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Pastimes : Another Good Reason Not To Be Married -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (5402)	6/24/1999 6:05:00 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6545

Women's Taste in Men Depend on Stages of Menstrual Cycle, Scientists Say The face of Mr. Right may change from week to week, according to a new study that tracked women's preferences for male features at different stages of the menstrual cycle. When women are more likely to conceive, they are more receptive to men with more rugged, "masculine features." a team of Scottish and Japanese researchers concluded in a paper to be published Thursday in the journal Nature. During the other three weeks of the month, when the odds of getting pregnant are lower, including during the menstrual period, women choose faces that are smoother and more "feminine," the researchers said. Dr. David Perrett, a psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the research was meant "to reconcile some of the contradictions in the field." "From the biological point of view, masculinity is great," Perrett said. "That's what females of other species go for, things like big horns or bright feathers." But earlier research had indicated the opposite in humans. "When you asked women what they wanted, they went for men who were more feminine," he said. Scientists had posited an evolutionary explanation. Human children take longer to raise than most animals. That might make "good genes," linked in animals to more pronounced masculine features, less important than characteristics like stability and supportiveness more associated with feminine qualities, they had speculated. In the first stage of the recent experiment, researchers showed 39 Japanese women composite photos of men that had been blended to represent more masculine features, jutting chin, prominent eyebrows, or more feminine ones. The women's responses were compared with their stage in the menstrual cycle. When the chances of conception were low, women preferred faces that were 15 percent to 20 percent more feminine, a gap that fell to 8 percent more feminine just before and after ovulation, the peak period of fertility. By contrast, a control group of women who were taking contraceptive pills, which control the hormonal cycle, stuck to whatever preference they had without variation over the course of a month. They, too, preferred more feminine men. In a second study, researchers created a computer composite male face that women could manipulate to make more or less masculine and asked 65 British women to alter a composite face to one they would find most attractive for a short-term sexual relationship, and to one they would prefer for the long run. The quiz was repeated weekly for a month. When women were asked to think about a fling, the gap between high and low fertility times remained wide. On the other hand, women's picks for a mate for the long haul were consistent throughout the menstrual cycle, and tended to be moderately feminine. In their paper, the researchers conceded that one implication of their findings was likely to be controversial: that evolution favors females who follow "a mixed mating strategy," choosing "a partner whose appearance signals cooperation in parental care while occasionally pursuing short-term relationships (when conception is most likely) with a male whose appearance indicates good genes."