We joke a lot about the fact that single guys kinda stink, but it turns out there’s some scientific basis to that opinion, particularly when it comes to their actual smell. A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology discovered some pretty interesting things about the scents of men who aren’t in relationships.
- Coupled up guys have less B.O. To come to this conclusion, researchers at Macquarie University called upon 82 straight women to rate body odor of 91 male participants, all of whom were between the ages of 18 and 35. The guys had to get nice and sweaty as part of the experiment, and then the women were left to sniff the pits of their t-shirts. Nice.
- Single dudes stink. The women rated the single guys higher in the body odor department, while the male participants who were in relationships weren’t quite as stinky (though they did still emit a bit of funk, just not quite as much).
- The single guys also seemed more masculine. Part of the experiment required the women to look at photographs of the male participants in order to rate their perceived masculinity. The single guys, more often than not, were seen by the women to be more macho. Go figure!
- The researchers weren’t surprised by this result. In fact, they kind of predicted it would turn out this way. “Consistent with the hypothesis, single men’s B.O smelled stronger than partnered men’s B.O and single men’s faces were rated as more masculine than partnered men’s faces,” they wrote. That being said, they’d like to carry out more research to find out why that is.
- The same participants may be called back again to answer more questions. “A specific aim of future research would be to determine whether testosterone levels are responsible for the differences in BO and face ratings between single and partnered men found in the current study,” the researchers explained. I don’t know about you, but that’s one study I’d like to read.
[H/T Men’s Health]
