New research shows how face shape relates to sexuality

The shape of your face might be giving away more information about your sex life than you ever imagined.

A new research study shows that men and women with shorter, wider faces tend to have a stronger sex drive than people with faces of other dimensions.

Perhaps, after reading the study, people will be digitally squashing their Tinder profile pictures to portray a more voracious sexual appetite, or perhaps elongating their picture to appear less one-track minded.

The study, led by Dr. Steven Arnocky, associate professor of psychology at Nipissing University, investigates the role that facial features play in sexual relationships, mate selection, and the possibility of cheating.  Titled:Facial Width-to-Height Ratio Predicts Sex Drive, Sociosexuality, and Intended Infidelity, the paper is published in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour.

Dr. Arnocky’s study adds to a growing body of research that has shown certain psychological and behavioural traits are associated with particular facial width-to-height ratios (known as FWHR). Square-faced men (who therefore have a high FWHR) tend to be more aggressive, more dominant, and are perceived as being more attractive as short-term sexual partners than their thinner and longer-faced counterparts. Researchers attributed differences in facial proportions to variations in testosterone levels during particular developmental periods, such as puberty. This hormone plays a role in forming adult sexual attitudes and desires.

In this paper, Dr. Arnocky and his colleagues report two separate studies conducted among students from two Canadian cities. In the first, 145 undergraduates who were in romantic relationships at the time completed questionnaires about their interpersonal behaviour and sex drive. The researchers also used photographs of the participants to determine their facial width-to-height ratio. The second study involved 314 students and was an extended version of the first study, which included questions about participants’ sexual orientation, the chances of them considering infidelity, and their sociosexual orientation. The latter is a measure of how comfortable participants are with the concept of casual sex that does not include love or commitment.

According to Arnocky, their findings suggest that FWHR can be used to predict a measure of sexuality in both sexes. Men and women with a high FWHR (therefore, square and wide faces) reported a greater sex drive than others. It was also found that men with a larger FWHR not only have a higher sex drive than others, but also are more easy-going when it comes to casual sex and would consider being unfaithful to their partners.

"Together, these findings suggest that facial characteristics might convey important information about human sexual motivations", says Arnocky. “However, there are certainly cultural and social factors that come into play as well.  We can’t simply look at someone with a short, wide face and know with any degree of certainty that they have a high sex drive.”

So, maybe don’t change that Tinder profile yet.