By: Symone Conway
There’s a number of things that make a person attractive: their height, eye color, physical strength, emotional stability, facial hair, hairstyle, personality, even their relationship with others! A quirky trait that many can also find attractive is someone’s tone of voice. Tone of voice seems like something crazy to be attracted to, but actually it’s completely valid. Due to the fact that voice appeal can be changed momentarily, as in professional, melancholic, or even excited tones of voice, being attracted to the way someone speaks is very common.
Being attracted to someone’s voice actually has its own word: auralism. By definition it means, “sexual arousal or excitement caused by sound” or even “sensory sexual stimulation taken in through the ears”. This factor of being attracted to one’s voice can even play a roll in the amount of talking and sexual conversation a person may want during sex. It has actually been scientifically studied and found that both men and women lower or slow down their voices if they are having a conversation with someone they find attractive. People can be deliberate in their tone and make it more seductive if trying to turn someone on.
This attraction to someone’s voice does not just have to be in their tone. Many people find that someone’s accent can be attractive as well. Personally speaking, I find that accents from New York, or of Spanish and Caribbean tone are the most attractive. Several articles ranking United States accents found that “deep southern” or Texan accents were deemed most attractive, with Bostonian, New Yorker and Chicagoan accents following behind. This arousal to sound can also be described as an auralism fetish.
The word “fetish” can have a negative connotation; when most people hear that word they think about a foot or bondage fetish. Auralism should not be placed in the category of abnormal fetishes because the arousal to sound can come from anything, even ASMR videos or any sound that turns you on; For some, even yodeling could be a major turn on.
Generally speaking though, women are typically more attracted to men with deep voices; it is deemed as masculine, and the same factor goes for men as their attraction to women’s voices stems from if it is more high pitched, as they associate that with femininity. A woman talking more softly around you could indicate her level of comfortability and attraction or interest. People can subconsciously alter their behavior, more specially their voices, to appear more appealing.
Vocal attraction is sometimes overlooked in terms of influential desirability factors. However, tone of voice is highly important when determining the amount of attraction to someone. A man could have a perfect face, do all the right things, but if he talks like SpongeBob SquarePants, it could be a dealbreaker for many women. Tone of voice is a trait people would normally disregard or overlook, but it’s incredibly prominent.