What Can Cause Some Women to be Promiscuous?
Dr. Kristina Durante of The University of Texas at Austin and colleagues found that young women felt more attractive when they had high levels of an estrogen known as estradiol, and they acted on those feelings. “Women with higher estradiol reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair with someone other than their primary partner and were marginally more likely to date another man,” Durante’s team wrote in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters. “Results provide support for the relationship between physical beauty and fertility and suggest that women high in reproductive health engage in opportunistic serial monogamy — being open to affairs and moving on to a new relationship if a higher-quality mate becomes available.” Durante’s team tested 52 female undergraduates aged 17 to 30 who were not taking hormone contraceptives. They took two estradiol samples from each, as hormone levels fluctuate from week to week. They had the women rate their own attr
