Women Feel More Attractive Around Ovulation (Episode 603)

Episode 603

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

In today’s episode, we are going to be diving into a field that I find so interesting, this field of evolutionary biology, where they’re asking all of these really interesting questions about our hormones and how they affect our behavior. Do women change their behavior around ovulation? Are men more attracted to us around ovulation? All these types of things. And of course, I think one of the most interesting and intriguing studies that has been done in this area I’ve talked about on the podcast many times, which is the stripper study where they actually measured the attractiveness in terms of tips. So they were looking at how men were responding to women depending on where they were in their cycle compared to women who were on birth control who then are not cycling. And so of course, we’ll link that episode in the show notes page because that’s super interesting. But today’s study is a little bit different because it’s not actually looking at men’s responses to women. It’s actually looking at how women rate themselves in terms of their attractiveness and actually also their grooming behavior if they change the way that they’re presenting themselves. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

So this is a relatively recent study coming out in 2021. The title is Women Feel More Attractive Before Ovulation: Evidence From a Large-Scale Online Diary Study. So what’s great about this study is that the researchers really aimed to answer a lot of the questions that we haven’t necessarily had answers to by gathering a larger sample size so that the results are more significant and give us more insight into what’s really going on. So in this particular study, the researchers had a group of 872 women, 580 of them who were cycling naturally, and 292 who were using hormonal contraceptives. So they were actually then comparing cycling women to non-cycling women to see if they could identify any patterns. And by the title of the study, you can see what they were kind of looking at. They’re kind of looking at how women are actually feeling about themselves, if they’re feeling more attractive, and then also within the study results, they were looking at some of the activities and actions that women were taking to see if their behavior changed, as I mentioned. And so the participants in the study were between ages 18 and 49, so of that reproductive age. And the participants were completing daily reports and answering specific questions about these topics for 70 consecutive days. So depending on the length of the cycle, that may encompass about two menstrual cycles. I mean, it may not. And they included women whose cycles were kind of between 20 and 40 days is what they were saying.

So I think unsurprisingly, the researchers did find that there was a link between where women were in their cycles and how they were feeling about themselves. Potentially how it plays out in certain areas might have been a little bit different to what they thought. But for any one of you who’s listening who does track your cycles, I feel like studies like this, and maybe for women who don’t track their cycles, studies like this might be really kind of like, oh my goodness, I had no idea. But for women who have been cycling naturally and tracking their cycles for, you know, a significant period of time, I feel like many of these studies kind of reinforce a lot of what we already know and also provide some specificity around what we know.

So one thing that’s really interesting about this study is that they were not looking to confirm ovulation by the day. So they didn’t actually do LH testing, which is pretty standard for research that is looking at the menstrual cycle. Instead, they used a different method to kind of estimate where women would be in their cycle. So they calculated backwards by counting from the confirmed menstrual period and they kind of did some math to estimate where these women were in their cycles. So I would say given the nature of the study and what they were trying to do, I think that it’s reasonable that they did it that way. But of course, for all of us who are in the weeds about the cycle, there’s always going to be an argument for me about we would get more robust results if we actually had women tracking their cycles and we were able to better identify when ovulation was and better estimate it based on BBT data or luteinizing hormone data. Because as we know, every bleed isn’t necessarily a true menstrual period. There is a such thing as an anovulatory bleed. So some of the data could be skewed in that way. And of course, the luteal phase is not always standard. There’s a bit of variability in luteal phase length. So of course there are situations where maybe these estimates weren’t right on point. But again, given the nature of the study and what they were trying to do, I do think it’s reasonable for them to do that. And also given the sample size, given that they had 872 women, 580 who were naturally cycling. So almost 600 women who are naturally cycling. I mean, are we teaching them all how to track their cycles and having them track their BBT? That would add an element and potentially a cost. And also, if they were being so stringent, they may have to actually remove a lot of the data for women who didn’t comply. So I just wanted to make a comment on that because I do think it’s always interesting to see how researchers try to account for this issue, which is how do we identify ovulation and if we’re looking specifically at that fertile window, how are we defining that?

So with this study, they are having these women write and answer questions on a daily basis so that they get this sense of how they’re feeling at different times of their cycle. And what they did find was that there was a strong ovulatory increase for the cycling women in how they perceived their own attractiveness and how they perceived their own sexual desire. So when they were tracking this data, they did find a significant uptick in terms of how confident these women were feeling about themselves and their level of attractiveness. And this is interesting because there’s a lot of different research that has been done about this. So I think that one thing to note is that for many women who are cycling naturally over the years, just working in this field, I think it’s safe to say that many of us do find that there is a change in our interest level in terms of sexual activity around ovulation. Many women find that they may be more interested in sex. They may feel more interested in engaging with their partner, maybe just more receptive to the advances of their partner during that time. So that is a real phenomenon. But I think the nuance there is that it doesn’t mean that it’s only around ovulation that you are going to want to engage in any type of sexual activity. So there are studies that have showed that if you look across the menstrual cycle, while there may be this uptick around ovulation in that fertile window, it doesn’t mean that there’s just no desire at any other time. And there are other times in the cycle where women have that desire. But I’ve always kind of seen that consistency in real world experiences where many women do report that they naturally feel more inclined to engage in sexual activity around that time.

