Pheromones in perfume attract men

The National Post ^ | March 20, 2002 | Brad Evenson

[gcruse]

 

                                                                March 20, 2002

 Pheromones in perfume attract men, study shows
 74% of women reported increased sexual activity

 Brad Evenson
 national post

 Silkworm moths use them to seduce mates. Elephant cows emit them when the time is right for
 romance. Now researchers have found pheromones, the scentless chemicals that keep the birds and
 bees abuzz and a-twitter, also boost the sexual magnetism of women.

 A three-month study at San Francisco State University found 74% women who wore perfume laced
 with a synthetic pheromone had more sex. In contrast, only 23% of women who had a placebo added
 to their perfume enjoyed an increase in sociosexual behaviours.

 The study appears today in the quarterly journal Physiology and Behavior.

 "This is a biological signal to a man that suggests that this woman can reproduce and he responds with
 romantic behaviour related to securing intimate relations with her," said Norma McCoy, a professor of
 psychology and the study's lead author.

 "This is not a smell one can detect; neither the man nor the woman is aware of it, but it's very
 powerful. This chemical appears to influence a man's desire to have sexual intercourse."

 Like a chemical soundtrack for the animal kingdom, pheromones are molecular cues that influence
 behaviour. Secreted in sweat glands or in urine, there are pheromones that help babies bond with
 mothers, pheromones that cause women's menstrual cycles to synchronize, and even pheromones --
 used by predators to mark their territory -- that warn other creatures away.

 "They've actually put some of these things on the toilet seat in one public bathroom and nobody goes
 in there," chuckles Dr. McCoy.

 Not surprisingly, pheromones have become a hot product on the Internet, with hundreds of ads
 promising formulations that make men and women irresistible to the opposite sex.

 But recently, scientists such as Winnifred Cutler, a reproduction biologist at the Athena Institute in
 Chester Springs, Pa., have begun to synthesize pheromones for research purposes.

 In the San Francisco study, researchers added a two-ounce vial of synthetic pheromone made at the
 Athena Institute to the regular perfume of 19 women, while 17 women used placebos. Over the next
 three months, each woman recorded seven different behaviours, including petting/affection/kissing;
 sleeping next to a romantic partner; sexual intercourse; formal dates; informal dates; the number of
 times a man approached her; and masturbation.

 Each woman applied two to three dabs of the perfume under her nose, on her cheeks and behind her
 ears at least every other day. The women used 34 different fragrances.

 Overall, there were no significant differences between the two groups in dating frequency, but a big
 difference when it came to physical contact.

 "The women who were using the pheromones were having more sexual contact, and particularly
 sexual intercourse," Dr. McCoy says.

 While previous studies have shown that pheromones can influence a woman's preference in a male,
 this is the first double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial to show the chemicals can actually attract and
 excite the opposite sex.

 But not everyone is buying into its conclusions.

 "This was a small study," said John Sweeney, a pheromone researcher at the University of California
 at Los Angeles.

 "And this was not a normal population. This was a bunch of horny women who believed testing a
 pheromone would increase the romance in their lives."
 

[gcruse]

I still don't understand why the restroom stalls were vacated if this stuff is so attractive.

[VA Voter]

Read that short segment of the article again, in context.