Gay men smell better...to other gay men.

So, as the title suggests, todays blog will consist of an article I read a couple of days ago about pheromones and how they are differ between Homosexual men and Heterosexual men.

Alright, so, let's begin with defining what a Pheromone is. By simply Googling "Pheromone" we get this definition: "A chemical substance produced and released into the environment by an animal, esp. a mammal or an insect, affecting the behavior or physiology of others of its species."


I did the same for Homosexual: "A person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex."

And for Heterosexual: "A person sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0510_050510_gayscent_2.html

If you were to click the link above, you would be sent straight to the article that I read a couple of days ago about Pheromones. 

According to the article, pheromones are not only a key factor in what smells/people we are attracted to in heterosexual individuals, but also in homosexual individuals. In the study, participants were asked to smell normal everyday things such as lavender, and cedar to which the scientist noticed only the area of the brain that reacts to smells activated, there wasn't an indication that sexual arousal or behavior came from smelling these items.  

This is how they began the study: "The scientists exposed heterosexual men and women and homosexual men to chemicals found in male and female sex hormones. One chemical is a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat. The other chemical is an estrogen-like compound in women's urine." 

This is the new factor that came into play in this study: "The scientists added a sexual-orientation element, which revealed a difference in the brain activity of gay and straight men."

And this is what happened: "The researchers found that the testosterone compound activated the hypothalamus in homosexual men and heterosexual women, but not heterosexual men. Conversely, the estrogen compound activated the hypothalamus only in heterosexual men."

So, basically it works like this....

	AND	EST
Straight men	Irritation	Sexual response
Gay men	Sexual response	Irritation
Straight women	Sexual response	Irritation
Lesbians	Irritation	Sexual response

AND=ANDROGEN-LIKE PHEROMONES FOUND IN MEN

EST=ESTROGEN-LIKE PHEROMONES FOUDN IN WOMEN

http://www.gayexplained.com/homosexuality-response-pheromones/

Click the link for a full explanation of the chart.

I found this study to be incredibly interesting because I never thought that our pheromones would be programmed to be attracted to individuals that fall under our sexual preference. Blog question for the week, have you ever noticed yourself (sexually) attracted to a specific person or sex because of their smell? Are you conscious of this now?