Sex: what women want

Macho men - with their chiselled jaws and beady eyes - may attract women looking for a fling. But it's the more 'feminine' male who gets the girl if she's after a mate, according to research.

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A UK study, published in Personality and Individual Differences, asked over 400 men and women to judge digitally altered pictures of male faces made to look more masculine or feminine. They were asked to predict personality traits including sexual behaviour and parenting skills.

Men with masculine faces - a square jaw, larger nose and smaller eyes - were classed as significantly more dominant, less faithful, worse parents and as having personalities that were less warm, compared to their 'feminine' counterparts with their finer facial features, fuller lips, wide eyes and thinner, more curved eyebrows.

"This research shows a high amount of agreement between women about what they see, personality wise, when asked to 'judge a book by its cover'," said lead author, Dr Lynda Boothroyd. "They may well use that impression of someone to decide whether or not to engage with that person. That decision-making process all depends on what a woman is looking for in a relationship at that time of her life."

An earlier study - published in Hormones and Behavior - found that women prefer manly men when they are ovulating, especially when looking for short-term rather than long-term partners.

Other research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, suggested that women spot good father material from facial features. Feminine-looking men were judged to have an affinity for children while macho men were assumed to have higher testosterone levels - the kind of chaps they'd choose for a quick fling.