And yet, women can smell single men  

Scientifically proved

In recent years, experiments involving human smell have increased, and some of them have revealed that heterosexual women can smell which men are free and which are bound. Testosterone levels in men fluctuate slightly whether they are free or bound. And while it’s still unclear whether hormonal changes can directly affect how a person looks or smells, some experiments point to yes.

In 2019 a study in Australia asked 82 straight women between the ages of 18 and 35 to rate the smell and faces of straight men. Half the women were free and half were bound. Each woman was asked to rate 3 single and 3 committed men. The researchers gave the men a t-shirt to sweat in for 24 hours, and the men provided a passport photo for the experiment. The armpits from the t-shirts were cut off and put into a bottle for the women to smell. After taking a whiff, the women were asked to answer questions such as “ how much do you like/dislike this smell ” and “ how sexy is this smell ”.

The women were then given photos of the men in random order, asking them to rate them on attractiveness, intelligence, loyalty, kindness, masculinity and other factors that would make a good match.

The results showed that in all women. the odor of free males was stronger than that of bound males. The committed women rated the single men’s faces as more masculine while the single women rated them the same. Menstrual cycles and testosterone levels were not measured for this study, but the researchers say the findings are consistent with previous research showing that single and committed men can be distinguished based on their testosterone levels.

Smell and sex hormones are closely related, as a neuroendocrinology theory reveals. Single men have higher testosterone levels than committed men, making them more competitive in the mating arena. The natural smell of high testosterone shows others health and sexual availability.

Evolutionarily, it is an advantage for females to be able to detect the chemical signals that promote mating and to avoid engaged males (especially with children) due to the relatively reduced resources they can offer.

But there is another less scientific explanation. It is possible that married men have better health and hygiene than single men. Some conditions in a man’s health affect his body odor, while diet also changes the odor to a certain extent.

In any case, smell is certainly the human sense that has been most overlooked in science, even though our sexual and social behavior seems to be closely dependent on it. Smell signals bypass a part of our brain that plays an important role in attention and awareness, so it’s very likely that when we make choices based on smell they are subconscious and we don’t realize it.

The research was published in Frontiers in Psychology .