The Psychology of Female

Attraction to Men

References:
Buss, D. M. (2003): The Evolution of Desire, Strategies of Human Mating, Basic
Books
Diamond, J. M. (1997): Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality, Basic
Books
Ellis, H. (1921): Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Random House
Low, B. S. (2000): Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
Maeve, M. K. (1999): The Social Construction of Love and Sexuality in a Womens
Prison, Advances in Nursing Science, 21(3), 46-65
McKenzie, S. (2010): Genders and Sexualities in Individuation: Theoretical and
Clinical Explorations, Journal of Analytical Psychology, 55, 91-111
Moore,

M. M. (1985): Nonverbal Courtship Patterns in Women, Context and

Consequences, Ethology and Sociobiology, 6: 237-247

Ogas, O., Gaddam, S. (2011): A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Worlds Largest
Experiment Reveals about Human Desire, Dutton
Rosenthal, M. S. (2013): Human Sexuality: From Cells to Society, Wadsworth,
CENGAGE Learning
Tornhill, R., Gangestad, S. W. (2008): The Evolutionary Biology of Human Female
Sexuality, Oxford University Press

http://www.puatraining.com/blog/12-proven-micro-signs-of-attraction
12 micro signs of attention can be easily identified.
Feet are pointing towards the male. It demonstrates subconscious interest.
Self-grooming occurs frequently, such as scratching the face, flicking the hair or
brushing the hair behind the ears, which are old signs that she wants to look her
best.
Hovering close to you, like touching you walking past or standing near you for a
longer period of time. It demonstrates a wish to be near you.
She moves or brushes past you facing you is another sign of interest. If she were
uninterested, she would move past you with her back facing you.
Exaggerated smiling or laughing or overly animated behavior near a male is a sure
sign of interest.
Eye contact and a slight smile while greeting each other is another sign of interest.
If she is asking questions or engages in conversation first, then it is an obvious sign.
If she ignores her phone while talking to you, then she is obviously more interested in
you than in any callers or messages from other people.
However, if she is constantly texting or looking at her phone might also be a sign, but
this one must be handled carefully. She might not be interested in being there and
wants to talk to someone, but she may be in a conversation with someone and does
not want to be interrupted.
It is important where she is looking. If she is looking at your lips, then she is obviously
interested in you.
If her friends disappeared or she deliberately tries to lose them, then she is interested
in your company.
You might use social tagging as a method to initiate conversation with a girl you
already know to see if she is interested in your presence.
http://powerofsoul.com/is-she-really-attracted-to-me/

The most important signs of the attraction of a woman are the occurrence of bodily
contact, smiling at you, making eye contact, using a specific body language, and
asking for help.
Body contacts, like touching your hand in the middle of a conversation or doing
everything possible to get closer to you means that she is interested. If she is not,
she would make sure to stay away from your physical proximity.
If she is smiling at you often, it must be considered as a sure sign of attraction. The
same is true for eye contact. If she regularly looks into your eyes, then she finds you
attractive.
The body language also reveals her attraction towards you. Such signs include
turning her body towards you, flipping her hair while talking to you, leaning in to
whisper and talk closely, laughing, smiling and joking around you, finding excuses to
touch you, fidgeting with objects when you are near, and always drawing attention to
herself.
Asking for your help, like when something needs to be fixed in her house, being there
during a time of crisis or carrying something heavy also indicates her attraction.
http://theartofcharm.com/flirting-and-attraction/top-signs-female-attraction/
Touching is a sure sign of female attraction. The more intimate the touch, the greater
is her affection towards you.
Preening is an attempt of a woman to make herself more attractive. Preening can be
a subtle behavior, like adjusting her hair, clothes or jewelry. If a woman starts to
preen you, it is a more obvious sign of attraction from her side.
If her body language mirrors yours, it is a sign of strong rapport, which also means
interest and attraction.
Moreover, an open body language is another sign of attraction. An open body
language means the girl is facing you, her feet, chest and face point in your direction.
Leaning into your direction indicates interest.
When a girl does a double take, such as looks at you, looks away and looks at you
again, it signal her interest.

