Merely sniffing a woman's tears, in fact, even when simply held in a vial and without the crying of the woman affecting a person emotionally, still carried the effect. The scientists from the Weizmann Institute carried out four different tests to confirm the results, although the report does not indicate the sample size or other details.
These tests were run using "emotional tears" obtained by showing female volunteers sad movies. The first experiment confirmed that men could not differentiate between tears and saline solution.
In the second experiment, male volunteers were subjected to a test either with tears or with saline solution, and shown images of women's faces. While the tears did not influence the men's estimates of sadness or empathy expressed in the faces, it did negatively affect the sex appeal attributed to the faces. The test was both double-blind and repeated over two days, reversing the saline vs. tears configuration for the men between the two days.
In the third experiment, male volunteers watched "emotional movies" after sniffing tears or saline. They were then asked to self-rate themselves on mood, as well as being monitored for physiological measures of arousal. Men smelling tears rated their sexual arousal lower, and physiologically, including in testosterone level, they showed a clear drop in arousal.
In the last trial, researchers repeated experiment three, but measured brain activity. Activity levels in brain areas associated with sexual arousal were significantly lower after the subjects had sniffed tears.
Further research is required. They did not identify the chemical involved, and at the same time, they didn't try men's tears or children's tears. It's unclear if they tried to extract "non-emotional tears," as well.
Still, it just goes to show why sad movies aren't generally used as a date movie.
