London - Women who use dating websites risk attracting sexual predators – because they are unable to “smell” their potential suitors, a leading agony aunt claimed.
Irma Kurtz said women who meet men online could be putting themselves in danger because the use of technology robs them of their natural ability to sense a threat.
The 78-year-old, who has been writing advice columns in Cosmopolitan for over 40 years, said she is inundated with letters from women claiming they have fallen in love with someone they met over the internet.
Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival, supported by the Daily Mail, she said: “The problem with social media – and I’m not a luddite, technology is really important – but the problem is that it leads so easily to wishful thinking, and wishful thinking is two inches away from lying and lying is right next door to lying to oneself.
“So I think the online world is making some more problems. Women are so eager to find what they’re looking for, they want to find it and they think they’ve found it, but they haven’t.
“Increasingly young women write to me to say they’ve fallen in love with someone who lives many miles away but I do love him, I am in love with him.
“And my reply is you can’t love someone you’ve never smelled. We mustn’t lose intuition and what we know. It’s dangerous in both senses. I worry about online connections.”
While Miss Kurtz’s views may sound a little unusual, they could have a scientific basis.
According to a recent book, The Science of Love And Betrayal by Professor Robin Dunbar, a person’s scent is one of the most revealing things about them because it is directly linked to their immune system. The book claims many women rate smell as more important than visual cues when it comes to sexual arousal and choice of lover.
Miss Kurtz, 78, who was publicising her latest book, My Life In Agony, said women should not forget to rely on their intuition, because it keeps them safe. She said: “When I was a kid in Manhattan going to school, I’d be walking along with my friends, on the New York streets.
“And you’d see a guy coming towards you and without a word we’d just cross the street. It wasn’t even ‘hey I don’t like the look of him’ and then cross the street, it was just you crossed the street.
“I get a feeling now that people are so busy punching in messages in their portable machines that they’re forgetting where they’re going.
“Don’t lose your ability to make judgments. And don’t move too fast, especially when it comes to guys. Just eyes open, and slow down. And that does also mean watch the booze and the drugs.”
It is not the first time Miss Kurtz has suggested women have the power to prevent themselves ending up in compromising situations.
Earlier this year she faced a backlash after saying women should not get drunk around men because it puts them at risk of being raped. She said the onus was on the woman to protect herself from danger and suggested always taking a friend when meeting an online date for the first time.
She said: “I think you avoid meeting the guy, especially if it entails a journey, without somebody else – get a friend to come with you.
“And daylight only. I don’t think you go and meet a strange man, even if you’ve met him online and you think you know him… you don’t know him until you get a sniff of him.”
Miss Kurtz, who has a son, worked as a journalist for 1960s magazine Nova, before joining Cosmopolitan as agony aunt in 1973. Her literary catalogue includes two novels, three travel books and three self- help manuals. - Daily Mail