Is That a Whistle in Your Throat or Are You Happy to See Me?

So much for the idea that women have concealed ovulation. Not only do their bodies become more symmetrical, become bigger risk takers, dress more provocatively and become more interested in sex, their voices get higher in pitch as well.

The British journal Biology Letters published a paper from a team at the University of California Los Angeles that claim that women subconsciously raise the pitch of their voices in the two days before ovulation, when they are most fertile. At the other end of the spectrum, their voices are more hoarse near menstruation. A person's voice is an important part of sexual attraction, and women are known to be attracted to men with deep voices. (See: The February 19, 2011 post "Cant Get Enough of Your Love Babe" to see how deep voiced men have more children.) Women were asked to speak into recorders at various points in their cycles, saying "Hello, I'm a student at UCLA." This introduction is the only time that their voices raised pitch. I guess first impressions really are the most important.

Another study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology says that women have a higher pitch when speaking to a man they are attracted to. Forty five women were asked to look at a picture of a masculine looking man and then pretend to leave the following message on an answering machine: "Hi, we met at the bar last night. I was just calling you to see if you wanted to go out sometime. Call me back." They were then asked to repeat the process after looking at the feminized face of a man. A separate question was asked of the women, to determine how attractive they found men on the masculine/feminine spectrum.

The pitch of their voice supported the researchers hypothesis. Women attracted to masculine men spoke in higher tones when leaving them a message and women with a preference for feminized men also spoke to them in higher tones.

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Opposites Dont Attract

Anyone remember the TV show Dharma and Greg? The sitcom about the assistant D.A. who was married to the free spirit child of hippie parents? Do you know any couples like that? Neither do I. There is a reason for that, besides the fact that one of them would end up murdering the other.

A study conducted by Dr. Stephen T. Emlen of Cornell University tested participants in a survey measuring how people saw themselves in ten categories. They included health, faithfulness, devotedness, closeness to family, desire to raise children and qualities of raising children. Then they were asked to judge how important those traits were in a partner. The researchers found that the higher a person rated themselves on a certain trait, the more they wanted their spouse to have those traits.

Its possible that having a mate with similar goals and expectations makes for an easier bond and more successful child raising.

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Hot Fun in the Summer Time

It was a nasty winter this year in northern Illinois, with Snowmageddon hitting us hard in early February. As I shoveled out the driveway, I was sure we would have snow until July. Amazingly, it all melted within a few weeks. The rest of the winter was easier but it is still a shock to finally have warm weather. That and the fact that I just finished my first semester of grad school puts me in a better mood. One of my co-workers asked me if I was going to go woman hunting now that I have free time. "It's breeding season," he said with a smirk.

I've never heard of spring being called breeding season, but its an interesting idea. (I would have thought of college as breeding season.) I forgot about the comment, until I saw a video from HotforWords on YouTube. (I mentioned Miss Marina Orlova in the October 13, 2010, post "Big Boobs and Bigger IQs.") She explains the background of the term "spring fever" and says it came to mean a sexual awakening in the spring months.

Ok, now I was curious. So I found this article from The Times that explains how greater concentrations of sunlight change hormone levels, causing people in the upper half of the northern hemisphere to feel more energetic and sexual in the spring. The retina, the part of the eye connected to the brain by the brain stem, has reactions to the differing amounts of sunlight, which causes hormonal changes. Melatonin is especially vulnerable to changes in sunlight. This hormone regulates sleep patterns, and the more sunlight, the less melatonin is made.

People have less sex in the winter, and that leads to a build up of sperm, says Michael Smolenski, a professor of chronobiology at the University of Texas. “In sexually active males, sperm count is affected by two factors, environmental temperature and sexual activity. When men are sexually active, sperm count goes down; when they’re not sexually active, they’re not using it, so it goes up," he says. He says this may explain why there are more unplanned pregnancies in the spring than the rest of the year.

He also says that conception rates are high in the late summer and early fall, due to men's testosterone levels being the highest.

Blogger Musings:
Ok, let's say pregnancy rates do increase in the late summer, say August. If a woman gets pregnant in August, she will give birth in May. In May its warm and food is becoming more plentiful. The parents will have more food and the baby will be less likely to freeze to death, as it wasn't born in the cold months.