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Attraction and smell

2002-01-22 19:03:21+01 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

We've seen lots of evidence that a good part of sexual attraction is about smell. Dr.s Carol Ober and Martha McClintock of the University of Chicago have found that smell lets people choose mates based on genetic similarity.

A further twist in the study, which was based on having women sniff T-shirts that a man had worn for two days, is that their preferences were based on the man's genetic match to each woman's paternal genes, not genes from her mother.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Bioinformatics ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 06:34:39+01 by: meuon

uhh... so women like men that smell like their dads.. ?

Hello Old Spice!

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 06:34:40+01 by: Diane Reese

Gee... I use Old Spice stick deodorant. Is that because my dad always used Old Spice aftershave? No wait, I'm not supposed to want to smell like my dad, I'm supposed to like guys that smell like my dad. Ouch, my head hurts...

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 06:34:41+01 by: crasch

My Mom claims she married my Dad in part because she liked the way he smelled.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 06:34:42+01 by: Diane Reese

Oh, no question, if a guy has the right smell, there is just nothing like it!! I carried that little piece of Paul's shirt around with me for months when I was 16, sniffing it for an attraction-high even long after he jilted me. I wouldn't say my husband smells anything like my father, though. Maybe the important components of smell are not easily identifiable in those conscious ways.

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