What’s interesting about this study, though, is that they weren’t only looking at a woman’s desire for sex. They were also looking at how she perceived her attractiveness and also if she changed her behavior, if she was going to kind of do her hair or dress differently or those kinds of things. And so what the researchers found was that there was an increase in what they called grooming behavior. So making a bit more of an effort to look a certain way and that kind of thing around ovulation, but it actually wasn’t the strongest variable. So interestingly, the kind of actions that women were taking, there was a bit of an increase, but it wasn’t kind of the main highlight. I think the feelings of attractiveness and sexual desirability, those were much more pronounced than actually for women changing their behavior and changing how they were dressing or those kinds of things. So I do think that is an interesting data point that the researchers found.

So if we were to put it into a neat little list and tie it up with a little bow, the researchers found that naturally cycling women did tend to feel more attractive, more sexually desirable during the fertile window. And these shifts were pretty consistent. So no matter how the researchers analyzed the data, if they were running it one way versus another, the same pattern kept showing up. So it was a strong pattern and it gives good evidence that these changes are real. One of the critiques that the researchers had about previous research was that often they were using smaller sample sizes. So maybe they couldn’t be as confident in the data. And so this is one of the reasons that these researchers aimed to create a more robust data set so they could be more confident in the results. So again, as I mentioned, women did put a bit more effort into their appearance and things like that around ovulation overall, but it wasn’t as strong of a variable as the other ones. And when they looked at self-esteem and overall mood, they did find some changes around ovulation, some positive changes. So they did see improvements in self-esteem and improvements in mood for naturally cycling women around the fertile window, but it wasn’t again as big as the other changes. So it wasn’t necessarily this huge change, but there was a bit of a modest change.

Now, one thing that I haven’t specifically said, I don’t think, but the research definitely did confirm, was that these changes were only observed in women who were cycling naturally. None of these changes that they were talking about were observed in women who were on hormonal contraceptives. So having these two groups, the 580 cycling women compared to the 292 women using hormonal contraceptives, really provided strong evidence that women who were on the pill don’t have a cycle. I mean, this is something that we already know. And I think again, it’s fascinating that we need research to kind of confirm these things. But when they’re looking at this and trying to test this hypothesis and show if it is likely true that women are experiencing these shifts and changes based on hormonal shifts and changes around ovulation throughout the menstrual cycle, it is really helpful that this study did include a pretty significant group of women who were on contraceptives to kind of verify that they were not seeing any of these changes. So the patterns for the women on contraceptives are basically flat. And of course we know why that is. Without these cyclical changes, without the hormones that we are releasing as we prepare for ovulation, which is namely estrogen, and then after ovulation, we produce significant progesterone. Without these hormonal changes, we’re not really seeing any of this.

And I suppose the last little point that I’d make is that, as I’ve mentioned, the researchers really aimed to clear up some of the questions that have been raised in previous research here. So what’s great about it is that we do have quite a bit of data here and they analyzed it in a really robust fashion. They have a pretty decent-sized group. Of course, it would be even stronger if they had thousands of women in the group, but it’s a pretty good sample size. So I feel like they kind of ticked a lot of boxes in the study. And as I mentioned at the beginning, because they’re looking at women themselves, they’re not really looking in the study at how men are responding. So we can kind of use this as a complement to other research that looks primarily at how men are responding to our hormonal shifts and really dial into how do women feel and how are we changing and how is our mood changing and how is that related to this whole concept of mating and attractiveness and sexual desire and all these kinds of things.

So then I suppose one of the questions is, what is the implication here? With this data, what does this really mean for women? And I think that one of the ways that this can be framed negatively, and I’ve heard things like this said in the past, is like we’re just ruled by our hormones and we’re just kind of along for the ride and we don’t really get a say in what’s going on. I think that the actual study results themselves show that’s not true. There was a lot of nuance here and there was a lot of different variables that they were looking at. They weren’t only looking at, for example, sexual desire. They were looking at grooming behaviors. They were looking at self-esteem and they were looking at different emotions. So it does show that there’s nuance and it does show that there are a lot of different factors that shift around ovulation, but they’re not all defining factors and they’re not all shifting to the same degree. We’re definitely not robots, and there’s a lot of variation in there. I think what this study really shows is the trends toward how the shift in our feelings of attractiveness, our mood, our confidence — it does show this general trend there, but how that’s going to play out with each individual woman is going to be different.

