I'll Have What She's Having
Even if you don't trust a woman's taste in music, clothing, or food, you might subconsciously trust her taste in men. A new study set to be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B concludes that women are more likely to find men attractive if they see other women smiling at them. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland showed women pairs of pictures of men and asked them to choose the more attractive guy and rate how much more attractive he was. They then showed the women short videos with the same faces, but in each shot a woman was looking at the man with either a smile or a neutral expression. After watching the video, the women rated the men who got a smile higher than those who got the blank stare. The researchers say mate choice copying has been observed in other species, but this is the first time scientists have observed humans taking these sorts of cues from others. But when the scientists had men rate other men, they found that guys gave the highest attractiveness ratings to men who weren't on the receiving end of a woman's smile. The authors chalk this up to within-sex competition: When men see others beating them out, they get resentful.
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Old Swive's Tale
Ted Haggard and Mark Foley aren't the only high-and-mighties who have succumbed sexual desires that clash with their images. According to Keene University historian Sarah Poynting, King Charles I, known for his devotion to his wife and for cleaning up drunkenness and profanity, had a rather immodest side himself. In the year before he was executed, Charles smuggled letters out of Carisbrooke Castle, where he was imprisoned. Some of the letters were partially in cipher, including those he sent to Jane Whorwood, stepdaughter of one of his former attendants. When Poynting deciphered one of these letters, she discovered a likely error in a previous decoding of it. Instead of saying, "Yet I imagine that there is one way possible that you may get answering from me," which would only be the case if Charles had made three errors in one word, the deciphered letter reads, "I imagine that there is one way possible that you may get a swiving from me." A "swiving?" Yes, apparently the crazy kids of the 17th century used "swiving" as a particularly coarse term for sex, an the turn of phrase appeared most frequently in pornographic verse. While it would be unsurprising to see such a word used by the vulgar Charles II, Charles I's obscene call to his mistress reveals a whole new side of the well-reputed king. Just imagine what they'll find in Queen Elizabeth I's nightstand.