Pheromones are chemical secretions of a species which gives a message to other members of the species. Insects in particular are affected by a number of pheromones, some of which play an important role in sexual arousal and mating.
While the existence of sexual pheromones in humans is still under debate, one can make a strong case that there are many biochemical elements of human sexuality which impact sexual arousal and attraction.
When I was a young adolescent I found myself drawn to a number of females on a very primal level. In these situations other elements such as body type and beauty took a back seat to this animal attraction (magnetism). One young lady in particular had an incredible pull on me.
When not in her presence I could find many faults in her. Though I found some aspects of her looks and body attractive there were many other aspects which I found neutral or even unappealing. She was buxom and had a child like innocence in her blue eyes which I found quite alluring, yet she had a weak chin and her body was rather rather squarish, which was a turn off. Being Italian I usually gravitated towards women with big hips, round butts, and an olive complexion, while this lady was blond and kind of washed out.
Yet, when in her presence I found myself more sexually attracted to her than any other female in my life. The closer the proximity the more drugged and enamored I became. Her scent, the warmth of her body and her smile became surreal and simultaneously arousing and relaxing. When I see a cat in a catnip induces stupor it looks like how I felt every time I was in her presence.
Our relationship never lived up to the feelings it induced in me and I’m very lucky that she had the sense to reject me often enough to where I finally gave up all hope of making her my lifetime mate. During the many years when she was in and out of my romantic life, I found many women who I found more physically attractive and many who gave me more physical pleasure to be with. Though we never fought, we really had nothing in common, and I found myself more compatible with most of my other romantic interests.
Yet since her pull and effect on me were so powerful it had me wonder if she was the person I was meant to be with. When in a relationship women always wanted me to assure them that I loved them more than any other female. More often than not they felt that if I loved them more than anyone else I should find them prettier and more attractive than anyone else. This put me in an odd position since: 1) I did not find the woman I was most drawn to to be particularly pretty and 2) the women I found the most visually pleasing were seldom the one’s I was highly sexually attracted to.
When I was an adolescent boy I found myself sufficiently attracted to a significant percentage of females. I would say that I was physically attracted to at least a third of the girls with whom I went to high school. Now while I could easily state that I had a biochemical attraction to one young lady in particular, I could not say which girl I found the most physically attractive or beautiful. There were so many different types of beauty and attractiveness, and my ability to say one was truly superior to the other was impossible.
I felt that while an initial physical attraction was necessary, the biggest task was building a pleasurable and compatible relationship. Since, from a physical attraction point of view, I could imagine myself having a sexual relationship with a third of the woman I knew, I figured the real test was in building and maintaining the relationship.
I was always perplexed with how selective the girls I knew were about possible dating material. While I wanted to just find someone who wanted to dedicate themselves to trying to make a relationship happen, they talked of finding their ideal man, and how they would wait to find him.
This romantic ideal of women has been talked about in great detail in modern literature, and I will contrast and compare it with the male world of relationships in future posts, yet I will end this post with a few more observations of male sexuality.
I personally think that while women focus on physical beauty, men focus more on sexual attractiveness. We’ve already talked of how powerful the biological imperative is in the life of young men. Sex is on their mind and is the major influence in how they see the world around them, and how they view themselves. The biological imperative has men focus on pleasure rather than beauty, on sexual gratification rather than relationship. It’s not that men don’t want rewarding compatible relationships, it’s that sexual gratification is what is consuming his mind and his body.
The next post will deal with the ramifications of a male viewpoint of sexual relationships having to do with pleasure being contrasted with a female view dominated by the romantic ideal and the quest for beauty.
Jim Guido