Halloween is almost here, so let's consider sex and fear. Isn't that what it's all about? Forget the candy, the costumes. It's the fear that captivates your soul. Fear is one of those feelings that makes you feel really alive, your heart beating like a time bomb, your temperature rising, your senses on red alert. Fear can be erotic, in part because whatever we fear, it all springs from fear of the unknown. And the unknown, uncharted territory is one of life's great aphrodisiacs. At the same time, fear has a way of freezing you up. And good sex tends to require that you loosen up.

Fear and sex have had a complex, intertwined evolutionary history, ever since our amphibious ancestors first mated ecstatically in the midst of fearsome predators, up to our modern desire to expose ourselves in risky places, from the Internet to the Oval Office. Hot sex and a touch of fear--risk, danger, taboo--seem to go together. Why is this?  More scarey sex