Scented speed dating’s the thing

The Lynx effect is hampering the primal human mating process, an academic says.

Associate Professor Phil Bishop, of Otago University’s department of zoology, said modern obsession with perfume was masking human pheromones needed to detect a genetically suitable partner.

‘‘Deodorants and perfumes mask our natural scent; our pheromones,’’ he said. ‘‘Those pheromones are needed to find a mate.’’ Prof Bishop said animals followed their nose to a mate using pheromones, which helped to prevent inbreeding.

Smell is dictated by genes that influence immune response.

This was nature’s way of preventing inbreeding and preserving genetic adaptations.

Martha McClintock, founder of the Institute for Mind and Biology at Chicago University, said people preferred the smell of somebody who had a different genetic makeup.

‘‘Humans can pick up this incredibly small chemical difference with their noses,’’ she said.

Americans had reconnected with their primal instincts by holding pheromones parties.

This amounted to scented speed dating, she said.

Singles were asked to sleep in a T-shirt that was then placed in a clear plastic bag.

Guests at the events, held so far in New York and Los Angeles, would smell the T-shirts.

They would then select the ones they were most attracted to.