Maeve (1999) believes that one of the most important indicators of female attraction
are looks, countenance or the way she looks at the other person.
McKenzie (2010) describes some signs of female attraction from an analytical
perspective through the dream of a woman. The woman describes her attraction to a
man with particular behaviors, such as bending over close to the man and talking
about something he is reading. She also describes the search of physical proximity
(sitting next to each other, very close) as a sign of female attraction.
Already Havelock Ellis (1921) mentioned in one of the first scientific books about
sexuality that blushing is a definite sign of sexual attraction.
Tornhill and Gangestad (2008) indicate that an increased contact with a male
indicates the interest of a woman. Diamond (1997) believes that females use various
means to display their interest in a male conspicuously. Their advertisement of their
phase of interest may be auditory, such as making noises, behavioral, like crouching
in front of the male or olfactory, such as releasing a distinctive smell.
Ogas and Gaddam (2011) believe that interested women tend to flirt more, dress
more provocatively, and express greater interest in socializing. They tend to move
around more to maximize exposure to new opportunities.
Low (2000) considers dilated pupils as a strong signal of sexual interest. Patterns of
eye contact are universal and invariant in different societies. Women can wear the
sings of unavailability, such as wedding rings or styles of clothing or hair only worn by
married women. When they do not have such signs, it might also indicate their
interest in a man.
Buss (2003) is of the opinion that sexualizing ones appearance is quite overt in bars
where singles meet. Women often walk around the room, standing tall, protruding
their chest, holding in their stomachs, stroking their own arms or hair they exhibit
themselves on the public display. Nervous giggling and erratic laughter also indicate
interest, but men are more concerned with body language, such as twisting and
turning, which is a way to display the chest.
Buss (2003) also believes that initiating visual contact also proves to be an effective
tactic for women to indicate sexual interest. Looking intensely into a mans eyes and

allowing a man to see her staring are considered as one of the most effective tactics
for attracting short-term mates. However, it is only moderately effective in attracting
long-term, committed partners.
The communication of a woman might also tell volumes about her interest and
attraction. Buss (2003) considers derogatory comments about a potential rival female
as a sign of attraction, namely the female questions the sexual accessibility of the
rival. Pretending to be submissive, meek or helpless is another common sign of
attracting interest from a male.
When a woman is enhancing her appearance, such as wearing and adjusting jewelry,
using beauty products to look healthy and youthful, and wearing heels to appear
taller and thinner. Women are well aware of the importance of their appearance, and
before they go out, they often do a whole revamping. (Buss, 2003)
If a woman signals common interests with a male, it must be considered as a sign of
attraction and interest. Buss (2003) found that men singled out certain actions as
mate-attracting strategies of women. Such actions include rubbing her chest or pelvis
against a man, looking at him seductively, putting her arms around his neck, running
her hands through his hair, leaning forward to expose the chest, bending over to
accentuate the curves, puckering her lips or sucking on a straw or finger.
Rosenthal (2013) describes behavioral patterns that she considers universal as a
flirting expression of women. The female smiles at her admirer and lifts her
eyebrows, opens her eyes wide. After a few seconds, the eyelids drop, she tilts her
head down and looks away. She may cover her face with her hands and giggle, toss
her head and flip her hair. She may stretch to show her breasts or walk with an
exaggerated sway of the hips.Her facial expressions are more intense than normally
as the male pays more attention to her face when it is active. Prolonged eye contact
is associated with intense emotions, and a flirtatious glance is usually held for less
than three seconds or else it may become threatening.
Rosenthal (2013) describes the importance of the so-called nonverbal leakage. The
body tells the truth, which is also true for the attraction of females toward males.
When the head of a woman turns toward you, but the rest of her body is turned away,
it signals that she might rather be somewhere else or with someone else. If her arms

and legs are folded then she is not open to your advances. However, if her body
posture mimics yours, it is a sign of rapport. If a woman likes to laugh at your jokes,
she is almost certainly interested in you.
Moore (1985) found a comprehensive list of nonverbal behaviors that women use to
indicate interest in a man and draw his attention. Such behaviors include short
darting glances, gaze fixated, eyebrow flash, head toss, the presentation of the neck,
hair flip, head nod, lip lick, lipstick application, smile, laugh, giggle, whisper,
gesticulation, object caress, and leaning close among other, less frequently displayed
behaviors.
http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Women's-Body-Language-for-Flirting
An interested woman will not only take looks at you, but she will also let you know
about it. Repeated eye contact is a sure sign of interest.
The face of a woman tells volumes about her interest in a male. Generally, an
animated face indicates attraction. Facial signals include raised eyebrows, fidgety
lips, dilated pupils, overactive eyelids, and flared nostrils. Some of these signs can be
voluntary, such as raised eyebrows, but others are subconscious, like flared nostrils
or fidgety lips.
Interested women lean close. Crossed arms usually signal that she is uninterested or
bored, but if she touches your arm and immediately brings back her arm to a crossed
position, it means interest.
The way she touches her hair is important. If she produces gentle movements, it
means interest, but quick, jerky movements indicate something totally different. Not
every touch of the hair means that she is interested.
Interested women usually have restless fingers. They caress some of their
erogenous zones, such as their lips, neck or collarbones. They are fiddling with their
jewelry or playing with objects, like a wine glass.
Crossed legs pointing towards you also suggest that she is interested in you. If a
woman enters your personal space or finds a reason to touch you, it surely indicates
that she is interested.

