The smell of love

A Manchester professor believes we subconsciously sniff out the genetics of suitable partners.

‘Compatibility’ genes are disease-fighters, and may “influence how our brains are wired, how attractive we are, even how likely we are to reproduce.”

In his new book ‘The Compatibility Gene’, Professor Daniel M Davis argues that humans are attracted to the smell of those with different compatibility genes to themselves, giving genetic offspring the best chance at fighting disease.

“Relationships are very complicated and there’s lots of ways in which people interact, so it’s just an aspect of that… it’s kind of a glimpse into this wonder of who you are,” said Professor Davis.

The basis comes from Claus Wedekind’s 1994 ‘smelly T-shirt’ experiment, where male students wore a T-shirt for two nights, avoiding anything that might alter their natural smell.

The tops were then put in boxes, and smelt by female students who ranked the smell according to intensity, pleasure and sexiness.

Results showed women preferred T-shirts worn by men with different compatibility genes to their own.

Strong evidence also suggests that mice select mates by smelling urine to detect different compatibility genes.

Davis and his wife underwent a DNA test to analyse their own genetic compatibility.

Although they were a match, Davis said “human relationships are very complicated, and you can’t just do the genetic test and find out if that’s going to be the right partner for you.”

“It turned out I had a particularly rare set of these genes. According to those controversial experiments, if I had a rare set of genes and people were looking for different genes then I would be attractive to lots of people. Which is definitely fun.”

“There’s no hierarchy. Otherwise you can get into a sort of racist situation, but we’re not in that position because actually the whole thing is a celebration of diversity.”

So should those looking for love avoid aftershave and let their natural scent lure the ladies? Davis is skeptical: “I wouldn’t really recommend that as a strategy.”

“It’s not really something that changes your life tomorrow… it’s kind of like, pretty cool.”