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FEATURE
THE PHEROMONE Using a sixth sense to smell a lover PHENOMENON
// WORDS BY HAILEY OSTERHAUS
PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS BY | JERYWANG
Smells like love: some scientists theorize that people can pick up on pheromones — secreted chemicals that elicit reactions in the body — through the vomeronasal "gan," which is located in the septum. Animals often use pheromones to sniff out a potential mate, and some say that humans react in a similar way.
Garrett Kelly, Tonganoxie senior, and Chris McGillivray, Overland Park senior, are sitting outside the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center on a late Saturday afternoon. Cooling down from their workouts, they start to discuss the weird sexual tension that lingers in the air while everyone is sweating through their shirts.
They think that the rec center can sometimes feel like going to a junior high dance because all the men and women tend to separate. The guys are almost always on the weights directly behind the girls using the treadmills and stair masters. "I feel just like a pervert because obviously I'm forced to look at booties," Kelly says. "I mean, the stair master, it's like a butt machine."
Both guys say that there are a multitude of factors that play into the sexual tension at the rec center. They say that everyone is wearing less clothing and lots of bodies are moving as opposed to sitting still like they would in a class.
SMELLING ATTRACTION
This is all true, but something else at the rec center may make us feel a little frisky as we sweat as well. They're called pheromones.
Pheromones in humans are a mystery because scientists have yet to identify a chemical as a human pheromone. But scientists are certain that pheromones in animals exist. When you see dogs "making their mark" or sniffing another dog's bum, they are communicating with pheromones. Animals and insects have the ability to produce substances that can signal many things, such as danger, a trail of food or a potential mate. After the pheromones are secreted, they are carried through air currents and received by another member of the same species. In other words, pheromones are very much like an airborne communication system.
While humans are not blatantly sniffing each other's bums, many studies and surveys show we may be subconsciously smelling pheromones to sniff out potential partners. But unfortunately hard evidence has yet to be discovered.
Although scientists haven't pinned down the facts about pheromones, they speculate the presence of pheromones could be picked up with the vomeronasal organ (VMO) when another person sweats or secretes pheromones. This organ is located in our septums and is a part of our olfactory systems, which enables us to smell. Some say that we no longer use this organ and we
must have inherited it from an ancestor, but some believe we actually do use the VMO.
Two kinds of pheromones that the VMO may be able to pick up are releaser and primer pheromones. Releaser pheromones can trigger an immediate behavioral response from another person, such as when a person becomes instantly attracted to another person for no apparent reason. Primer pheromones cause a physiological response, such as women synchronizing menstrual cycles.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE
The most popular primer pheromone evidence involves the synchronization of menstrual cycles.
Martha McClintock, professor and director of the Institute for Mind and Biology at the University of Chicago, was one of the first to question the mystery of synchronized menstruation. In college, she noticed that she and other women in her dormitory were having their periods at the same time, and in 1971 she published her theory of primer pheromones causing the synchronization.
In 1998, McClintock wanted more proof of her findings. Because pheromones are thought to be released from the hairier parts of our bodies, such as the armpits and genitalia, she swabbed odors from the underarms of women who lived with each other. After swabbing, she put the odors under their noses, and two days later, the women were starting to synchronize cycles.
Women are not the only ones who might be able to pick up on pheromones. Men also can catch吩息 of information from women, and a prime place for this is at a strip bar. A lot of releaser pheromones may be produced from the erotic dancers and men may be able to smell them. According to a study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, erotic dancers naturally work their magic on men when they are ovalating, or in other words, when they are more fertile and when their bodies are ready to reproduce. In this study, researchers found that dancers averaged a total of $70 per hour when they were ovalating and $35 when they were on their periods. This all may be because of mood changes and being comfortable, but the same
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