What Your Face Shape Can Reveal About Your Sexuality

Dean Drobot/ShutterstockIt’s official: The width and shape of your face affect more than just your hat size. It may also predict your sex drive, so you may now be able to count yourself among these natural libido boosters.

Research led by Steven Arnocky of Nipissing University in Canada, published in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, examines the role that facial features play in sexual relationships and mate selection.

The research team carried out two separate studies: The first involved 145 Canadian undergraduates (48 percent of whom were male) who were in romantic heterosexual relationships at the time. Each one completed questionnaires about their interpersonal behavior and sex drive, and supplied a photograph from which researchers determined their facial width-to-height ratio. The second study, an extended version of the first, involved 314 students from a different Canadian university, who answered questions about their sexual orientation, their sociosexual orientation (how comfortable they are with casual sex outside a committed, monogamous relationship), and how likely they were to cheat on a partner.

The results show that men and women with a high facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR)—basically square and wide faces as opposed to long and slim ones, reported a greater sex drive and more sexual motivation. It was also found that men with a larger FWHR are more easy-going when it comes to casual sex and more likely to consider being unfaithful to their partners. Look out for these subtle signs you’ve got a cheating spouse.

“Together, these findings suggest that facial characteristics might convey important information about human sexual motivations”, says Arnocky, as reported in ScienceDaily.

The study is the latest in a growing body of research showing that certain psychological and behavioral traits are associated with particular FWHRs. A 2015 study published in the journal PLOS found that men who have wide, square faces (and therefore a high FWHR) tend to be considered more threatening and dominant than men with slimmer, longer faces. Another study, published in 2014 in Psychological Science, showed that the higher a man’s FWHR, the more attractive he was considered as a short-term sexual partner.

According to researchers, this is the first research to link FWHR to sex drive and sexual psychology. While acknowledging that the study is purely observational and cannot, therefore, establish causality, they believe the difference in people’s facial proportions may stem from puberty, when the hormone testosterone, a key player in forming sexual attitudes and desires, is high.

You may not be able to change your face shape or your partner’s, but these simple ways to improve your sex life can definitely change your bedroom habits for the better.