Birth control pills make men more attractive to women

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
More than 100 million women all over the world use birth control pills to prevent unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, but recently published research has revealed that the contraceptive has an unexpected side effect: It makes men appear more attractive to women.
In the study, psychologists from Florida State University in Tallahassee and Southern Methodist University in Dallas followed 118 women who were on the pill and planning to get married, and found that the brides-to-be expressed higher overall satisfaction with their relationships than they did after they got married and stopped using the oral contraceptive.
Contraceptives could have an emotional impact
Oddly, however, the study (which was published last November in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) found that the phenomenon was only true if the women’s would-be husbands were less attractive than average, LiveScience reported. If the groom was described as good looking, the women would be more satisfied after stopping the hormones.
“Given that women [tend to] prioritize attractiveness differently when they are on versus off [hormonal contraceptives], I thought that going on or off [hormonal contraceptives] should affect how happy they are with their partner,” lead investigator Michelle Russell, a graduate student at the FSU Department of Psychology at the time, explained to the website.
The link between using the pill and perception of their fiancé’s attractiveness may be due to the impact of  the progesterone and estrogen in the contraceptive on a woman’s fertility, leading to changes in what those women are seeking in a mate. Since the pill has an impact on hormones, it has a potential to affect someone emotionally, Discovery News added in an article.
Importance of good looks changes when not on the pill
Russell explained that she and her colleagues wanted to better understand how the attractiveness of a woman’s husband may be interlinked with her birth control to affect sexual satisfaction, and found that those who used the same contraceptives as when they entered a relationship expressed higher satisfaction levels than those who changed midway through.
For instance, LiveScience explained, women that started dating their husbands while on the pill and remained on it during their marriage were more sexually satisfied on average than those said they used the pill when they started dating their husbands, but quit after their honeymoon. Also, women who were on hormonal birth control at the start of the relationship became less satisfied with their marriage after stopping the treatment only if they had unattractive spouses.
The study appears to indicate that women experiencing natural menstrual cycles find good looks to be more attractive, and thus are more satisfied after stopping the pill if they have a handsome husband. Conversely, women who are married to guys who aren’t so good looking become more interested in looks after stopping the pill, and thus find themselves disappointed in their spouse’s appearance, Russell and her fellow researchers discovered.
The results are based on a four-year study of 48 married couples, as well as a 12-month study of another 70 husbands and wives. Participants were asked about their contraceptive use and their overall martial and sexual satisfaction. Impartial third-party judges were recruited to measure the attractiveness levels of the husbands based on photographs.
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