Body odour and sexual attraction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Most of the writers on the psychology of love at this period, however, seem to have passed over the olfactory element in sexual attraction, regarding it probably as too unaesthetic. It receives no emphasis either in Senancour's De l'Amour or Stendhal's De l'Amour or Michelet's L'Amour."--Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (1905) Havelock Ellis |
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Research has shown that body odor is connected to human sexual attraction. Both fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) are connected to scent. HLA is the human version of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a protein complex that plays a role in an individual’s immunities and self- versus nonself-recognition. FA affects body symmetry, which in turn affects body size and stress tolerance. Studies have not suggested that one scent caused by a particular HLA is more attractive to all individuals, but they have demonstrated attraction between individuals of certain HLA types. Research has also shown that the scent of low FA person is universally more attractive, and that facial attractiveness is connected to attractiveness of scent.
References
- Die sexuelle Osphresiologie (1901) by Albert Hagen
- Odoratus Sexualis: A Scientific and Literary Study of Sexual Scents and Erotic Perfumes (1933) by Iwan Bloch
See also
