What do Jude Law, Brad Pitt, Usher, and Mario Lopez all have in common? Besides (albeit varying) levels of fame, all four ended up cheating on their respective spouses. All four also share a common facial feature…can you guess what it is?
That’s right. It’s a big ole face. New research published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, combined a couple of separate studies analyzing facial features, thoughts on infidelity, and sex drive. They found that men with a high facial width-to-height ratio— Or, FWHR— tended to have higher sex drives and were more likely to cheat.
By that logic, Ryan Gosling is less likely to cheat than Leonardo DiCaprio, which actually makes a ton of sense to me but who really knows. Hollywood has its own set of rules.
But why would men with boxier faces be more likely to cheat?
The study’s researchers posited a hypothesis; Facial structure may be linked to higher hormone exposure during fetal development, specifically to androgens (sex hormones) such as testosterone which may account for behaviors and physical features typically associated with “masculine” men— Dominance, aggression, denser physical stature and features. All of this is to say that men with wider faces may have had more androgen exposure during their time in the womb and are thus born with higher sex drives, making them more likely to step out on their partner. It’s a thought.
Naturally, this theory absolves the cheater of responsibility (“I was born this way!”) and should be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering the numerous limitations of both studies (small non-diverse samples, the fact that correlation does not prove causation, the disregard when it came to defining monogamy for every person questioned, etc.) Besides, androgen exposure is not the only factor to consider when discussing facial structure. Think: genetics.
Of course people are complicated beings and the beast that is any relationship only compounds that. The only true way to really get to know a person involves a lot more than a quick mental scan of their facial structure. That being said, Kurt Russell…stay the course, my dude <3