A woman may not consciously think of a man's sweat during intimate moments. But her brain appears to recognize the scent and the significance of the emotions it conveys right away.
That's the conclusion of a Rice University study that exposed 19 twentysomething women to various scents, including "normal" sweat from males as well as so-called "sexual" sweat — more on this in a moment.
— From Unique male sweat has sexual message at The Houston Chronicle. See also: When you're in love, everything smells different.
Ah, our sense of smell, so fun and hot. I bet this goes both ways for men's and women's sexy sweat- men seem to be just as sensitized to women's scents.
Oh pheromones. Stinky man sweat. Sigh.
It's AMAZING how significant smell is in attraction. I do think it's more significant for women than men, though. Especially since our sense of smell is more acute anyway…
I have to politely disagree about a man's sense of smell being less acute or less significant than a woman's. I think men react to smells differently than women do, but that does not make their noses less acute. I think men either voluntarily or sometimes even involuntarily choose to ignore smells more often than women do. Men seem to have strong reactions to “bad” smells more than they do pleasant smells. And quite often I think they even get a kick out of unpleasant smells. Just something that I have noticed because we discuss smells often in my house – LOL! I am always trying to clean and “cover up” unpleasant smells and hubby is often amused by this. Very interesting article – thanks.
I think studies have shown that women (in their childbearing years, anyway) have a more acute sense of smell than men. It is theorized that this is due to the effects of estrogen.
Don't know why all the studies this week are about women smelling men & not the other way around!
Women's sense of smell is more acute, but don't know if that means it's more important in attraction. I'm sure someone has done a study — this seems to be a hot topic lately!
These “sweat sniffing” studies always kind of gross me out just because I think of what the subjects have to endure. I guess there will always be college students willing to earn $25.
LOL — also note that this study was only done on 19 women, which is not all that many to draw major conclusions from.
There was a study a number of years ago that tested women's attractiveness to men by smell. They showed men images of different women and ranked their desirability on appearance alone. Of course the most “beautiful” women were ranked most desirable. BUT, then they (and I don't really want to know how they did this) showed the men the same pictures with a sample of the woman's “scent”. In most cases the men who were attracted to the “scent” found even average looking women's images more desirable than just being desirable based on image alone. They showed that smell played a major part in desirablity, rather than just appearance. In some cases, the women who were judged most desirable on image alone were judged less desirable after the men favored another woman's smell, etc.
This is a hilarious and somewhat apropos article about a study of whether Axe actually makes men more attractive to women (the answer is “yes,” sort of, so long as they can't hear the men speaking!):
http://adage.com/article?article_id=133621
We knew that. Didn't we know that? Of course we did.
Axe? Do tell!
That sounds familiar — will have to see if I can find a link, thanks!
Yes, I read that one, LOL…
But of course!
I believe smelling is in a large part a learned skill. If it is not, why do they train perfumers? As we sniff the world, the easier it becomes to pick things out- to notice and differentiate the inputs coming in our face.
That said, I wonder how much of the difference in odor perception lies in sociological reasons. After all It's far more socially acceptable for women to be interested in what things smell like than it is for men. So, is the perception of men's ability to smell today akin to the perception of women's math scores circa 1920?
equality can work both ways
Axe ! I know a journalist who almost lost her job because she made a feature article of her article and she wrote something like she could smell natives of a certain country reeking of Axe, while she was wearing Jo Malone. You can bet she had to apologize in writing and the received angry mail from readers in tons.
I think any man sweating while making love to me will always look attractive if ever I lose my sense of smell :))