What is the root of sexual attraction?

The human mind spends most of its time directing thoughts and actions to choose a suitable pair and create offspring. The transfer of genes to the next generation — early and frequent — is the leading instinct in the animal world. From an evolutionary point of view, reproduction is the most important stage in the development of a species and is primarily based on sexual selection — choosing a partner with the most suitable physical and genetic characteristics to create healthy offspring. These traits give the future generation the best chance of survival, and most of them are visible to the naked eye, but have a stronger meaning in the subconscious.

Beauty, for example, is one of the most striking signs of physical health and fertility. But beauty itself is expressed not only in large muscles in men and large breasts in women – bilateral (bilateral) symmetry is much more important. The lack of a symmetrical balance in the proportions of human traits is interpreted as a sign of a stress factor that the body has not coped with and is perceived as repulsive.

Another attractive characteristic is the ratio of the size of the hips and pelvis: when the circumference of the hips is narrower than the pelvis and men and women are automatically attracted, this is a signal of a good level of sex hormones and physical endurance.

Some factors are invisible and difficult to detect, such as pheromones. These are hormone-like compounds that send chemical signals, but not inside the body, but outside it. According to several scientific studies, women can pick up strong signals from a man’s body odor, for example, about whether they are genetically compatible — the more they are genetically similar, the stronger the attraction.

The only difference in the rule is that they prefer — quite unconsciously — partners who detect various immune system proteins known as MHC (major histocompatibility complex). The combination of genes encoding various properties of MHC gives the next generation a stronger immune system, which automatically makes it attractive for the perception of foreign and other MHC signals.