SEXUAL ATTRACTION: BODY ODOUR
Our body’s natural smells are an essential part of our attraction system, yet our culture has become obsessed with cleanliness and we seem to be intent on destroying or masking them. Certainly it makes sense and is pleasant to keep oneself clean but it is-not necessary to overdo the deodorant or the perfume, because our own personal odours can have very powerful sexual properties.
As well as our obvious body odours there are other more subtle ‘odours’ called pheromones. These are chemicals produced by the body of an animal which have an effect on the behaviour of its fellows, as a form of communication. They are ‘smells’ which are not consciously recognised by the brain but nevertheless affect the behaviour of others. Pheromones have been widely described in various animal species and research has confirmed, not surprisingly, that humans have them too. A substance called androstenone occurs in male sweat and urine and has an attractant effect on women. Similar substances in women are the vaginal pheromones or copulins which attract men. These are produced in increased amounts around the time of ovulation and arouse men most then.
There are other fascinating pheromone phenomena. For example, women living together (in women’s halls of residence, nurses’ homes and convents, for example) tend to menstruate at the same time. Even though their menstrual cycles are different when they enter the community they tend to synchronise in time. One researcher spread male pheromones on the pillows of nuns’ beds and found that those nuns’ periods were disrupted from the ‘norm’ of the other nuns. This has now been called the ‘strange male effect’. It has been found that telephones sprayed with male pheromones are used more by women than adjacent ones that are not sprayed; and that theatre seats sprayed with male pheromones attract women. Even children can detect the sexual odour of adults and around the age of three sometimes have a distaste for the smell of the same-sex parent.
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Tags: Men’s Health