Do ladies find infertile men more attractive?

Ladies, or certain gentlemen, I’d like for you to picture your perfect man for me. Keep him in your head for a moment, drink in that perfection with your minds eyes and sigh just a little bit on the inside. Is he rugged and deep voiced? Chiselled and well-toned? Is he an Adonis whose handsomeness sets your heart aflutter? If you’ve nodded along to any of those questions then I’ve got some bad news for you, especially for the ladies, that man may not be all that you expect when it comes to fertility. That’s right, your perfect man may actually have a lower sperm count and as such be less fertile than a fellow with a higher pitched voice and non-chiselled but rather, “malleted” features.

Researchers in Australia have conducted into voice pitch and attractiveness when compared to sperm count. It’s long been assumed that handsome and generally all around attractive men are more fertile as it’d make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. It would be logical for women to be biologically drawn to men with a more powerful fertility so as to ensure the continuance of our race. This is certainly true in the animal kingdom, the red deer with larger and more complex antlers (the factor which attracts lady-deer) tend to have larger testicles and as such be much more fertile than those with smaller antlers.

The study involved male volunteers with voices from low to relatively high pitched (for men) being recorded making vowel sounds. They were then asked to give a semen sample which was tested for its sperm count and relative level of fertility.

Ladies were then asked to rate the voices in terms of attractiveness and then in terms of masculinity. It was found that the voices which they found less attractive and less masculine had a higher sperm count on average than the more traditionally masculine and lower pitched voices!

So, next time you’re out on the pull or trying to find the father of your future babies, think before you act! Mr Right might be Mr Average!