An Odorous Vagina Isn’t Just Okay — It’s Beautiful

Let’s Set the Record Straight on This…

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” I thought in silence, as I shook myself awake from the dreamy and then-unprecedented nervousness and excitement that I felt in my entire body. Stunned, I stopped for a moment to stare and ponder my first sex act before it began, taking a minute to reflect on what I was about to do before I let loose. The truth is, I’d never been so turned on in my life. I remember thinking, in that definitive moment, that my life was to going to be forever changed — and I was right. It was the first time I saw a vagina. She and I were alone with the heater ablaze in a dimly-lit basement at a house across the street from mine, a warm place to spend a cold winter in small-town Ohio.

The mysterious female sex part that I’d wondered about helplessly in my mind for so long was finally laid bare, right there in front of me, naked and in-the-flesh, untarnished in its beautiful humanness. It was perfect. It was both vulnerable and powerful simultaneously. Until that point, it had been more myth than reality, like an urban legend, something that existed in the mind but never in the flesh. As my widely-opened eyes stared down at her with hesitance, I prepared myself for what would become the very first oral sex performance of my life. I felt extremely masculine and slightly terrified.

We had rented two movies from the local video store, on VHS, (those were great times) movies we would put on as we sat next to one another and hoped for something more to come….movies that were perfect for inviting playful, wandering hands to touch one another’s bodies. It’s doubtful that this woman will ever read this, but if she does, I hope she knows how truly wonderful she is and how much I enjoyed the experience.

I had no idea what I was in store for. I was being seduced. She was older and more experienced and properly guided me through the process step-by-step. The truth is, with the darkness of the basement and the constantly flickering lights from the TV, which set the mood like a strobe pumps the energy of a nightclub dancefloor, I didn’t really see much of the first vagina I’d ever look at— but I could definitely smell it. I sometimes consider it the first drug I ever inhaled. Unlike Bill Clinton, I have no problem admitting that I inhaled.

I inhaled deeply and felt electrified by the hormone-high which beset me and shocked my senses from within. I’ll never forget that sweet stench, it was the ripe perfume of a goddess…it smelled like pure sexuality incarnate…I wanted that moment to last forever.

I thrust forward, diving in without ever stopping to hold my breath…

There was something natural about kissing it…something real, something that spoke to the inner-man within me, calling back to some Paleolithic ancestor, the artifacts of whom lie hidden, lurking like in my DNA. I felt connected to something natural, some archaic creature that lived sometime before all of this artificial world sprang up. The kissing of her vulva was passionate. I twirled my head and moved up and downplaying with different formulas. It was simultaneously spiritual and human. It was as if, suddenly, the whole universe made sense and nothing outside of that room existed. It was, at the same time, surreal — I couldn’t believe it was actually happening to me. The hair tickled my nose. It tasted metallic and electric, yet, sweet. I loved giving oral sex, instantly…

If you’re a woman and have ever wondered what it’s like for a man to experience a vagina for the first time, I hope that description will suffice to give you an idea. I don’t think I’ve ever been simultaneously that nervous and horny. It was animalistic, untainted by the opinions I would adopt later in life, and it didn’t drag around with it any social implications — it was just a raw sex act.

It was a coming-of-age moment for a coming-of-age guy, and my love affair with the wonderful splendors of the female anatomy was off to the races from there. I’d received oral sex before, but it just wasn’t as interesting as giving it, something that would later make some women feel slightly insecure. I can’t help but wonder how much of this love I have for unadulterated female sexuality, is due to me never buying into the idea that we men are supposed to harbor a secret disdain for natural women in order to fit in and verbalize our distaste for women whenever we get the chance. Seeing men do this is obnoxious, to put it lightly.

I love women, I truly do; and that includes all sorts of things, from smells to monthly bloating, panic attacks and sick days, sweating and flushed-red faces after an afternoon jog, and yes, of course, vaginal odor. To love the intimacy of a woman is to love the woman, an intimacy without which deprives the meaning of the word love. We don’t truly love someone if we only love an artificial version of who they are. This isn’t to say that I adore the odors of all women, to the contrary, I’m rather selective, but when it comes to the right women — the women I’m deeply and carnally attracted to — I adore all of them.

I was immediately excited and deeply curious, as I hunched forward to bury my face into a vulva for the first time. The sweet, tangy, robust fragrance was unlike anything I’d ever imagined or smelt, it was like hearing music for the first time or being given the gift of sight after spending years in blind darkness. As I began my first lash of the tongue, lapping it up like an excited dog devours a treat, the distinct, metallic, slightly-acidic flavor was unspeakably pleasurable. It resembled nothing artificial that we’d buy off of the shelves in this boring, predictable consumer world; it wasn’t designed to be sweet, it was more sophisticated like a bold, musky perfume infantilizes the smell of a gimmicky fabric softener. Like old books or freshly-cut grass, there’s something nostalgic and unpretentious about the vagina, and it spoke to an intangible element of my humanness, calling out with its pheromones to somewhere deep within me on a molecular level, causing an eruption of emotions that simply can’t be mimicked with artificial fragrancing schemes.

