Atavistic attraction

Do you have a female friend who is dating someone with whom she has nothing discernible in common? Do the rest of your friends quietly whisper things like, “She’s bringing him to dinner tonight. I just don’t know what she sees in him!” Perhaps if you are a woman you have found yourself suddenly, and inexplicably, attracted to someone you have known for some time and have never really noticed before. New analysis shows that these idiosyncrasies of female attraction are perfectly normal and have their roots deep in our primal past.

For a long while it has been known that mammals as diverse as rats and orang-utans share something in common beyond placental child raising; the females of the species show distinct changes in mate selection preferences according to where they are in their menstrual cycle. It was though that human mammals were not part of this attraction equation but then in the 1990s studies started to emerge indicating that perhaps a woman’s preferences in men change according to where she is in her menstrual cycle. Some studies have failed to show this where others have fully supported it.

To try to establish what is really going on researchers collected raw data from other university researchers gathering information from more than 50 studies in the area. They translated the data into the same mathematical models so that statistical analysis could be performed on the entire set of data.

Their analysis showed that there is a small to medium shift in a woman’s preference in men for the few days a month when she is ovulating. For instance, when ovulating women show a greater preference for the odour of t-shirts worn by men with symmetrical faces. We know that face symmetry is associated with larger body size, better health, and therefore is a subliminal code for genetic quality.

The meta-analysis of these 50 studies also showed that when ovulating a woman is attracted to men who display masculine, “sexy” body types. At other times of the month women tend to prefer kinder, more supportive men. It seems as though at ovulation women are responding to cues for potential sexual partners who might provide children that will be robust and therefore have a survival advantage. For the rest of the month though women are looking for men who will help with the child raising.

This kind of theorising supports the practice we see in chimps where the females will choose a more supportive long-term partner but may have affairs, especially at ovulation time, with more genetically masculine individuals.

The thing for humans of course, is that modern medicine, nutrition, and social structures mean that searching for men with strong “genes” is less important. It might be that your friend who is in the inexplicable relationship makes her partnering decisions based on some deeper genetic urges and can’t overrule them with her conscious thought…although that may not be the way to phrase it to her.

The other thing ladies, is that your sudden interest in the guy at the coffee shop who you don’t usually notice might not be something you want to pursue after all; it could just be a shout from primal female ancestors echoing down the genetic corridors of your mind.