One solu­tion to the “wide­spread dishar­mony in inti­mate rela­tion­ships” is to “change the way you make love”, pro­motes Mar­nia Robin­son, sug­gest­ing that through ‘con­ven­tional sex’ we keep our dopamine and pro­lactin lev­els “uncom­fort­ably high or uncom­fort­ably low”. Instead, to ensure a sta­ble rela­tion­ship (through a more sta­ble neu­ro­chem­istry), we should prac­tice ‘con­ven­tional orgasm’-free sex with our part­ners.

The point is that con­ven­tional sex can play havoc with your neu­ro­chem­istry. Your dopamine lev­els will be uncom­fort­ably high or uncom­fort­ably low.

This is why the ancient Taoists and other sages through­out his­tory have rec­om­mended mak­ing love with­out con­ven­tional orgasm. By avoid­ing the extreme highs that over-stimulate the nerve cells in the prim­i­tive brain, you also avoid the tem­po­rary lows that accom­pany recov­ery. You keep your dopamine lev­els within ideal ranges. This pro­duces a sense of well­be­ing, which pro­motes har­mony in your relationship.

Con­clud­ing with:

Both low dopamine and high pro­lactin make your world look bleak—and increase your crav­ing for bet­ter sex or new part­ners who would raise your dopamine lev­els (and set you on another addic­tive cycle of highs and lows). Together these neu­ro­chem­i­cals prob­a­bly account for the “end of the hon­ey­moon,” which nearly all cou­ples expe­ri­ence within a year of mar­riage. To heal the under­ly­ing prob­lem, you may just have to change the way you make love.

Robin­son has writ­ten a more acces­si­ble ver­sion of this essay for The Huff­in­g­ton Post, say­ing

As I learn more about the effects of sex on the brain, I real­ize it makes sense to take into account how recently, or intensely, we have cli­maxed. It appears that fre­quent, or espe­cially intense, orgasm can cre­ate tol­er­ance (a need for increas­ing stim­u­la­tion to achieve future orgasms). It can also lead to sati­ety and habit­u­a­tion, which may show up as sub­con­scious irri­ta­tion, out of sync libidos, per­for­mance demands and inse­cu­ri­ties. And it may pro­mote the use of risky sex­ual enhance­ment mea­sures as lovers try to over­come their built-in bio­log­i­cal brakes with force. […] Per­haps we are pres­sur­ing our­selves to reach unre­al­is­tic benchmarks.

Adden­dum: Being one who is par­tic­u­larly fond of charts and lists, I rather liked the author’s Feel­ings & Behav­iours Asso­ci­ated with Var­i­ous Dopamine/Prolactin Lev­els chart.
Robinson’s essay, within the open­ing few para­graphs, men­tions one of my all-time favourite and most dis­cussed exper­i­ments con­ducted on rats.
I wouldn’t mind get­ting Dr. Petra Boyn­ton’s opin­ion on all of this.