How Do You Get Lots of Women to Smell Lots of Sweaty T-Shirts?

...say it's in the name of science.

So I’m sick...and it’s Jamie’s fault. In high school, we used to think that we were immuned to one another: I would get sick and he would spend all this time with me and inevitably come in contact with my sick germs but never get sick himself. I have since learned that he is immuned to me...but unfortunately, I am not immuned to him. * COUGH *

This talk of illness and smelling brains reminded me of a conversation I had with a prof sometime last year. He had just been to some kind of conference where they had been discussing the role of immune systems in human attraction. Interesting stuff!

As we’ve known for a long long time, smell plays a significant role in mate attraction. But, what people find attractive varies from person to person. Apparently, what shapes odor preference is actually one’s own immune system – thus, people will think someone with a very different immune system (with fewer overlaps to one’s own immunities) is more attractive.

So in some study, they put women in a room with t-shirts that had been worn by different men. Of course, the women were given an unworn t-shirt to smell first (a control). Then they went around and smelled all the shirts and chose which ones they thought smelled the “sexiest” or most pleasant. On the whole, women chose the t-shirts belonging to men who’s major histocompatibility complex varied the most from their own. Evolutionarily-speaking it makes sense since that means their progeny will be invincible in their smelliness.

I guess that means that I’m not at all attracted to Jamie, since I get sick when he is sick (meaning we both lack the immunity), but that he’s attracted to me (since, things that make me sick – he’s immune to). Or wait, do I have that backwards? Now, I’m confused.

Perhaps this theory is beans and all my bio friends can set me straight. In the meantime...I think it’s sorta cool.