People think women whose nipples get erect when sexually aroused are more promiscuous and less intelligent than those who don’t, a new study has found.
“If nipple erection signals/is a cue to sexual interest or arousal, we would expect that women with nipple erection would be sexualised,” the authors of a new study, The point of nipple erection 3: Sexual and social expectations of women with nipple erection, hypothesised.
They got 234 people to rate pictures of women “with and without salient nipple erection”, obscuring their faces.
For each photo, participants rated the images on 30 different measures, including “perceptions of morality and intelligence”.
“Both men and women perceived women with nipple erection as less intelligent, less moral, and more likely to engage in sexual behaviors,” the study found. “These are the primary markers of sexual objectification.”
Women with visibly erect nipples were judged as having “poorer sexual health and being less sexually manipulative”.
Men in particular were judgemental when it came to the subjects’ morals, while women said they’d have more sexual partners, lose their virginity earlier and have “lower quality relationships”.
All despite it being an “uncontrollable reflex”.
Check out the full study here.
