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Conducting a Field Test on Pheromones
By HENRY ALFORD
NY Times
In a room full of strangers, who are you drawn to? I enjoy rueful laughter, and thus, in any given setting, will gravitate toward a man who looks like Jeff Goldblum or a woman with a throaty Sambuca rasp.
But it’s hard to pinpoint why strangers are ever drawn to us: Maybe you look like one of their parents, or maybe you seem unthreatening, or maybe you just inadvertently pulverized their contact lens. Since 1984, though, when scientists discovered human pheromones — chemical compounds that social animals like pigs, goldfish and moths excrete, thus whipping into a lathered frenzy those in their environs — some people have maintained that human attraction is largely olfactory.
So when a friend told me that Winifred Cutler, one of the aforementioned scientists from 1984, has been running ads in The New York Review of Books to sell pheromones that “increase affection” from the opposite sex, I decided to test them.
I have no interest in consorting sexually with women; I’ve been with my boyfriend, Greg, for 12 years, thank you. But whose life couldn’t stand a little extra platonic throbbing? Perhaps, I thought, I’ll be able to answer the age-old question: What do women want? (Besides, of course, death to the word “mompreneur.”)
I called the phone number listed in the ad; Dr. Cutler answered. I ordered from her, for $99.50, a vial of pheromones (one-sixth of an ounce) to be added to alcohol-based aftershave or cologne. I told Dr. Cutler: “I’m sort of an affection pig. For me the ideal cologne would be a tiny burst of applause.” Dr. Cutler told me, “You sound like an actor.”
She asked if I have a mustache and I said no. “Good,” she said. “The sweet spot for men during testing was the mustache area above the lips.”
Many of the pheromone-related tests over the years sound like an after-hours “Candid Camera,” none more so than one 2003 experiment in which underarm secretions from men were placed on the upper lips of women, who reported feeling less tense than when they smelled a placebo. (If that’s what women want, forget it.)
A few days later, I received a tiny vial of colorless alcohol-smelling liquid in the mail. I poured it into three ounces of verbena eau de toilette, which I had bought at the L’Occitane store on Bleecker Street, where I had told the saleswoman, “I’ll do anything to make people like me more, except listen to what colleges their children are applying to.” She looked at me as if I had said, “I eat sand.”
Greg and I were about to head off on vacation. So, on Day 1 of my pheromonal dousing, we were seated outdoors at the cafe of Jacob’s Pillow, the dance venue in the Berkshires, when three women in their 70s asked if I would watch their bags while they went to get food.
This was my first “hit,” and I was determined not to allow its dank allegiance to free labor ruin its essential sweetness; I heartily said yes. Seven minutes later, two of the women returned, explaining that the third, who I’ll call Gina, was getting a free drink from the male bartender. I thought: “Interesting. I could learn from her.”
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Date Published: 09-04-2015 05:00 AM
NY Times
In a room full of strangers, who are you drawn to? I enjoy rueful laughter, and thus, in any given setting, will gravitate toward a man who looks like Jeff Goldblum or a woman with a throaty Sambuca rasp.
But it’s hard to pinpoint why strangers are ever drawn to us: Maybe you look like one of their parents, or maybe you seem unthreatening, or maybe you just inadvertently pulverized their contact lens. Since 1984, though, when scientists discovered human pheromones — chemical compounds that social animals like pigs, goldfish and moths excrete, thus whipping into a lathered frenzy those in their environs — some people have maintained that human attraction is largely olfactory.
So when a friend told me that Winifred Cutler, one of the aforementioned scientists from 1984, has been running ads in The New York Review of Books to sell pheromones that “increase affection” from the opposite sex, I decided to test them.
I have no interest in consorting sexually with women; I’ve been with my boyfriend, Greg, for 12 years, thank you. But whose life couldn’t stand a little extra platonic throbbing? Perhaps, I thought, I’ll be able to answer the age-old question: What do women want? (Besides, of course, death to the word “mompreneur.”)
I called the phone number listed in the ad; Dr. Cutler answered. I ordered from her, for $99.50, a vial of pheromones (one-sixth of an ounce) to be added to alcohol-based aftershave or cologne. I told Dr. Cutler: “I’m sort of an affection pig. For me the ideal cologne would be a tiny burst of applause.” Dr. Cutler told me, “You sound like an actor.”
She asked if I have a mustache and I said no. “Good,” she said. “The sweet spot for men during testing was the mustache area above the lips.”
Many of the pheromone-related tests over the years sound like an after-hours “Candid Camera,” none more so than one 2003 experiment in which underarm secretions from men were placed on the upper lips of women, who reported feeling less tense than when they smelled a placebo. (If that’s what women want, forget it.)
A few days later, I received a tiny vial of colorless alcohol-smelling liquid in the mail. I poured it into three ounces of verbena eau de toilette, which I had bought at the L’Occitane store on Bleecker Street, where I had told the saleswoman, “I’ll do anything to make people like me more, except listen to what colleges their children are applying to.” She looked at me as if I had said, “I eat sand.”
Greg and I were about to head off on vacation. So, on Day 1 of my pheromonal dousing, we were seated outdoors at the cafe of Jacob’s Pillow, the dance venue in the Berkshires, when three women in their 70s asked if I would watch their bags while they went to get food.
This was my first “hit,” and I was determined not to allow its dank allegiance to free labor ruin its essential sweetness; I heartily said yes. Seven minutes later, two of the women returned, explaining that the third, who I’ll call Gina, was getting a free drink from the male bartender. I thought: “Interesting. I could learn from her.”
Click Here To for More...
Date Published: 09-04-2015 05:00 AM