The amount of smiling or laughing at you compared to other people can also signal
interest from her side. Mutatis mutandis, if she smiles or laughs at you more than at
other people, she is interested. If she smiles at you less, you should look elsewhere.
Certain cute gestures, such as a shoulder shrug with open, upturned palms are a
certain sign of attraction. The same is true if she lets her hand move down your back.
Mirrored movements are a subconscious sign of interest.
https://www.udemy.com/blog/body-language-signs-of-attraction/
They also suggest that touching parts of their body is a signal of attraction to
someone by females. Erogenous zones, such as lips, neck or collarbones particularly
indicate interest. It is important to differentiate between intentional and nonintentional touches though.
Interested women become more fidgety around you, and display animated body
movements. Eye glances, micro facial expressions lasting only seconds and physical
closeness also indicate attraction.

Ogas and Gaddam (2011) believe that human sexual interest can be broken down
into a finite set of sexual cues that activate the desire software.
The most influential male cue is not visual, as some might expect, but chronological.
Age is the most prominent search result. Ogas and Gaddam (2011) continue the list
of male cues with figure. There is a definite demand for skinny women, but more men
search for BBW, which stands for big and beautiful women. Chubby women are the
supersized visual cues of femininity with large breasts and butts and curvy hips.
Some scientists believe that the waist-to-hip ratio is a visual cue for men and the find
a specific rate (.7) very arousing. Breasts are other important cues. Men have a welldocumented interest in breasts, butts and foot.
Ogas and Gaddam (2011) found that men are aroused by visual cues, women are
aroused by psychological cues. Psychological cues convey data about the stability,
commitment, social status, competence and kindness of the man. The sexual cues
activating the male desire are revealed by porn, but the cues activating female desire
are revealed by romance. One of the most important cues for women are
irresistibility, the feeling that they are sexually desirable. The way women feel about
themselves may be very important to their sexual desire and subjective arousal, even
more important than the impact of the partner.
Another category of psychological cues conveys flirtatiousness, promiscuity and
permissive sexual attitudes. These features put women into situations where the risk
of sexual exploitation is higher. These situations create opportunities for men to
approach women as if they were responding to the females flirtatiousness. Men are
able to identify the sociosexual orientation of women through brief interactions. Cues
of recklessness and risk taking also increase the chance of sexual exploitation. Cues
of sexual exploitability increase the sexual attractiveness of women because they
suggest that she can be exploited for a short-term sexual opportunity. Sexual
exploitability makes the women less attractive as a long-term mate as she might be
sexually exploited by other men. (Goetz et al, 2011)
Roney (2003) is of the opinion that sensory stimuli from women can act as input cues
that prime a psychological orientation directed toward mate attraction, which
facilitates the behavioral expression of courtship tactics. Females express greater
mate preferences for cues of resource possession, like wealth, ambition, and social

status. On the other hand, men express greater preference for cues related to fertility
and health, like youth and physical attractiveness. Such findings indicate that men
place greater importance on cues that are related to the possession of material
resources.
Park and Lennon (2008) stress the importance of appearance cues.Physical
appearance cues are global in nature. People tend to make a judgment of another
person in first.impression situations. The most important inference categories are
physical/biological and character traits.
Trees (2009) is of the opinion that men are responding to a variety of subtle cues, like
body odor or waist-to-hip ratio. Men find women more attractive when ovulating.
Researchers believe that men respond to subtle cues related to things like lip color,
pupil dilation, and skin tone. The behavior of women also changes during ovulation.
They dress more provocatively and wear more jewelry. The voice of women is most
attractive when they are at the peak of their fertility cycle. The nonverbal cues of
women are responsible for the two-third of encounters between men and women at a
bar. Most men are reluctant to initiate contact, and also fail to pick up the signals that
women send.
Townsend (1993) also believes that visual assessment of fertility cues is one of the
pivotal postulated sex differences in male evaluation. Status cues have a significantly
greater effect on female ratings of male models attractiveness and acceptability. Both
sexes are influenced by status cues and physical attractiveness, but status cues
have more influence on the males ratings of partners for marriage than for casual
sex. Some researchers argue that male attractiveness to females is more likely to be
based on the males ability and willingness to invest, but the attractiveness of females
to males is based more on immediately and objectively assessable cues of fertility,
youth, health and body proportions.
Moore (1985) believes that in human courtship and mate choice the cues are largely
nonverbal. Positional cues include leaning, brushing, caressing and touching signals.
Thornhill and Gangestad (2008) are of the opinion that the most reliable cues to
fertility status available to males may be incidental by-products of physiological
changes associated with fertility, like changes of female scent as a function of

