New research on The Bikini Effect explains, among other things, why Hooters is a successful way to market hot wings and beer. Key quote:

The researchers conclude that there is one common appetite system in the brain monitoring our desire for a host of pleasures from sweets to pretty faces, alcohol to lotto winnings. When it is stimulated by, say, a sexy picture or the smell of baked goods, we experience a general craving for anything pleasant.

While the article doesn’t explicitly say so, it seems this also may validate the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. If girls can increase your interest in food because of a common “appetite” mechanism, then food should increase your interest in girls as well.

Of course the downside of this revelation of how easily men make substitutions is that women may now realize that they can divert our unwanted frisky advances by offering us a beer or a big slice of pie. (Mmmmm… pie!) Or they could use a sexy situation to get us to make other unrelated impulsive decisions we might not otherwise make. Then again, I think Cosmo runs articles on how to do this every month, so I suspect they already know.

Once again, scientists get closer to codifying what women have known since the dawn of time.