Scent of Eros
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Neuroskeptic: Men and Women: From Earth, Not Mars & Venus?
Neuroskeptic: Men and Women: From Earth, Not Mars & Venus?
Human Pheromones: The Scent of Eros
- In "Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation" Simon Le Vay had this to say about my model for evolved sex differences and their perception: "This model is attractive in that it solves the "binding problem" of sexual attraction. By that I mean the problem of why all the different features of men or women (visual appearance and feel of face, body, and genitals; voice quality, smell; personality and behavior, etc.) attract people as a more or less coherent package representing one sex, rather than as an arbitrary collage of male and female characteristics. If all these characteristics come to be attractive because they were experienced in association with a male- or female-specific pheromone, then they will naturally go together even in the absence of complex genetically coded instructions." (p-210) My mammalian model incorporates the same central neuronal system that ensures nutrient chemical-dependent gonadtropin releasing hormone (GnRH)-directed reproduction. The response to mammalian pheromones is also GnRH-dependent and measured in luteinizing hormone (LH) in mammals, including humans. One need only view the perception of physical characteristics of other people as you would the physical characteristics of an appealing (or not) food, to begin to realize the explanatory power of the epigenetic effects of food odors and social odors called pheromones on the conditioning of associated hormone responses during the development of food preferences and sexual preferences. The mistake most researchers continue to make involves the assumption that we have reduced olfactory acuity and specificity compared to other species, which leads most people to think they are primarily visual creatures. No neuroscientific approach suggests that this is true -- at a time when it is obvious that "Olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans." -- Kohl, J.V. (2012) Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 2: 17338.
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