Sex pheromones show a desire for sex

People produce sex fragrances

05/03/2014

A Chinese-American research team was the first to prove that people also exchange sexual messages with the help of chemical messengers, so-called pheromones. The fact that animals are controlled in their sexual behavior by these fragrances has been known for some time; for humans this had been only suspected so far.

Humans produce sexual pheromones
It has long been known that pheromones play an important role in the sexual life of animals. But researchers have now for the first time found direct evidence that people also produce sex pheromones that affect the perception of mainly the opposite sex. Such as a Chinese-American research team around Wen Zhou of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in the journal „Current Biology“ Women and men report different signal substances that unconsciously influence sexual perception in other people, especially the opposite sex. First of all, the influence of odorless pheromones depends on gender and sexual orientation. Pheromones are chemical messengers that transmit information among conspecifics. The substances play an important role especially for the sexual behavior. So far, no sexual pheromones have been detected in humans. The study was recently published in the journal „Cell“ released.

Substances from seminal fluid and female urine
As part of the study, the psychologists and brain researchers now examined two substances. Firstly, androstadienone, which is found in sperm and armpits of men, and secondly estratetraenol, which was detected in women's urine. So far, studies have suggested that the two odorless substances raise the spirits of representatives of the opposite sex. However, it was unclear whether the substances also influence sexual perception. The researchers have now tested this on 48 - half of the heterosexual and homosexual - men and women.

Homosexuals react to the signal of their own sex
The subjects saw so-called point-light walkers on different days, where 15 points reflect a specific gait. The respective step patterns were to varying degrees male and female. While exposed to androstadienone, estratetraenol or a control substance, participants should assign the respective gait to one sex on three separate days. Heterosexual men, under the influence of the female substance Estratetraenol, tended to look more like a woman in the aisle. In heterosexual women, however, the substance had no effect. However, these, in contrast to the heterosexual men, responded to androstadienone. Homosexual men and women responded more to the signal substance of their own sex.

Nose sniffs the sex
Overall, the effect was not overly strong, but clearly pronounced. „If the visual gender indications were extremely unclear, the smell of androstadienone compared to estratetraenol led to a change in the sex perception of about eight percent“, so the summarized result of Zhou. „Our results speak for the existence of human sexual pheromones“, so the scientist. „They show that the nostrils of body secretions sniff out sex, even if we do not feel anything on a conscious level.“ This is the first direct evidence that human signal substances transmit sexual information that varies according to gender and sexual orientation. (Ad)