Thursday, February 16, 2006

The Science Of Sexiness

Last Monday, the National Geographic Channel aired "Naked Science: What's Sexy?" In it we learn how humans give off and pick up on mating signals that encompass three stages: lust, love and attachment. For men, the height of feminine allure is a woman with a 26-inch waist and 37-inch hips; this waist to hip ratio--ideal for childbearing--is a sexually charged visual cue men perceive whether they realize it or not.

Conversely, women evaluate men from a mating standpoint not only by considering their respective wealth and status but also by creating a sort of mental database in the brain's hippocampus, which stores pertinent information like, "Did he tell me I looked hot in that red dress I wore on our date last night?" or "Has he mentioned lately that my new work out regimen is paying off?"

There is a caveat for all women who think getting breast enlargement surgery will enhance their mating chances during the "lust" stage. While surgical enhancement may be a boon for women in the short run, long-term, such non-genetic, "mannmade" tampering with breast size could end up producing an unintended Darwinian backlash in the form of less sexually attractive future generations. (Picture the scene in "Star Wars" where Han Solo walks into the Intergalactic jazz bar, and you get an idea of what the dating pool will look like a few hundred years from now.)

On a more positive note, intelligence and kindness, cross-culturally, are the traits most sought after in a human mate. The show even offers women practical dating advice. Apparently--and rather counter intuitively--men get aroused when they are fearful and anxious. Accordingly, it is suggested that single women might want to try asking men out under frightful circumstances.

An example of which would be when a man suddenly realizes that each woman he's ever been involved with maintains a permanent DNA based mental inventory of all of his bad behavior, which she keeps safely tucked away in her ever expanding relationships memory bank as a self preservation tool.