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Speaker 1: you forrmhou stuff works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen and Kristin Day.
Speaker 1: We're going to start with a topic that really caught
Speaker 1: my eye. It was something that got reported in a
Speaker 1: bunch of papers. It's a good little blurb kind of story.
Speaker 1: It's very eye catching, and the story was about the
Speaker 1: discovery of something called the Marilyn Monroe hormone. Interesting. Interesting,
Speaker 1: It's interesting for so many reasons. It's interesting to us
Speaker 1: because it's about hormones. I love hormone. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: the entire world because it's about Marilyn Monroe, ultimate sex icon. Right,
Speaker 1: So something's gotta be juicy if they're linking Marilyn Monroe
Speaker 1: and hormones, right, right, Molly, Um. This study has to
Speaker 1: do with a hormone, a female hormone called estra dial
Speaker 1: And this isn't a new hormone. Scientists have known that
Speaker 1: it's been around for a long time. It's in women
Speaker 1: and also in in female animals as well, and it's
Speaker 1: the most important form of estrogen found in the body. Right,
Speaker 1: estradial is responsible for things like the growth of the
Speaker 1: female uterus, fallopian teops, and vagina. It promotes breast development
Speaker 1: and the growth of the outer genitals, and it plays
Speaker 1: a role in distributing body fat and women. So that
Speaker 1: gets to um. The first thing we know about estradiale
Speaker 1: so that it might be responsible for marily Monro's famous
Speaker 1: our glass shape. Yeah, exactly. Higher levels of estra dial
Speaker 1: and women are are linked to more curvy, the curvier,
Speaker 1: more feminine type of a body that we would would
Speaker 1: think of tiny waist, tiny waist, big big brists, and
Speaker 1: childbearing hips. Right. But it's also an interesting thing. Is
Speaker 1: that something you may not know about marily Monro is
Speaker 1: her face is symmetrical. Um. Studies have found that symmetry
Speaker 1: in our in our face and bodies is more attractive
Speaker 1: to the opposite sex. The more symmetrical we are, the
Speaker 1: more the more attractive we look, because I think it's
Speaker 1: a sign of better health. Right, So estra dial also
Speaker 1: plays a role in this symmetry. But the real reason
Speaker 1: that people are calling it the Marri Monroe hormone and
Speaker 1: making it so juicy is this behavioral correlation. They found
Speaker 1: with it right. Researchers from the University of Texas in
Speaker 1: Austin UH did a study that found that young women
Speaker 1: who produced naturally high levels of estra dial are more
Speaker 1: prone to manhop if you will, to cheat, yes, to
Speaker 1: trade up for a better model. UH. They think that
Speaker 1: this is linked to UH the evolutionary cost of having
Speaker 1: a child. These women realize that, you know, they're gonna
Speaker 1: need a good mate to be around when they have
Speaker 1: a kid, and so they're more apt to look for
Speaker 1: better and better mates. So they made this connection by
Speaker 1: swabbing the inside of the student's cheek at Texas and
Speaker 1: they asked all the students to write how attractive they
Speaker 1: thought they were. So, first of all, if you had
Speaker 1: very high levels of estra dial, then you thought, you know,
Speaker 1: you thought you were really beautiful. I mean, it's good
Speaker 1: to have a good self image. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if I really I'm going to buy this part of
Speaker 1: the test. But then they would ask the mysterious of
Speaker 1: questions like you know, are you likely to flirt when
Speaker 1: you have a boyfriend or you likely to kiss another
Speaker 1: guy if you have a boyfriend, And when they had
Speaker 1: these higher levels of estra dial, they were much more
Speaker 1: likely to do so, yeah, they were most more likely
Speaker 1: to cheat. But the interesting thing is, well, while these
Speaker 1: while the women with the higher levels of estra dial
Speaker 1: might be more willing to say, carry on a serious affair,
Speaker 1: they weren't more likely to have a series of one
Speaker 1: night stands. Right, So, there were a lot of troubling
Speaker 1: words and stories that came out about the mailman or hormone,
Speaker 1: about sort of you know, slutty girls, um loose women,
Speaker 1: And that's not what the studies about, right, Well, it's
Speaker 1: not about just this this man hopping from one person
Speaker 1: to another. It's it's more about these women who aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily satisfied with long term partners, like Marilyn Monroe has
Speaker 1: been used as an example because she had a series
Speaker 1: of three to four or year relationships with a sending
Speaker 1: social status. When she first started out her movie career,
Speaker 1: she was married to this, uh, this not so successful guy.
