The perception of gender in two allegedly sex-specific body odor compounds MSH and HMHA

Abstract

MSH and HMHA are two sexually dimorphic compounds present in human sweat. While MSH is more typically found in women, HMHA is more typically found in men. Here we investigated whether it was possible to explicitly identify these two compounds as masculine or feminine. We also investigated whether gender and age differences would point towards a possible role of these compounds in opposite-sex attractiveness. To this end, we analyzed the perceptual ratings of 2’716 individuals (62% female) aged between 6 and 90, collected during a one-year museum exhibition. Analyses with Bayesian mixed-effects models revealed that only women rated MSH as more feminine than HMHA. However, this effect remains very small and Masculinity/Femininity ratings are extremely variable among the population. Women also rated the odors are more intense and less pleasant than men did. Age differences reflected the effect of increasing experience with body odors, such as an increase in odor familiarity. The loss of olfactory abilities with age, i.e. presbyosmia, was also reflected by decreased perceived intensity and unpleasantness (at least for HMHA). Overall, the results do not allow us to argue in favor of a function of MSH and/or HMHA in male-female attractiveness, but are in line with the known gender and age differences in odor perception. Future studies on the olfactory determinants of human attractiveness would benefit from the identification of new sexually dimorphic compounds and from using designs were the effect of odors are tested more implicitly.