If the best musicians get the girls, where are the jazz groupies?

A new university study claims that women are sexually attracted to men with musical ability. Jake Wallis Simons has spotted a flaw in the theory

Beatles fans go wild at the band's concert at Shea Stadium, New York, in 1965
Beatles fans go wild at the band's concert at Shea Stadium, New York, in 1965 Credit: Photo: Getty Images

Good news, guitar types! In their latest attempt to empirically prove what common sense already tells us, scientists have established that women find musicians sexy.

According to a recent study by Dr Benjamin Charlton, a researcher at the university of Sussex, the “menstrual cycle phase alters women’s sexual preferences for composers of more complex music”.

As part of his experiments, he asked a group of women to choose between the composers of simpler and more complicated music and decide which they would find sexier.

In women whose menstrual cycles gave them a chance of getting pregnant, complex music-makers – who apparently have better genes – suddenly became compellingly attractive. Not for a long-term relationship, you understand. Just for sex.

In his 1871 book The Descent Of Man, Charles Darwin speculated “that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex”. Music and birdsong, he thought, having no survival benefit, had evolved purely as tools of seduction. Dr Charlton believes that his findings prove Darwin right.

This is not the first study to have investigated the connection between men, music and sex. Dr John Manning, a psychologist, believes that high testosterone exposure during gestation enhances the right side of the brain, which is responsible for musicality.

He has also found that high foetal testosterone levels led to healthier and more athletic men, with a higher sperm count (thus confirming the old adage that he who makes good music makes much sperm).

To me, this makes little sense. Rock musicians and boy band members tend to have the most “pulling power”, but their tunes are usually simple. By contrast, Jazz and classical musicians, who play “the most complex music”, rarely have knickers thrown at them when they’re on stage.

That is to say, by Dr Charlton’s measure, Jools Holland would be much sexier than Mick Jagger, and Yo Yo Ma would knock the spots off Elvis Presley. Ha. Clearly, there are other factors at play.

Anyway, what could have possessed these boffins to expend so much time and energy researching such an area? Call me a cynic, but I suspect that Dr Charlton, Dr Manning and the others may be bedroom musicians themselves.