changes of estrogen concentration, and not the signals of females. Males, who are
able to detect the existing cues of female fertility, are at an advantage. Males are
tuned in to incidental fertility cues. Males perceive scent cues of estrogen levels
across the menstrual cycle of females.
Thornhill

and

Gangestad

(2008)

differentiate

between

signals,

which

are

communicative adaptations, and incidental or by-products, which are cues that have
other functions than communication. Fertile females prefer darker skin tone, which is
associated with the increased amount of testosterone. Fertile women also prefer
more masculine voices, faces and scents.
Thornhill and Gangestad (2008) stress that cues can be deceptive, such as a woman
might flirt with a man without genuine sexual interest, to obtain benefits. Human
females tend to conceal fertility. In some cases, it does not pay to express emotional
states, therefore, selection shaped adaptations that contingently regulate emotions or
internal cues. Emotional regulation may suppress estrous emotional cues in the
presence of other individuals, such as sexually coercive men.
The most important cues of fertility in women are described by Thornhill and
Gangestand (2008). Women have smaller waist-to-hip ratio when they are fertile.The
asymmetry of womens breasts or other soft tissues has also changed in subtle ways,
peaking about two days prior ovulation. The pitch of ovulating women has its highest
peak at peak fertility. The faces of women are more attractive to males during their
fertile phase. Womens gait may also change during the fertile period. Women feel
more attractive during fertility, which may result in dressing more sexy or attractive.
Lap dancers received almost double money from male customers during their fertile
phase than during luteal phase or menstrual cycle.
Gangestad et al. (2010) consider mens faces as reflecting the presence or absence
of cues related to overall condition or quality independent of facial masculinity.
Roney, Simmons and Gray (2011) found that the high estradiol concentration in
women predicted a preference for facial cues of high testosterone, which can be
distinguished from the cues used to subjectively judge facial masculinity.
La France (2010) examined the verbal and nonverbal cues that lead to sex. A
couples transition from a public setting, such as a bar to a private setting, like an

apartment is a nonverbal cue that may communicate that sexual intercourse is a

foregone conclusion. Affinity-seeking, the accurate recognition the meaning attributed
to verbal and nonverbal cues are also cues. Results revealed that at a specific point
of the sexual script participants perceive that sex is most likely to happen and it
resides in the public setting. When the man kissed the woman at the bar, this
nonverbal communicative cue represented the point at which participants perceived
that sex will occur. Token resistance, which is the initial refusal of engaging in sex
despite the desire to do so, is a typical communication cue of women. It is part of the
sexual script. The most common form of token resistance is the woman saying I
think this is moving too fast. This statement can significantly decrease the likelihood
of sex, but the findings of the study indicate that the largest increase of the likelihood
of sex occurred when the man kissed the woman as a response to this statement.
Additional references:
Gangestad, S. W., Thornhill, R., Garver-Apgar, C. E. (2010): Mens Facial Masculinity
Predicts Changes in Their Female Partners Sexual Interests across the Ovulatory
Cycle, Whereas Mens Intelligence Does Not, Evolution and Human Behavior, 31
Goetz, C. D.; Easton, J. A.; Lewis, D. M. G.; Buss, D. M. (2012): Sexual Exploitability:
Observable Cues and their Link to Sexual Attraction, Evolution and Human Behavior,
33, 417-426
La France, B. H. (2010): What Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Cues Lead to
Sex? An Analysis of the Traditional Sexual Script, Commuication Quarterly, Vol. 58,
No. 3, 297-318
Park, H., Lennon, S. J. (2008): Beyond Physical Attractiveness: Interpersonal
Attraction as a Function of Similarities in Personal Characteristics, Clothing and
Textiles Research Journal, 26: 275
Roney, J. R. (2003): Effects of Visual Exposure to the Opposite Sex:Cognitive
Aspects of Mate Attraction in Human Males, Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 29: 393
Roney, J. R., Simmons, Z. L., Gray, P. B. (2011): Changes in Estradiol Predict WithinWomen

Shifts

in

Attraction

to

Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36, 742-749

Facial

Cues

of

Mens

Testosterone,

Townsend, J. M. (1993): Sexuality and Partner Selection: Sex Differences among

College Students, Ethology and Sociobiology, 14: 305-330
Trees, A. (2009): Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince and
Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction, Avery, New York