I think one of the principles that we try to share with our practitioners in our fertility awareness mastery mentorship is that it’s not just about trying to put us into a box and try to really understand, okay, well this is what happens for every woman around ovulation and this is what happens for every woman around the luteal phase. If anything, when you’re working with women on a kind of week-to-week, month-to-month basis, and you get to a point where you’ve worked with hundreds of women and you’ve analyzed their charts and kind of really gotten into the weeds with your clients, what you find is a very nuanced picture. So we see the trends, and it’s important to acknowledge those trends. But when you’re working with clients, no two clients are the same and everybody doesn’t respond the same way. I mean, you have a trend where a lot of your clients will feel better, will have more energy, will feel more confident, and they might be exerting some of these behaviors outlined in the study where maybe they are changing their outfits a little bit, and maybe they’re feeling a little bit more bold, and they’re more extroverted around that time, which is again a trend that we tend to see around ovulation. But you will always have clients who are counter to that, who may not feel that great. Of course, that can be a sign that there’s some underlying issues. For example, women that are not great at clearing histamines might not feel so great around ovulation. And from the perspective of the menstrual cycle as a vital sign, if a woman is feeling really terrible at certain times of the cycle, then that is also a clue that we need to be looking at what’s going on.

And so another thing I like about the research aspect of this is that as women, we often struggle to have our real world lived bodily experiences acknowledged. We are often experiencing these things, especially if you’re charting your cycle. You’re seeing these trends. You’re seeing these cyclical patterns. It’s not always the same cycle to cycle. But as a woman who’s charted her cycles for over two decades here, there are certain trends that we consistently see. And the last thing we need is to have another practitioner or another individual out there just tell us it’s in our head and it’s not really a big deal or that’s not exactly how it is or whatever. So that’s another reason why I love research studies like this, because it helps us to normalize. It helps us to provide that additional yes, actually, it’s not in your head. It is normal to experience these shifts and changes around the cycle. And for women who might not experience them to the same level, it’s also helpful to normalize that as well.

One other implication that I just want to point out that has come up within my writing, within the podcast over the years, is the implication of what hormonal contraceptives could be masking or taking away. So of course, what the study found is that the women who had these results, like the ones who were showing these trends, they were the ones who were not on contraceptives. And so the women who were on contraceptives, they had a flat experience. They weren’t having peaks and valleys. They weren’t having this period of time during ovulation where they were experiencing a stronger sexual desire or feeling more attractive about themselves. So cycling women experience a cyclical situation. We’re experiencing shifts and changes and we experience our cycle in seasons, if you will. So there may be a season where you feel more energized, more excited about certain things, in a season where you kind of take a step back and maybe are more reflective about things. Whereas women who are on contraceptives are not experiencing those natural emotional shifts and changes and nuances. And one of the things that stands out to me quite a bit after interviewing so many women on contraceptives is that when they come off, what they’ll often say is that when I was on this contraceptive, it was like I was living in a haze. It was like everything felt flat. I didn’t experience the high highs or the low lows. It was just kind of always the same. And then when I came off, I felt more like myself again. And so I suppose that is one of the questions that the study doesn’t answer, which is how does blocking this normal cyclical experience that we have, what are the implications of that? What are the implications in our relationships? What are the implications when we’re out there choosing partners? What are the implications even of how men are relating to us without having those peaks and valleys? So I’m not here to say I have all the answers to that, but I do think that is an important question, and it is one that I’m excited to see more research on so that we can continue this conversation.

So I’m going to go ahead and wrap this episode here. If you enjoyed this episode and this discussion and you’re wanting to dig into the paper, make sure to head over to the show notes page. fertilityfriday.com/603 is where you will find the episode summary as well as the link to the research paper and the link also to the previous episode that I mentioned about the stripper study, which I always love to talk about because it’s one of the most interesting studies I think that has ever been done. So if this topic interests you, then I would highly recommend to just head over to the show notes page and take a peek at some of the other episodes that we’ve done on this broad topic of evolutionary biology and how our menstrual cycle interacts with our attractiveness and mating choice and all of these things. And of course, these are topics that I talked about extensively in my first book, The Fifth Vital Sign. And in the pill chapter where I kind of got into does the pill change the way that you choose a partner and potentially could it lead you to choose a partner differently. That’s a whole other discussion that we did not get into today, but certainly I cover in The Fifth Vital Sign. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.