Speaker 1: Then she moved on to Joe di maggio, and then
Speaker 1: she moved on to Arthur Miller, and then possibly had
Speaker 1: an affair with one or both of the Kennedy brothers.
Speaker 1: So she kept trading up. Is what these scientists are saying,
Speaker 1: meaning that the reason she had her affairs was just
Speaker 1: an evolutionary search for the best possible mate um. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting that the estra dial levels in a woman's
Speaker 1: body will will fluctuate across our obulatory cycle, corresponding to
Speaker 1: when we're the most fertile and interested in sex. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's why I find the study kind of troubling Christmas,
Speaker 1: because estra dial is something that's president all of us naturally,
Speaker 1: we need it to be females essentially, and other research
Speaker 1: has shown that, you know, we become more interested in
Speaker 1: the other sex when we're very fertile, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: So really, it might just be a hormone that kicks
Speaker 1: in when our body is ready to have a baby. Sure,
Speaker 1: because there are plenty of curvy, our glass girls out
Speaker 1: there who probably consider themselves very attractive and other men
Speaker 1: consider them very attractive, who aren't going to cheat. They're
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to just ditch their men for the
Speaker 1: next like CEO or whoever comes their way. Right, it's
Speaker 1: very sort of a sexist study because it's just saying,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's all the woman's choice, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the comments around this article said, you know,
Speaker 1: it takes two to tango for one, So if this
Speaker 1: hormone just makes women more naturally attractive, then they probably
Speaker 1: have more opportunities to cheat. But like you said, there's
Speaker 1: just this main women who don't cheat, and they're just
Speaker 1: not captured by the study, right only to that point.
Speaker 1: The example modern day example of Marilyn Monroe that's been
Speaker 1: brought up in a lot of these articles is Angelia Jolie.
Speaker 1: But as you uh brought up when we were talking
Speaker 1: about this before we record this podcast, Angelina was single
Speaker 1: when when she met Old Brad on the set of Mr.
Speaker 1: And Mrs. Whatever it was. Smith, you can tell that
Speaker 1: I watched that feature film. Um, but Brad was the
Speaker 1: one who was married. He was actually to the cheater
Speaker 1: in the situation, right, So it's very troubling to me
Speaker 1: that they actually compared, uh, Angelina in this article someone
Speaker 1: who probably has high levels of estra dial because they're
Speaker 1: saying she doesn't really need Brad Pitt, but she wants
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt as some sort of evolutionary trade off for
Speaker 1: having all these children. I gotta say, it just seems
Speaker 1: like kind of a simple excuse for those if you
Speaker 1: will women who other women don't like to do well,
Speaker 1: she must have high levels of estra dial a little hussy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think Kristina are giving the big thumbs down
Speaker 1: to the study, no matter how interesting it is to
Speaker 1: think of that. You know, maybe we can just blame
Speaker 1: cheating on hormone. Yeah, because every woman has it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the most present form of estrogen in our bodies.
Speaker 1: Someone just exactly. Um. But I do think going back
Speaker 1: to the symmetry that we were talking about, I think
Speaker 1: that that's that's a more compelling argument to make that
Speaker 1: estra dial does cause more symmetry, and more symmetry might
Speaker 1: just make you naturally more attractive. And there you go.
Speaker 1: Take it, relieve, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're
Speaker 1: going to be predisposed to cheat on your man, hopefully
Speaker 1: hopefully so. If you want to know more about hormones
Speaker 1: after this daily dose of hormone love, then go to
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And if you want to
Speaker 1: send Christin and me an email, email us at mom
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com for moralness and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot
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