The mixture of androstenol and androsterone in Scent of Eros products increases observed flirtatious behaviors and women’s ratings of attraction to a man by enhancing the affect of natural variations in adult circulating testosterone levels. Simply put, it makes a man smell like he has a higher adult circulating testosterone level.

Digit ratio (2D:4D) predicts facial, but not voice or body odour, attractiveness in men

Abstract excerpt: “The results were interpreted in terms of differential effects of prenatal and circulating testosterone, male facial shape being supposedly more dependent on foetal levels (reflected by 2D:4D ratio), whereas body odour and vocal characteristics could be more dependent on variation in adult circulating testosterone levels.”

Very odd! And fascinating! Are we supposed to be looking at our fingers now?

Thank you, very fascinating.

There was another digit study of homosexuality correlating to digit ratios. For hetero men and lesbians, the 4D should be longer than the index finger. For homosexual men and hetero women, the index finger should be longer than the fourth digit.

It's caused by the amount of estrogen in the mother when she carries the child.

There are many phenotypic markers of heterosexual development that are slightly altered in homosexuals. 2D:4D is one that has been studied by many groups. Androsterone/etiocholanolone ratios, which probably are manifest in male scent signatures that vary with sexual orientation, is a phenotypic marker that has not been studied since the early 70's -- with few exceptions, of course.

James V. Kohl

Anything you've seen about how the developmental differences affect sensitivity to pheromones? I've seen a number of pheromone products marketed to gay males, not sure if there are any for gay females (haven't paid attention really). If the hormone-exposure developmental differences cause measurable phenotype traits, shouldn't there be measurable differences in the body by neuronal wiring and/or biochemical processing relating to pheromone sensitivities? I remember from my genetics research that we learned the most in the early years of the science from being able to compare "normal" to abnormal and tease out the relevant genetic differences in genetic structures and expression pathways. I wonder if the sexual differentiation between hetero/homo could be instructive in working out pheromonal activity?

Thanks for the link Jvkohl, I'll have a read of the paper when I get some free time, one thing that did jump out at me is the paper listed in the References by Thornhill et al:

Thornhill, R. & Gangestad, S. W. 1999 The scent of symmetry: a human sex pheromone that signals fitness?

Its available here for anyone who is interested:

http://www.ceacb.ucl.ac.uk/cultureclub/f...rnhill.pdf

KEY WORDS: Androgens; Androstenone; Androstenol; Developmental instability; Fluctuating asymmetry; Handicap theory; Mate choice; Menstrual cycle; Pheromones; Sexual selection; Signaling.

Do you have any thoughts on that specific paper?

Thanks

Fascinating...

Quote: Moreover, men’s symmetry predicts a relatively high frequency of their sexual partners’ copulatory orgasms (Thornhill et al. 1995). Female copulatory orgasm may be a mechanism of cryptic female choice in contexts in which women mate with multiple partners (Baker and Bellis 1995)

And this sounds like androstenone to me...

Quote:Compared to the body scent of relatively asymmetric men, relatively symmetric men’s scent is more attractive to normally ovulating (non-pill-using) women during their period of peak fertility based on menstrual cycle point. Yet non-pill-using women show no odor preference related to male body symmetry during menstrual cycle times of low fertility. Moreover, women using hormone-based contraception do not show the preference.