A study by the Weizmann Institute in Israel says that women’s tears are a turnoff for men, as scientists claim they have demonstrated that emotional signals are chemically encoded in tears and reduce the sexual arousal in men.
In a test, male volunteers sniffed tears or a saline solution applied to them under their nostrils on a pad. The next day, the test was repeated with the men sniffing the opposite of what they sniffed the day before.
The men couldn’t tell the difference between the smells, but researchers were able to determine that men’s estimates of sadness or empathy were not influenced. However, researchers did find that the tears did negatively affect their sexual appetite.
“The most surprising part is that it reduces sexual arousal, might be intuitive but this really surprised us,” researcher Idan Frumin told Voice of America. “We use some kind of chemical communication, probably through our noses.”
Another test had the male volunteers watching emotional movies, after sniffing the tears or saline solution, while attached to fMRI machine that allowed researchers to measure brain activity. The scans from the machine revealed a significant reduction in activity levels according to the report.
“Physiologically the finding makes sense,” Dr. Igor Galynker, a psychiatrist at Beth Israel Medical Center with a background in organic chemistry, told AOL Health. “It could be that the odorless tears go into the olfactory system and bind to some receptor that alters hormone levels.”