How Does the Smell of Other People Affect Our Attraction to Them?

There is such a concept – a set of tissue compatibility (“histocompatibility”) genes. This is important in organ transplantation – the donor and recipient need to have these sets as close to each other as possible, otherwise rejection will begin. On the other hand, spouses conceiving children should have sets of tissue compatibility genes that differ from each other as much as possible – this guarantees that the offspring will not have a haploid set of the same nonviable mutations in a single gene. The partner’s smell helps us distinguish their set of histocompatibility genes. The peptides that we release from the skin in the form of our own unique smell (not to be confused with the smell of bacteria decomposing our sweat) carry complete information about our gene set.

Moreover, under ordinary conditions, the smell of another person with the same or a similar set of histocompatibility genes as ours seems more pleasant to us. And when a woman chooses perfume for herself, she turns out to be unconsciously imitating her own smell – simply, as it were, intensifying it with perfume (this has been proven). We like the smell of our children (specifically our own), and we enjoy smelling their hair – because in that smell we recognize nuances of our own smell (after all, at least half of their set of histocompatibility genes is the same as ours). We prefer the smell of people who are genetically similar to us, and this is a key element in the natural mechanism for distinguishing “self-other”.

And again, we choose friends by the similarity of their smell to our own, that is, those who are genetically close to us – this, too, has been scientifically proven. Behind all this is an important evolutionary mechanism promoting the reproduction of one’s own genes. After all, a friend is almost a relative, a person for whom we are prepared to stand up and fight, even risking our lives. And all for the sake of ensuring that their genes continue to live (and therefore, in part, our genes in them as well – since in many respects our friend resembles us).

But it turns out that attraction to “one’s own smell” suddenly and sharply gives way to attraction to the “opposite smell” when a person chooses a mate. This is because the opposite evolutionary rule begins to operate here – the more NOT SIMILAR the sexual partner’s smell is to our own, the healthier our offspring will be (because in this case they will be guaranteed against close-relative mating, with its risk of the appearance of nonviable sets of identical pathological alleles in children’s genes).

Psychological attraction to duals – this is precisely the same thing as selecting a sexual partner by smell. Duals differ from us genetically to the maximum extent. Conflictors also differ, but not as strongly (the genes responsible for Questimity-Declatimity, as well as for Constructivism-Emotivism, are identical between conflictors and us), so sexual attraction to conflictors also occurs, but it is far less pronounced. By contrast, sexual attraction to psychological Identicals ALMOST never occurs at all. Although they are the ones most often chosen as close friends! It remains to understand this important “ALMOST”.

During sexual arousal, a person instinctively begins to be drawn to bearers of a smell dissimilar to their own. In women, this attraction becomes especially acute on the days of ovulation. But contraceptives taken in tablet form, which suppress ovulation, simultaneously suppress this attraction to a dissimilar smell (again, proven!). Therefore, while taking contraceptives, a woman often chooses a partner who is genetically similar to herself. And when she stops taking contraceptives – she suddenly discovers that she has chosen as her companion a FRIEND, almost a blood relative, rather than a SEXUAL PARTNER. And sexual disappointment follows…

And another interesting point. Everything stated above, it turns out, also applies in most cases to homosexual couples. According to the statistics collected by the author, they too are formed much more often not according to the principle of psychological identity, but according to the principle of dual complementarity, that is, here too there is attraction to a set of histocompatibility genes maximally dissimilar to ours.

But as for FRIENDS, everyone (both heterosexuals and homosexuals) chooses them primarily according to the principle of maximum psychological similarity (and biological similarity). Therefore, friendship pairs of Identicals are among the statistical leaders. Yes, among opposite-sex pairs, “pure friendship” also occasionally occurs between duals (at least, that is how it is claimed). But it must be understood – here there is almost always a “sexual twist” hidden from themselves, and therefore there is a risk that sooner or later the friendship that has begun will be continued in a shared bed.

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REFERENCES ON THE TOPIC:

ON THE FACT THAT OUR FAVORITE SMELLS AND PERFUMES COPY OUR OWN SET OF HISTOCOMPATIBILITY GENES:

Milinski M, 2001 Evidence for MHC-correlated perfume preferences in humans. Behav. Ecol. 12, 140–149.

ON THE FACT THAT SEXUAL ATTRACTION IS STRONGER THE MORE THE PARTNERS’ SETS OF HISTOCOMPATIBILITY GENES (MHC) DIFFER:

MHC-dependent mate preferences in humans, Proceedings of Biological Science, 260, 1995, no. 1359 (1995): 245–249.

ON THE FACT THAT WOMEN PREFER THE SMELL OF PARTNERS WITH DISSIMILAR MHC, BUT WHEN TAKING CONTRACEPTIVES THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT OCCURS:

MHC-correlated odour preferences in humans and the use of oral contraceptives Proc. R. Soc. B 2008 275 2715-2722