Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico and author of
The Mating Mind noticed that the use of the (birth control) pill appears to distort the sexual signals that a woman sends, making her appeal less sexy to men.
Miller studied a group of exotic dancers and found that non-pill using dancers made about 50 percent more in tips than dancers on oral contraceptives. In other words, women who were on the pill were only about two-thirds as sexy as women who were not.
quote Miller :
"Women are probably doing something unconsciously and men are responding to it unconsciously. We just don't know whether it has to do with a shift in their psychology, their tone of voice, or if it's more physical, as in the kind of pheromones they're putting out."
The biggest earners in Miller's study were non-pill-using dancers at the time of ovulation. Other studies have shown that men rate women as smelling best when they are at the most fertile point of their menstrual cycles, suggesting that women give off scent-based signals that broadcast their level of fecundity.
Psychology Today, Jan-Feb 2008
