Heaven scent
Dear Margot,
I鈥檓 an attractive thirty-something lass, but am starting to lose hope of ever finding a man. I meet promising blokes all the time 鈥� good looking, charming, well dressed, not too hairy. But there鈥檚 always something missing. I can鈥檛 quite put my finger on it, but often they just don鈥檛 quite look right and well鈥mell right. Am I being too picky?
Worried, from Wigan
Dear Worried,
Don鈥檛 fret, love. What you鈥檙e experiencing is perfectly normal and natural. A man鈥檚 appearance and smell apparently reveal a lot about how compatible a mate he would make. Unfortunately, women鈥檚 reactions to these cues are all subconscious, which is why you find it hard to pinpoint why you feel the way you do about guys you meet. But look at it this way, you get to sneak a peek inside their genes without them even noticing.
Take skin, for example. Craig Roberts and his team at the University of Newcastle, UK, have found that women find the skin of men with a healthier set of genes more attractive. Specifically, the team looked at three of a key set of immune system genes called the MHC genes. 快猫短视频s believe that having a mixture of different versions of these genes makes a person better able to fight off infection. When the team asked 50 women to rate the attractiveness of 92 male faces, they found the women preferred men with different versions of all three genes. Amazingly, they got similar results when they only showed the women a small piece of skin from the man鈥檚 cheek. More details will be revealed in a future issue of Evolution and Human Behaviour, if you don鈥檛 believe me.
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Also, don鈥檛 be puzzled by your preoccupation with a new man鈥檚 smell. Us girls consistently rate a potential partner鈥檚 odour as highly important when it comes to deciding whether we find them attractive 鈥� although men find smell less important.
Randy Thornhill an expert in body odour and attraction at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque got a similar result to the skin study, but for odour. In his experiment, women rated the smell of sweaty T-shirts worn by men overnight as more attractive if they had a similar sort of variety in their MHC genes. So if you鈥檙e searching for Mr Right, just follow your nose.
Yours, Margot
Sexy cycle
Dear Margot,
I love my girlfriend, but I must admit that sometimes I love her less than usual. Of course there are times when she does or says annoying stuff, but I鈥檓 not talking about those. There鈥檚 something else I can鈥檛 put my finger on. Sometimes she is just damn sexy and sometimes, well I can take her or leave her. What鈥檚 going on?
Stuck-in-a rut, Melbourne
Dear Stuck,
If you truly love this girl, then you should give her the support and love she needs, however you feel. It might help to understand why your feelings keep changing though. Several pieces of research suggest that a woman鈥檚 attractiveness varies with her monthly cycle.
For a start, body odour seems to be important. Devendra Singh and Matthew Bronstad at the University of Texas in Austin tested whether men preferred the scent of a woman in mid-cycle, when she would be most likely to conceive, or in the days before her period. Like Thornhill they used T-shirts that the women had worn overnight, but they tricked the men into thinking they were choosing between different women. The men more often preferred women in mid-cycle.
And the story seems to be similar for women鈥檚 faces. Roberts showed men photos of 48 women from Prague in the Czech Republic and Newcastle in the north of England. They offered the men a choice between a head shot taken when the woman was in mid-cycle and one taken towards the end of her cycle. The men did not know which was which, but overall they slightly preferred the women鈥檚 faces when in the fertile phase.
So hang in there, things should look up in a week or two.
Yours, Margot
For your ears only
Dear Margot,
Recently I met a man in a net chat room. We got on really well and decided to swap phone numbers. On the phone he sounded deliciously sexy. He had this gorgeous deep chocolatey voice that made me go weak at the knees. Meeting up was a huge disappointment though. He鈥檚 a weedy little troll. Margot, I feel cheated. Why did I have this vision of a macho love-god in my head?
Dear Seduced,
You poor lamb. Voice is a particularly poor guide to someone鈥檚 appearance. Sarah Collins at the Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Science in Leiden, Netherlands, recorded 34 men鈥檚 voices and played them to a group of women. Men with deeper voices were judged more attractive, older, heavier, more muscular and more likely to have a hairy chest.
It will come as no surprise to you that they were wide of the mark 鈥� the voices gave out no useful information about a man鈥檚 physical characteristics apart from enabling women to identify which men were heavier.
A man鈥檚 voice can apparently tell you something about how symmetrical he is though. Susan Hughes and her colleagues at the State University of New York in Albany did a similar experiment where 48 women listened to 58 male voices. This time the researchers measured how symmetrical each man was by looking at the differences between measurements of paired body parts (such as fingers and wrists). Being more asymmetrical is important because it could indicate a stressful upbringing in the womb. So symmetry is thought to be a general sign of good health. The team found that men with the sexiest voices were more symmetrical as well.
The chances are that you won鈥檛 be the only girl to have been seduced by his dreamy voice. In another study by Hughes and her colleagues in Evolution and Human Behaviour, she found that people whose voices are rated as attractive tend to have sex earlier, have more partners and be more prone to infidelity. So at least he should have had plenty of practice. Failing that, perhaps you could get him to whisper sweet nothings to you 鈥� with the lights off.
Yours, Margot
鈥淯s girls consistently rate a potential partner鈥檚 odour as highly important鈥�
Out of hand
Dear Margot
I think I am a reasonably attractive guy who is generally fun to be with, but I just can鈥檛 seem to get a girlfriend. Sometimes I get talking to girls in bars and things seem to be going well. But as soon as they clock my hands they lose interest.
What gives?
Desperately Seeking Someone, Seattle
Dear Desperate,
Never underestimate the power of the hand. Even if a girl doesn鈥檛 realise it, she will be staring at your mitts and making countless subconscious judgments about you.
John Manning at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and his colleagues have done a stack of work on what the ratio of the lengths of ring to index fingers can tell you about a person. In one study they asked 36 women to rate 48 male hands. Those with a more 鈥渕ale ratio鈥� 鈥� a longer ring finger compared to index finger 鈥� were rated more masculine and more dominant by the women volunteers, but not more attractive.
What is more, looking at fingers might tell girls something more concrete. Another of Manning鈥檚 studies found that men with a more male digit ratio had a higher sperm count and a higher concentration of testosterone in their blood. And other work has found a correlation between a 鈥渕ale鈥� digit ratio and sporting and musical talent. Of course, there are plenty of women out there who have ring fingers longer than their index fingers and likewise there are doubtless lots of men with mammoth sperm counts but a 鈥渇eminine鈥� digit ratio. So it is by no means foolproof.
What may be going on is that your digit ratio gives potential partners a window into your experiences in the womb. It seems that hand development is affected by the amount of testosterone that a man was exposed to as a fetus. Specifically, the more testosterone, the longer the ring finger tends to be compared with the index finger. That probably explains why men tend to have longer ring fingers while women鈥檚 index and ring fingers tend to be about the same length. Of course, it would be highly unethical to experiment with the amount of testosterone a child received during its development, so the experts can鈥檛 be sure.
But all that might not be much help to you if the girls are going on their first impression. Try keeping your hands in your pockets 鈥� at least until she gets to know the real you.
Oh, and one more thing. A study by Evangelos Spyropoulos and colleagues at the Naval and Veterans Hospital of Athens, Greece found that the index finger on its own is important. Apparently, men with longer index fingers were also larger in another department鈥f you see what I mean.
