WOMEN are worse oglers than men, a study suggests.

Scientists used eye-tracking technology to pinpoint what people looked at when shown a series of sexy photos.

They expected women to be more interested in faces, and men in genitals.

But to their surprise, they found almost the reverse was true. Men were more likely than women to linger on the face before diverting their attention to other parts of the body.

Women also spent longer poring over images of couples performing sexual acts.

Face

Study leader Dr Heather Rupp, from The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University in the US, said: "Men looked at the female face much more than women and both looked at the genitals comparably.

"The eye-tracking data suggested what women paid most attention to was dependent on their hormonal state. Women using hormonal contraceptives looked more at the genitals."

The findings, reported in the journal Hormones And Behaviour, support previous research suggesting that men and women have different patterns of brain activity when viewing sexually stimulating images.