The Chemistry Of Lurve!

Kate Faithful | Wednesday 01 October | 14:42

Couple Kissing

Not for nothing is the word "chemistry" used to describe that spark of attraction between two people. Poets and singers have long tried to untangle the mysteries of love and lust, and now the scientists are getting in on the act, too.

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Experiments involving everything from sweaty T-shirts to morphed photos have tried to solve the attraction jigsaw - and their results give us some handy insights into why certain people make your lusty world go round.

You sniff out their genes

Lust is an evolutionary instinct based on someone’s genes being a good match for yours, say the boffins. “You're looking at another person and figuring out whether you want your children to carry that person's genes” says Devendra Singh, professor of psychology at the University of Texas. So if you fancy someone, you’ve subconsciously decided that their genes will combine with yours to produce healthy kids.

But how does your subsconscious make this decision? You can’t exactly ask for someone’s genetic sequence over that first drink. According to Rob Elder of Emory University, Atlanta, we literally sniff out our date’s genetic fitness. “Scientists have known for some time that pheromones – chemically-secreted, odourless, airborne molecules – can trigger large sexual responses in non-human animals,” says Elder. “But until recently they’d assumed that humans had lost that ability.”

Then in 1985, Colorado University researchers found pheromone sensors in human nostrils. These sensors, they discovered, connect directly to the part of the brain responsible for basic drives and emotions – such as helpless lust for the bloke sitting opposite you in the pub.

Scientists soon flocked to research pheromones, devising experiments where women had to rate sexiness based on men's sweaty T-shirts. Claus Wedekind of Switzerland’s Bern University found that women preferred the pheromones of men with different immune systems to their own.

None of which explains why so many of us fancy men with cute dimples and nice cheekbones. But there you have it: “pheromone” is now the big buzzword in the science of attraction.

You check out their shape

Besides pheromones, body shape is the other big marker we use to suss out genetic compatibility. Shape and symmetry supposedly tell our subconscious minds all sorts of things about fitness and genetic health. So the theory goes, facial and other features that aren’t symmetrical are a clue to underlying genetic problems. So your wonky nose isn’t just a wonky nose, it’s a sign that your genes are a bit of a mess. Sorry about that. (If it’s any comfort, my own nose is so wonky it’s diagonal.)

Worse still, it seems that men are especially concerned about looking for symmetrical features, while women are distracted by pheromones. A recent study at the University of New Mexico found that male college students preferred symmetrical female faces – and the results were borne out by evidence that symmetrically-featured women had more sexual partners and were sexually active at a younger age.

Men have also been shown to prefer women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, which supposedly relates to physical fitness and fertility. This ratio seems to apply across a range of weights, which may bring some comfort to those of us battling to drop a dress size.

You fancy yourself

Other scientists have found that people seek out mates who remind them of themselves. David Perrett, a cognitive psychologist at St Andrews University, has developed a computerised morphing system that can endlessly adjust faces to help him study what makes some faces attractive. Students are asked to choose which of two faces they fancy the most, while Perrett photographs the students' own faces and morphs them into the opposite sex. The students always fancy the face that’s an opposite-sex version of themselves – even though they don’t recognise it as such.

Perrett suggests that we find our own faces attractive because they remind us of our parents, whose faces we looked at constantly in our early childhood years. Or maybe it’s just that we’re all rampant egomaniacs…

But does it matter?

So, should you go off and buy a shedload of pheromone spray, get a nose job and start squeezing yourself into corsets? Some sceptical boffins think you’d be wasting your time. “One must always take into consideration the role of free will in attraction,” says Rob Elder. “Many researchers say that pheromones and body form only get the proverbial foot in the door.” After that, the course of true love is determined by a whole load of other things, from your taste in music to your kissing technique…

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