“Women did not fantasize about their primary mate any more during the high-fertility phase of their cycle than during other times in their cycle,” said Steven Gangestad, professor of psychology at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, lead author of the study. “But there was a 60% to 85% increase in women’s ratings for attraction to and fantasies about people other than their partner in their high-fertility phase.... We don’t know if this happens for all women.”
The jump in fantasies about men other than a current lover “impressively supports our hypothesis” that women in their highest stage of fertility are shopping around for the best genetic benefits for their potential offspring, said Christine Garver, a University of New Mexico doctoral student in psychology and co-author of the study. “The results indicate that maybe ovulation may not be completely concealed. It would be nice to know exactly how the mechanism works but we don’t.” Strangely, the women reported that while they felt more sexual in their fertile phase and initiated sex more often with their primary partner, they did not feel more sexual interest in him.
“Women have reported having greater sexual desire during ovulation for the last 30 years,” said Gangestad. “Women feel more sexual and it appears that they find themselves attracted to men other than their partner but they are not necessarily going to pursue it.”
“I don’t think men or women have any conscious awareness that they are behaving any differently,” said Garver. “I don’t think that men are aware and thinking, ‘Oh, my partner is ovulating now so I think that she is interested in other men.’”
In a University of Texas at Austin study released last year, a psychologist asked men to sniff T-shirts that had been worn by women at varying stages of their menstrual cycle, women whom the men had never seen. When the men were asked to select the T-shirts that were most pleasing, they chose those donned by women ovulating or in the fertile phase. Men, it appears, have an inherent ability to detect whether a woman is fertile.
Ovulation offers its own advantages to women. In two separate studies conducted by Gangestad and Thornhill in 1998 and 1999, respectively, women during the fertile phase of their cycle were asked to smell T-shirts worn by men the women never saw. When the women were asked to choose the T-shirts most pleasing in scent, women who were in their fertile phase chose T-shirts worn by men with the most symmetrical physical features. (Body and facial symmetry are considered markers of good health and superior genes.) Gangestad and Thornhill theorized that women are able to select the most symmetrical men during their fertile cycle when it counts most, when they are most likely to conceive if they have sex. Other studies have found that women also prefer more masculine facial features during the brief fertile phase.
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