DIFFERENTIAL USE OF SENSORY INFORMATION IN SEXUAL-BEHAVIOR AS A FUNCTION OF GENDER

Olfactory information is critical to mammalian sexual behavior. Based on parental investment theory the relative importance of olfaction com pared with vision, touch, and hearing should be different for human ma les and females. In particular, because of its link to immunological p rofile and offspring viability, odor should be a more important determ inant of sexual choice and arousal for females than for males. To test this hypothesis a questionnaire was developed and administered to 332 adults (166 males, 166 females). Subjects used a 1-7 scale to indicat e how much they agreed with a series of statements concerning the impo rtance of olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile information for the ir sexual responsivity. The data reveal that males rated visual and ol factory information as being equally important for selecting a lover, while females considered olfactory information to be the single most i mportant variable in mate choice. Additionally, when considering sexua l activity, females singled out body odor from all other sensory exper iences as most able to negatively affect desire, while males regarded odors as much more neutral stimuli for sexual arousal. The present res ults support recent findings in mice and humans concerning the relatio n of female preferences in body odor and major histocompatibility comp lex (MHC) compatibility and can be explained by an evolutionary analys is of sex differences in reproductive strategies. This work represents the first direct examination of the role of different forms of sensor y information in human sexual behavior.