A recent study conducted by Emory University analyzed how men and women react to and view nude and sexual pictures differently. Believe it or not, men really do look at the woman's face first.

The study, which was published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour, was conducted by psychologist Kim Wallen and his former graduate student Heather Rupp. The pair showed photos of couples engaged in sex to 30 women and 15 men, each of whom had an eye-tracking device documenting where their gaze landed, how long it stayed there and in what order it shifted from area to area.

The results showed that not only did men look at the woman's face first but that women focused longer on images of heterosexual sex than men. Wallen and Rupp also noticed that the women were affected by taking hormonal birth control. Women who were on hormonal birth control seemed to be more interested in the overall image set before them whereas the other women seemed to focus on parts of the body that would normally be clothed.

Wallen explains these patterns as making perfect psychological sense. For women, assessing their partner's level of excitement only requires one-well placed glance, which leaves them open to then focus on other aspects of the activity. That shift in focus seems to be regulated by the hormonal pattern.

For men, it is not always so easy to know if their partner is as engaged as they are. The female body does not have any overt displays of arousal and so it is suggested that men may linger on a woman's face in order to gauge her involvement. This difference in men may be linked to a portion of the brain called the amygdala. This part of the brain is responsible for linking emotion and memory and plays a role in processing emotional information.