News Psychology

Lonely teardrops

Just whiffing women's tears of sadness dampens men’s libido

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Crying women may literally turn men off. Odorless chemical signals in a woman’s waterworks lessen any stirrings of sexual interest in a guy who whiffs her tear-stained cheeks, a new study suggests.

TEARJERKER A woman captures a tear in a vial while watching a sad film clip. In a new experiment, men who sniffed her tears and those of other women experienced self-reported and physiological declines in sexual arousal.