Men with deep, sexy voices have less sperm in their semen, an Australian study found.

Women find guys with deep voices more attractive than those with higher voices. So is a deep voice nature’s advert for top-quality sperm? It turns out the opposite is true. Deep-voiced men’s bodies put more energy into giving a good show than into making sperm.

The crooning bass of singers like Barry White is famous for making women go weak at the knees. And there’s plenty of scientific evidence to back up the cliché. Women find deep voices sexy. Or to put it really bluntly, guys with deep voices get laid more often, according to one study.

Raw sex appeal
So what else do scientists have to say about what turns heterosexual girls on? Well, not surprisingly women rate good-looking guys with nice symmetrical faces and bodies. For the rest, it seems they go for all the masculine clichés.

Women might say they like a man who shows his sensitive side, but when it comes to raw sex appeal, research shows they want hunks with deep voices, square jaws and bulging muscles. Especially when they’re at the most fertile time of their menstrual cycle, so most likely to get pregnant!

Testosterone
Can all this maleness on the outside tell us anything about what’s going on inside a man’s pants?

It’s lashings of the male hormone testosterone that gives a guy all those super-masculine characteristics like broad shoulders and a deep voice. If he has plenty of testosterone, surely it must mean he has lots of lively sperm?

The Australian researchers suspected it might not be as simple as that.

Under the microscope
They recruited more than fifty male volunteers and got them to provide two samples: a recording of their voice, and a squirt of their sperm. Then they asked a panel of women to say which of the voices were sexier. And they put the sperm under the microscope.

As expected, the women picked out the deep voices as being more attractive.

But the microscope told a different story. It turned out the men with the higher voices had more sperm.

Best chance of success
So what’s the explanation? Here’s the Australian researchers’ theory.

There are two ways for a male body to increase its chances of making babies. One is to produce lots of testosterone, wow the females with your hunky looks, and woo hordes of them into bed.

For reproduction, this evolutionary strategy has a downside. Sure, you need testosterone to make sperm. But too much of the stuff is actually bad for sperm production. What’s more, looking butch costs your body a lot of energy.

An alternative is for your body to ease off on the testosterone and put all its energy into making loads of sperm. Your less masculine looks might not score so well with the ladies – but if you do get a shot at getting a girl pregnant, your top-notch sperm will give you the best chance of success!
 

 
Photos: Pauline Thomas under CC licence
 

Do you find a deep voice sexy?