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The Love Drugs (II)
by Maris Lemieux [This is the second part of our ongoing series on aphrodisiacs. For our article on ingestible aphrodisiacs, check our archives for "The Love Drugs (I)"]

It's hard to consider aphrodisiacs without running headlong into the latest talk of pheromones. You can go online and find products containing pheromones, and their ads make all those wonderful claims you've longed to hear -- a perfume designed to attract men, colognes to turn women on, after shave to make you sexy, odorless ointment to increase your self-confidence. The ads come complete with sound sounding science. Androstadienones, one ad says, have proven to drive animals wild, and studies have now shown that human beings respond to the same pheromones. Both statements are true. The hidden non sequitur is that "responding" is not the same as "being driven wild." Studies have not shown that humans are driven wild; in fact, studies aren't sure what to call the results they've come up with.

Of all the pheromones being tested lately, a pheromone given off by men, androstadienone, is most puzzling. Women respond well to it, for example, they'll become less tense, their sense of smell or their ability to focus may increase. And Martha McClintock (she's the lady who discovered that the menstrual cycles women living together will tend sync up) showed that androstadienone does have an effect on those pretty color patterns you see on brain PET scans. But events that happen on a brain chemistry level aren't necessarily exciting in the realm of behavior. This means that if you dab yourself with androstadienone cologne, don't count too much on your lady ripping her clothes off and jumping you.

After androstadienone there are dozens of pheromones waiting their turn to surprise us -- one study looked at 16 of them. Even the ones that have been studied are under-studied. And there's no coordination between studies. So one study may look at one pheromone's effect on women's menstruation, another study may look another pheromone's effect on a baby's ability to detect its mother's breast milk. Much confusion results. Androstenone, a favorite study subject, is found in the saliva of the wild pig, and for the pig its presence can induce mating behavior. In fact, a similar chemical was recently found in the truffle, which may explain why it's wise to follow a wild pig when hunting for truffles. Yet, androstenone's true effects on human mating behavior are still unproven.

So while the research continues to verify pheromone effects, these effects are often minute, or unequally distributed, or unpredictable, or inexplicable. It's probably going to take quite a bit more research, targeted research, before you can go into the store and order up the exact love potion for "instant horniness," "fast-acting charisma," or "addictive attraction."

One pheromone with promising study results is Alpha Androstenol. The "andro" part of the word tells you that this pheromone affects male characteristics. Yet this particular pheromone is made both by women and men. Women carry it in their hair. It can be found in male sweat, especially under the armpits, the sweat of adrenaline rush (called apocrine sweat). It is also made in both the testes and the ovaries. In fact, some scientists associate it more with women than men, and most studies show that it affects both sexes in a positive way. What they know about alpha androstenol is that when woman are exposed to this pheromone, they tend to be more willing to initiate social contact, to want the company of men, to be more receptive when men approach them. As for men exposed to the substance, they were more likely to see women as attractive. Who knows if women feel more confident in their social skins because of the pheromones, or because of what they sense the pheromones are doing to the men around them. Is it making women feel attractive? (Women have more sexual desire when they feel attractive.) Is it attracting men? Or both, and in what combination?

Another thing to consider is that laboratory pheromones ultimately break down and begin to merge with your own pheromone signatures. Everyone's signature is unique. And researchers find these signatures particularly intriguing because they think these pheromone prints help you in choosing a mate; they're like puzzle pieces looking for their fit. You might be attracted to a mate whose pheromone imprint is complementary to your own; yours lacks what your mate's has, and vice versa. Once synthetic pheromones have merged with your own, who knows what new blueprint you are sending? The new combination may not be the best thing for the happy couple. This makes long-term pheromone use even more of a crapshoot.

One thing that has muddied the waters on the issue is that many of the groups doing research have a vested interest in the outcome. Often they're marketing products with pheromones in them and they're looking for results to support their goods. For example, McClintock and other researchers feel that psychological factors strongly influence this connection between pheromones and behavior. And the human being finds even social influences as powerful as physical ones. In other words, while the presence of pheromones may heighten your experience or promote a sense of well-being, it's not necessarily going to get you into bed.

If all this is too baffling to handle, probably the best approach is to experiment yourself. If it works for you, why not?

Even so, there are ways to be a smart shopper. Some hormones, such as beta androstenol and possibly androstadienone, may have more to do with territorial marking, a male behavior we've probably witnessed with a household pet. If you come across a cologne or perfume boasting any kind of pheromone (ads are more than happy to quote the names of pheromones, since they sound so potently scientific), do a little research.

If you learn the pheromone can be found in male urine, that's a bad sign. Rather than convincing your mate she wants to have sex with you, you may be convincing her that you want to pee on her furniture! Or in the case of the same pheromone in a woman's perfume, instead of giving her beau the hot eyes of passion, she may be giving him an irresistible urge to fight with the male members of her household. Of course, the degree to which people are affected is rather slight in comparison to say, testosterone injections, so you're not really looking at such dramatic reactions. Look for subtle, overall sensations, perhaps of well-being or discomfort, rather than for extremes like passion, lust, and hump the nearest pole.

Right now in our understanding, it's probably best to separate scent from pheromone. If you want to try pheromones, try them alone (they usually come suspended in an ethyl solution). Many people say scent is a distraction. Musk, for example, is a scent associated with male pheromones, but some studies have shown that its presence can make both men and women uncomfortable -- it is behaving more like a territorial marker. Also, if the research is correct which tells us there's a separate sense organ for detecting pheromones, then trying to appeal to two distinct senses at once (scent and pheromone) only complicates your chances for success.

Scents with aphrodisiacal qualities are a different matter. Look for the skinny on sexy scents in upcoming "Advice" columns.