I’m thankful that I didn’t spend much of my youth around boys who’d learned misogynistic things from other, older boys, as boys and men can sometimes use jokes about vaginal fragrance to demean, bully, and “joke” about women, to their faces or behind their backs, usually to cover up their insecurities. I was able to walk into this experience with a fresh, open mind and unjaded perspective. I fell in love with the vagina itself as it was, without any additional fresheners or feminine hygiene products designed to simultaneously mask and shame these natural body odors. I’ve always had a quiet disdain for such products, it seems. Why in the world do we seem to intent to ruin a good thing?

A part of a woman’s draw, a part of her appeal that speaks to me on a very deep molecular level is her smell, and that includes her vagina. An odorous vagina isn’t just okay — it’s beautiful. It’s a part of who she is and a part that can never be taken away from her.

Skipping ahead to several decades later and I find myself easing the fear and shame of an adult woman who’s uncertain in her sexuality and worries that she might smell dreadful. Not at all, to the contrary, it’s always quite pleasant, and the smell of an attractive woman is one drug that hasn’t lost its potency — it’s still the same as I remember it being the very first time.

Can we really untangle the vagina from its distinctive scent? Can we really, as human beings, demand an ultra-rigid shower schedule or bombardment of products that eliminate any sort of pure naturalness and very real humanness, one that dispossesses the vagina of one of its signature features? I think not.

Some women are naturally fragrant, others not so much, as vaginae come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, forms, and yes, scents — all are wonderful and should be respected.

And I say this not only for myself, as a man who is attracted to and appreciates women, but so that hopefully someday women may feel just a little bit more comfortable in their own skin knowing that they aren’t being judged so harshly, at least by some. I don’t believe that women exist solely or even primarily as a sex object for men. But we cannot ignore the awesome power of femininity and what could be more feminine than a natural vagina? Only the woman who possesses the vagina.

I refuse to pussyfoot around the fact that I love the way a vagina smells and have since that very first instance of actually smelling one. It’s a natural, healthy, human part of sex, not one that should be hushed up, shamed, discouraged, oppressed or disposed of, like so much else that even remotely resembles sex is in our culture always is.

“Trim that pubic hair! Wash your vagina daily and after even light workouts or walks! Wear this bra, because natural breasts are too sexy or too unsexy! Douse yourself with this perfume, you wouldn’t want to smell like a human being, and make sure you curl your hair if it’s straight — but you definitely need to straighten it if it’s naturally curly, cause curly hair is unacceptable!”

So says the culture that sends so many mixed signals about all of the very best ways we could possibly not be ourselves, our human, naked, raw, physical, sexual selves. Our society is inundated with so much control over every aspect of our sexual lives and this produces an immense amount of sexual shame. Every woman I’ve dated has been subconscious about the smell of her vagina (and other body parts) and I’ve never really understood why. I’ve always adored them. I’ve never run into a vagina that smells bad, being intimate with dozens of them up-close and personal, and never regretting a single moment of any of it, at all times of the day and all sorts of situations. It’s as if there was an emergent, patriarchal trend to — gasp! — keep women insecure and then prey upon the insecurity as a subtle way to control and contain healthy female sexuality. This is often done so that men can not only have sex with insecure women more easily but so that women’s bodies can become a marketable commodity, one that’s no longer really their own. It’s time for a change.

I can only suggest that we strive to never be ashamed of ourselves, especially when it involves covering up secondary sex characteristics that have been with us since the beginning of the human race. Scent is how animals mate, it’s one of the ways humans have and maintain sexual relationships, and it shouldn’t be something that we dislike about ourselves. It’s sexy, straight up, like a powerful Scotch that warms you in all the right ways and gives you a slight high, at least for a little while.

Can we really say that we love and are attracted to vaginas if we don’t love and find a deep, visceral attraction to them in their natural state, as I did when I was a young boy exploring one for the first time? Men, is this possible? I don’t think so. It strikes me like someone saying, “I love the taste of wine, but only when my tastebuds are numbed and I can’t taste anything.”

I know that I’m not alone, here, and I know that many (most?) men feel the same if they’re honest with themselves, so can we just all get on the same page and acknowledge it? As I’ve said before, while they probably exist, I’ve never personally met a man who’s highly critical of the smell or hygiene of a woman who also didn’t have some serious control issues and usually a hint of rage that would erupt from time to time. So, I speak for many, many billions of men out there when I say this: we love your vagina just as it is. I can only suggest that women out there find someone who loves them for who they are and accepts them in all of their glorious beauty.

I think it’s time that we, as a culture too, embrace the naturalness of women…can we do that? While running the risk of redundancy, I’ll say it again: an odorous vagina isn’t just okay — it’s beautiful. It’s a part of who we are and it should be accepted and loved in all of its concrete, real facticity, and unapologetic humanness. Here’s some suggested further reading: