ROMANTIC INTERESTresults showed that male orgasm was associated with a rush of activity in
reward-related regions – no surprise there. Less expected was a drop in
activity in the amygdala, perhaps reflecting a lowering of vigilance, and
an increase in activity in the cerebellum, the cauliflower-like structure at
the back of the brain that’s traditionally associated with motor coordina-
tion. Holstege’s team thought that the latter finding suggested that the
cerebellum also plays a role in emotions. In research published in 2006
the roles were reversed, and twelve men stimulated their brain-scanned
female partners to orgasm. The most striking finding here was that the
women’s climax was associated with a sudden drop of activity across a
Evidence-based seduction
If reading this chapter has got you in the mood for some lurve, here are
some evidence-based tips to help you out.
If you’re a man seeking a woman, use chat-up lines that reveal
your helpfulness, generosity, athleticism and culture. Psychologist
Christopher Bale asked over 200 students, including 142 females, to read
chat-up scenarios, and these were the kind of lines rated as most likely
to succeed, whereas jokes, empty compliments and sexual references
were given the thumbs down. For women seeking a man, research by
psychologist Joel Wade suggests you should be as direct as possible.
Eighty undergraduates said that lines such as “Want to meet up later
tonight?” were more likely to succeed than subtler attempts such as
“Hello, how is it going?” or the humorously suggestive approach, as in
“Your shirt matches my bedspread, basically you belong in my bed”.
Apart from deploying the right verbal weaponry, other research
suggests that wooing skills could be helped by lightly touching your
preferred date on the arm. Psychologist Nicolas Guegen recruited
a good-looking man to approach 120 women in a nightclub over a
period of three weeks, and ask them to dance. Of the 60 women he
touched lightly on the arm, 65 percent agreed to a dance, compared
with just 43 percent of the 60 women whom he asked without making
any physical contact.
If the silky chat-up lines and the sneaky arm-touch don’t work,
you could try recruiting some friends of the opposite sex to help you
out. Benedict Jones and his colleagues at Aberdeen University’s Face
Research Laboratory showed that women rate a man as more attrac-
tive after they’ve seen another woman smiling at him. Jones said this
suggests our preference for a man’s face is affected by social cues
we pick up from how other people look at him. Apparently, a similar
phenomenon occurs in the animal kingdom – for example female
zebra finches prefer a male who they’ve previously seen paired with
another female.