Sniff Test

After my experience of the effects of pheromones when I first kissed Ruf, it was interesting to see research on the subject on The Sex Researchers.

Dr Elisabeth Oberzaucher of the University of Vienna is an expert who specialises in non-verbal communication and is convinced that our sense of smell influences our sexual behaviour in ways that we are completely unaware of.

She claims the most complex sexual organ is the nose and its instinctive analysis of smells is used in the selection of a potential partner. Odours are part of human communicative behaviour and, whilst you cannot do anything about your personal physical smell, odour preference is important to your choice of partner. A crucial unconscious weapon to attract the right partners and repel the wrong ones.

Describing her research, she refers to a kind of chemical warfare going on between the sexes. Both male and female sexes have developed an arsenal of subtle and complex ‘smell’ tricks designed to lure the best mate and ensure reproductive success.

Investigating the theory that someone who looks attractive also smells nice, she took four male volunteers of different ages and builds and gave them all a nice white tee shirt. She then got them to work up a sweat with a series of runs and exercise routines which highlighted their different levels of coordination. The shirts were then placed into separate jars and four women were asked to rate the smells for pleasantness.

The women were split 50:50 about who smelt the best but three out of four agreed on the worst smell – the tshirt belonging to the man who was youngest and, in the view of the researchers, the best looking.

The study was then reversed with the women doing the running and the guys sniffing their shirts.

The results showed that attractive women did smell better but attractive men stank. The odour is produced by a group of hormones, including testosterone and androstenone. Men who were perceived to be more visually attractive tended to produce more of these pungent hormones.

Androstenone is regarded as really unattractive by women… unless they are ovulating, when they find it less disgusting. It’s a deliberate evolutionary ruse by attractive men to ensure that they attract women who are fertile. This negative odour of attractive men is linked to reproductive success so men save time – they don’t have sexual intercourse with women who are not in the fertile phase of their cycle because they are repelled by the odour, whilst those who are ovulating will be able to bear the smell.

Women also have a sex trick which makes men want to have sex with them whether they are pretty or not. Instead of sweat, they use the smell of vaginal secretions called copulins to secure a mate. Copulins are a subtle blend of organic acids, the smell varies with the different stages of her cycle.

Dr Oberzaucher ran an experiment where men wore masks which allowed them to inhale a very low concentration of copulins from a woman’s vagina when she was in her fertile stage whilst they were shown images of a variety of women of different levels of attractiveness.

The copulins made the men less fussy. Many of the girls were perceived as more attractive than they might otherwise have been because the influence of the copulins made the men produce more testosterone which manipulates their perception and allows the less attractive woman to grab a man when she’s fertile.

I guess alcohol also helps because there are several men of my acquaintance who have ended a party making out with someone that they would normally have called a dog in the cold light of day.

However, there is a caveat – this manipulation by hormone means that using a birth control pill can lead to a girl having a boyfriend who is less than appropriate because synthetic hormones mean that it messes up her whole system, causing her to behave differently and affecting her preferences when it comes to her choice of man.

Think back, ladies from unsuccessful marriages… were you on the Pill when you chose your ‘mate’?

I was!