Remember when we learned about pheromones in science class?
I always thought they were some sort of super power – ’cause we can’t consciously sense them. They just penetrate us like X-rays and effect our attraction level.
And when you think about it, they kind of are. The receiving end is at least – because only 30 percent of humans have that nose-base receiver (the vomeronasal organ, they call it) that can actually pick up on most known pheromones. That means there are other chemicals at work affecting us other 70 percent who also crave that nature-fragrance expressed from the sweat of our lovers.
Enter “Estra” and “Andro”: respectively Estrogen and Testosterone derivatives and metabolites we secrete like sexy gas snails.
Beijing researchers did a study with these – first, showing dots moving in unison with varying gait sways like schools of saucy fish. The far left was ultra femme. The far right was super male. The middle? Eh… could go either way.
(These two rhythmic reprobates were expelled from the experiment)
Then they had the subjects sniff both scents and assess the body dots of questionable persuasion.
Straight men saw the androgynous assortment as definite damsel dots if nose-fed the lady odor Estra – and gave no response to Andro. Femmes who prefer men likewise saw the strutting lights as male upon Andro inhalation. Both admitted an affinity when an antithesis sex sway matched an opposite gender chemical.
But it may not just be a gender thing.
The gay dudes who participated also responded to their own musk.
However, the gay women fell somewhere in between (which would have made for an excellent joke had they been bi-sexual subjects instead).
And I actually may not be far off, there. These findings might seem to show support for the nature-not-nurture sex-pref argument but they hardly accomplish that. Either way, I’m not here to debate it. The queer query about “where gay comes from” is almost as irrelevant to straight folk as religion is to spirituality. Put your flesh flaps wherever it makes you happy!
(Just so long as the person on the receiving end – ya know – consents)
But on a advocate-of-the-devil level, does this study serve as “born this way” proof?
And if so, then why didn’t the gay ladies think the middle-dot-and-Estra cocktail was more female?
It could be the walking dots themselves. My gay guy pals almost all have fantastic posture while my lez friends all carry themselves as differently as the shades of the homo flag itself.
Then there’s the scent.
I’m sure everyone’s coming out story is different.
Some people always knew they were gay. Some force fed themselves servings of opposite sex out of fear of not fitting it. For example, when I was in high school, it was more furtive. My friend Mike was obsessed with Sarah Michelle Gellar, my buddy Kyle had a Britney Spears trapper keeper, we all knew it wasn’t out of lust, and we all said nothing.
(Both of those boys have impeccable posture to this day).
My point is that for guys of any age or persuasion, they may have a higher sex drive, but it’s a lot of work to satiate. A gay guy trying to reluctantly bed a girl or to sift through the sea of straight to find of few like-minded diamonds has more work cut out for him than girls do.
So it’s not surprising that most of those dudes don’t have many positive “Estra” experiences.
For women, it seems there’s a higher chance they’d come out after having some sort of Andro experience. Whether it was giving up the V card, a failed make out sesh, or prom with a guy friend to make mom and dad happy, a willing chick has options. And if she’s got options and she’s confused, experimenting is totally plausible. In that case, why not make sure dong is wrong before heading to Sarah Lawrence?
Even if the phallus failed, they might have remained friends with the guy attached to it, releasing fond molecular memories into her brain with links to Andro forevermore. Boom. Those trotting dots are suddenly as confusing as adolescence was.
What would be really interesting to know is more about the subjects themselves: how old they were, what cultures they came from (was it only Beijing?), when they came out, and relationship quality with the opposite sex (even just Platonic dynamics). That last one’s a biggie.
Because while the research results make total sense and while scissor sistering might well be genetic, the two don’t have fckk all to do with eachother in this case. Science sites saying they do just add to confusion.
