rises after deep rest.
It surges after orgasm.
It is why he rolls off you and crashes.
It is not personal. It is chemistry.
It signals the body: enough, recover.
These are not moods.
They are measurable chemicals in the blood.
They shift how the body functions.
From alert to calm.
From strain to ease.
These four flip your body between fight and rest.
Others exist: adrenaline for shock, serotonin for steadiness.
But these four shift the body most.
This is not mysticism.
It is blood work.
It is biology.
It is chemistry.
These are not ideas. They are tests in blood.
They flip your body from war to peace.
What people do about stress now
Years of Landmark work showed me this.
The mind can see the pattern.
It can talk about fear.
It can make sense of it.
But the body keeps reacting.
You cannot think your way out of what the body keeps doing.
That is why I turned to work that starts in the body itself.
Massage
My go-to feel-good treat.
I want it firm.
That pressure through the skin activates sensors that trigger oxytocin and serotonin.
Cortisol in the blood drops by roughly a third after one session.
(Field, 2014)
Breathwork
Slow, steady breathing activates the long nerve* that runs from the brain through the chest into the gut.
This nerve links the heart, lungs, and digestion to the brain.
When breathing slows, the nerve signals the brain that oxygen is steady and the body is not in danger.
The part of the brain that watches for threat, the amygdala, backs off.
The adrenal glands slow production of cortisol.
(Zaccaro et al., 2018)
(*the vagus nerve)
Yoga
Downward dog not to invite play like my puppies at home.
To stretch.
To breathe.
To collect myself again.
Cortisol drops a little.
Oxytocin rises: no threat for now, it’s not the hot kind.
Dopamine climbs: keep going, it’ll be over soon.
I feel calm enough to stay until the end.
It’s chemistry, not enlightenment.
(Uvnäs-Moberg, 2015; Zaccaro et al., 2018)
Trauma work
There are many ways to do it.
Some use gentle shaking.
Some use slow movement.
Some make you roll your eyes.
Some focus on small physical sensations until the body recognises the danger has passed.
(Payne et al., 2015)
Ritual touch and tantric
He booked one for me once.
She massaged my body and breasts.
She rubbed my pussy and clitoris.
I didn’t come, but it was nice.
Oxytocin rose and prolactin followed.
My body rested.
(Levin, 2014)
I still prefer massage and reflexology.
I thanked him for the gift and said: “Don’t even ask to go for a tantric massage.”
Exercise
Repeated movement increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain.
That triggers dopamine and endorphins, which lift mood and reduce cortisol once the effort ends.
(Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015)
Personally, I prefer belly dance.
It arouses and connects me to me.
All of these shift the same chemistry: less cortisol, more oxytocin, dopamine, and prolactin.
None of them are instant.
All take time. Training. Repetition.
Slow relief. Hours. Weeks. Rituals.
Talk can clear the mind.
Only the body can reset itself.
Talk therapy helps thoughts, but stress stores in the body.
That’s why somatic methods exist, and why they are rising in use.
All target the same biology: less cortisol, more oxytocin, dopamine, prolactin.
There are faster ways to shift hormones
They have been here all along.
The biology is ancient mammal biology; confirmed by scientists since the 1930s, 50s, and 60s, and ever since.
Power
Power is not an idea. It is blood chemistry.
That is why people cling to power.
The body rewards it.
Hormones reward it.
You crave the chemistry because it feels good.
When you are in charge, cortisol falls. (Knight & Mehta, 2017)
When you command and see what you say happen, dopamine rises. (Zink et al., 2008)
When you control your environment and feel safe, oxytocin rises. (Zak et al., 2005)
Command.
Status.
Control.
For women in bonded relationships with men, raw embodied power is mostly on tap.
It is not new. It is not shameful.
What changes is the context.
The context is loaded.
Commanding an army like Alexander the Great: dopamine rush for sure.
Your baby placed from your womb onto your chest: oxytocin hit, no doubt.
You can recreate that intensity at home with a simple structure that gives your body the experience of power, safety, and joy; and your mate the experience of being fully seen, cherished, and useful:
You say when.
You say how.
You say where.
He comes.
You say when.
You say how.
You say where.
He spills.
His climax under your say floods your system with power.
When includes if.
How includes method.
Where includes place.
Together the experience of power in her is constant.
For him, the experience of being seen, cherished, and useful is continuous.
In men, it happens almost every time.
Arousal raises oxytocin and dopamine.
Friction on his cock has him spill.
His body releases prolactin and cortisol falls.
It is chemistry. (Exton et al., 2001; Brody & Krüger, 2006)
For women, orgasm can trigger the same chemistry, but rubbing and vibration are unreliable
when you are burned out.
When you are angry.
When you are lost in rage,
lost in doubt,
in loathing of him and of yourself. (Levin, 2014)
But
Command.
Status.
Control.
work all the time.
Mirror circuits in your brain fire when you watch him come at your command.
His climax under your say floods your system as if you come yourself.
You get the same glow.
Power becomes embodied.
Power in the body is not a story.
It is biology that can be measured:
dopamine with reward,
oxytocin with belonging,
cortisol falling when authority feels secure. (Sapolsky, 2005)
The loop closes.
His stress resets.
Your stress resets.
Not in hours. Not in weeks. In seconds.
Why his climax and not push-ups?
Why not command chores?
Having a say, being in command, affirms status.
But his arousal,
his fullness,
his orgasm are primal.
It's personal.
It's intimate.
