Study: Taking 'The Pill' Affects Women's Attractiveness to Men

[Marshall]

Study: Taking 'The Pill' Affects Women's Attractiveness to Men
May 10, 2011 7:52 AM EDT

New studies suggest that when women use hormonal contraceptives, such as birth control pills, it disrupts chemical signals, affecting their attractiveness to men and women's own preferences for romantic partners, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The type of man a woman is drawn to is known to change during her monthly cycle -- when a woman is fertile, for instance, she might look for a man with more masculine features.
Taking the pill or another type of hormonal contraceptive upends this natural dynamic, making less-masculine men seem more attractive, according to a small but growing body of evidence.
The findings have led researchers to wonder about the implications for partner choice, relationship quality and even the health of the children produced by these partnerships.
Evolutionary psychologists and biologists have long been interested in factors that lead to people's choice of mates.
One influential study in the 1990s, dubbed the tee-shirt study, asked women about their attraction to members of the opposite sex by smelling the men's tee-shirts. The findings showed that humans, like many other animals, transmit and recognize information pertinent to sexual attraction through chemical odors known as pheromones.
The study also showed that women seemed to prefer the scents of men whose immune systems were most different from the women's own immune system genes known as MHC. The family of genes permit a person's body to recognize which bacteria are foreign invaders and to provide protection from those bugs. Evolutionarily, scientists believe, children should be healthier if their parents' MHC genes vary, because the offspring will be protected from more pathogens.
More than 92 million prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives, including pills, patches and injections, were filled last year in the U.S., according to data-tracker IMS Health.
Researchers say their aim is not to scare or stop women from taking hormonal contraceptives.
"We just want to know what we're doing" by taking the pill, says Alexandra Alvergne, a researcher in biological anthropology at University College London.
"If there is a risk it affects our romantic life and the health status of our children, we want to know," she added.

[SinfulSarah]

Interesting study. Crazy pheromones.......

[Iaintliein]

It amazes me every time I read an article by the greenies slamming this or that chemical in plastics etc. because they act like estrogen, but never one word about oral birth control which is specifically designed to act like estrogen.

[Guest050715-1]

How utterly fascinating. I read “The Human Animal”. It’s a book about genetic psychology. How we choose our mates. Why we protect our off spring, brothers, sisters and even extended family members. It makes sense. It’s all in the name of making sure our genes not just survive but thrive.

A little tidbit of info about oral contraceptives, water treatment facilities can’t / don’t filter estrogen, vitamins, antibiotics and other medicines from the water supply. So what that means is that we all – even the men and boys – are receiving a dose of estrogen in every drop of water they ingest.

[oden]

Glad I get my water from an aquifer! One of the downsides of effeminate men is that we will loose the real women. Damn, no more John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.

[NinaBrooke]

It is interesting. Since i don`t take the pill anymore i am attracted to different kinds of men, but maybe its also a sign of getting older. But its a valuable theory.