It's his surrender to your rhythm.
When he trusts and obeys your command to stroke and come for you,
when he spills,
your nervous system registers it
as his devotion and alignment,
as your power and safety.
It lands where language can't.
It's nervous system proof.
It's not symbolic.
It is visceral.
It is somatic.
It is measurable in blood and tissue.
Cultural traces echo the hormonal loop
- “Make-up sex” after a fight pulls couples back together.
- “Break-up sex” seals the connection before parting.
- Erotic command, restraint, obedience is present in many cultures and mainstreaming (9½ Weeks, Story of O, Fifty Shades ...).
- In lyrics and music: "Love is the Drug" (1975, Bryan Ferry), “Chemical” (2023 Post Malone)
- And Just Like That (Season 1, Episode 2, “Little Black Dress”) Carrie tells Big, “Show me how you masturbate.”
Not for kink. Not to perform.
She wants to see him. No filter. No ritual.
The moment is raw, simple, and real.
It mirrors Placement. Arousal. Attention. Release.
All initiated by her. - Popular fiction often gets closer to truth than clinical language. In A Discovery of Witches, the witch’s full power doesn’t awaken in isolation. It completes only through her bond with the vampire. He becomes fully devoted, protective, and present when her power governs the connection. The hormonal bond between them matches what Placement describes. Her authority regulates the dynamic. His biology responds. The loop is not fantasy. It’s the structure.
- In Andor Season 2, Episode 3, Mon Mothma dances in the middle of her daughter’s wedding. The actress calls it “physical chaos.” She says Mon isn’t celebrating. She’s dancing to stop herself from screaming. The mask slips. The pressure becomes movement. That moment reflects regulation and rupture — the body doing what speech cannot.
People treat them as taboo or shameful.
But the chemistry is mapped: cortisol down, oxytocin up, dopamine reward.
Her commanding his climax is not a separate act.
It’s the same loop. Same chemistry.
Deliberate.
Reliable.
Repeatable.
This context needs no therapist, no temple, no training.
Massage needs skill. Breath-work needs guidance.
Commanding his release needs only consent and timing.
His climax, when, where and how she says.
Her witnessing.
This is the hormonal loop closing a circuit in chemistry for both.
This is not theory.
You can see it.
You can repeat it.
You can measure it: cortisol falls, oxytocin rises, prolactin peaks.
Placement is practice, not philosophy.
Naming the method
The chemical loop is older than words, older than shame, older than rules.
It is mammal biology: climax, command, chemistry, belonging.
What is new is giving it a name.
What is new is calling it out as a method beside massage, yoga, breathwork, tantra.
I named it Placement.
Sensible limits and research needs
Ethics. Placement only works with trust and consent.
No guarantee. Not every man comes the same. Not every woman feels power the same.
Measurement. No one has yet run trials that track hormones before and after Placement.
Clinical work on Placement is stalled not by biology but by culture.
Sex, power, and command carry taboo.
Shame blocks trials that would otherwise show what is obvious in practice.
That is why naming Placement as a method matters: it creates ground for practice and research, stripped of taboo.
It is nothing new. It predates language.
With language came meaning; with meaning came shame and embarrassment.
Strip away the words and the meaning, and you return to the language of nature, of biology, of mammal scent, touch, and bond.
For clinical and research context, see the accompanying white paper:
Placement: Toward Recognition as a Somatic Healing Modality →
References
Berridge, K. C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2015). Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646–664.
- Brody, S., & Krüger, T. H. C. (2006). The post-orgasmic prolactin increase following intercourse is greater than following masturbation. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 32(4), 299–305.
- Ditzen, B., et al. (2009). Intranasal oxytocin and stress reactivity: A review and meta-analysis. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34(9), 1185–1195.
- Exton, M. S., et al. (2001). Endocrine response to masturbation-induced orgasm in healthy men following a 3-week sexual abstinence. World Journal of Urology, 19(5), 377–382.
- Field, T. (2014). Massage therapy research review. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 20(4), 224–229.
- Heinrichs, M., von Dawans, B., & Domes, G. (2009). Oxytocin, stress, and social behavior. Biological Psychiatry, 65(9), 725–732.
- Knight, E. L., & Mehta, P. H. (2017). Hierarchy stability moderates cortisol responses to social rank threat. Hormones and Behavior, 92, 20–29.
- Krüger, T. H. C., et al. (2002). Neuroendocrine response to orgasm and ejaculation. Journal of Endocrinology, 177(1), 57–64.
- Levin, R. J. (2014). The pharmacology of the human female orgasm. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 121, 62–70.
- McEwen, B. S. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation: central role of the brain. Physiological Reviews, 87(3), 873–904.
- Payne, P., Levine, P. A., & Crane-Godreau, M. A. (2015). Somatic experiencing: Using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 93.
- Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why zebras don’t get ulcers (3rd ed.). Holt.
- Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science, 308(5722), 648–652.
- Uvnäs-Moberg, K., Handlin, L., & Petersson, M. (2015). Self-soothing behaviors with particular reference to oxytocin release induced by non-noxious sensory stimulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1529.
- Zak, P. J., Stanton, A. A., & Ahmadi, S. (2005). Oxytocin increases generosity in humans. PLoS ONE, 1(1), e41.
- Zaccaro, A., et al. (2018). How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 353.
- Zink, C. F., et al. (2008). Know your place: Neural processing of social hierarchy in humans. Neuron, 58(2), 273–283.
