Howl

Men, Let Us Smell You

Your natural scent is a turn-on

I’m so grateful that body sprays for men weren’t particularly trendy with my generation. I can still remember walking into classrooms in my thirties and being confronted with an overpowering stench of the oppressive body sprays worn by my male high school students — an offense I didn’t have to endure in my dating life.

Body sprays were aggressively marketed to the women of my generation, of course. Every magazine told me that my body reeked and no man would want me if I wasn’t regularly spraying chemical fragrances into my mouth, armpits, and crotch. Not to mention the perfumes that were already a ubiquitous part of a woman’s beauty routine.

I guess it took the personal hygiene corporations a while longer to discover that there was a huge hole in the market — men! — and that they could potentially double their profits by craftily marketing their products as guaranteed pussy bait.

I say I’m grateful that these products weren’t a typical part (so far as I observed) of a male Gen X-er’s hygiene routine for a couple reasons. For one thing, I find it deplorable that corporations have been profiting off us by feeding us insecurities about our bodies and then conveniently providing us products with which to patch up those insecurities. I also believe it’s unhealthy — and maybe downright dangerous — to be dousing our tender bodies with so many harmful chemicals that are in products like body sprays.

Lastly, and no less importantly, I like the way a man smells without all that crap.

I’ve found that there is an entire universe of scents on a man’s body, and I love to explore each nook. Let’s take a turn, shall we?

The Head

I’ve found that men have a wonderful, gentle scent on and around the tops of their head. If they’ve showered recently, you can smell a tinge of their shampoo, but most of the time, you can smell the oil their scalp produces, which is a scent that is vaguely metallic, but also sweet and slightly salty. There’s a warmth to it. A thickness. It’s delicious.

I used to love kissing my last partner on his forehead or at his hairline before we went to bed, or during sex, and I would always pause for a quick sniff.

The Neck

I love the scent of a man’s neck, especially the sides, between jaw and shoulder, where you can tuck your head, your nose just behind his ear. This place is warm and soft, sometimes with a little scratch of stubble across his neck. You can still detect the scent of his hairline here, but intermingled with an even stronger, almost honey-like scent. This is, to me, the sweetest scent you’ll find on a man’s body and it’s in such a comforting part of his body.

I always found myself drawn there — to kiss, to lay my head when we embraced. When I was lonely or aroused, I would duck my head into this space and take in a deep inhale. Mmmmm.

All of my partners enjoyed wearing cologne in this area, but thankfully, only on special occasions. I liked the novelty of it and came to find comfort and familiarity in the scent of the brand they liked to use, but I was always very glad that cologne wasn’t a daily part of their routine. I liked to be able to smell their natural scent.

The Armpits

A man’s armpits are like a pheromone smorgasbord for me. I love this part of a man’s body so much — both the way it looks and the way it smells.

I’ve always had partners who wore very strong antiperspirants (it seems like all the men’s brands are heavily perfumed) and I’m mostly okay with this. Over time, I would come to associate that scent with my partner and would find comfort in getting an noseful of Old Spice when we embraced.

But I also loved the times when physical labor and/or summer heat overcame the brave efforts of their personal hygiene products. I can remember days my last partner would come in from doing yard work and his shirt was soaked with sweat, his armpits a little…well, ripe, shall we say. This drove me wild in ways I cannot fully express. Even if I only got a whiff from across the room, I’d become ravenous, tearing at his shirt, insisting we have sex before he got into the shower.

I was too embarrassed to reveal exactly what it was that so turned me on. He always thought it was because the sheen of sweat on his arms defined his muscles (I didn’t notice or care about that), or the dirt on his forearms made the hair there darker and more noticeable (again, didn’t notice or care), or that the sight of him in that state made me imagine him lifting heavy objects and doing other supposedly masculine things (nope, never crossed my mind).

I didn’t know how to tell him that his animal stink made me want to fuck like a pair of slovenly, shameless baboons.

I wouldn’t have enjoyed this all day, every day, mind you. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. A little stank goes a long way, and I’m grateful for the miracle of deodorant (for him, for me, for all of us). But I wouldn’t mind a little less fragrance (or none at all) in a man’s armpit product of choice, and a little more sweat for me to sniff at.

The Crotch

We all produce some pretty hardcore scents between our legs, so many of which, by design, are “speaking” to our partners. I love the scent of a man here — heavy, earthy, salty, damp, with an audacious twang.

Though I’ve heard people use similar terms to describe both a man’s and a woman’s genital area, I find the two to produce wildly different scents. Yes, both have that damp earthiness to them, with a touch of salt, but that sharp piquant note of a man seems so different to me than the sweeter, milkier scent of a woman. (Though granted, I’ve only had my own scent to compare it to, so my frame of reference is glaringly limited.)

I have a different relationship to the scent here. While every embrace surrounds me with the scents of my man’s head, hair, neck and armpits, this area is a place I only encounter in our private moments together. As such, there is always something secretive and special about witnessing this scent, something both comforting and exciting.

I always cringed when I saw movies or TV shows in which a male character aims a bottle of body spray into his pants, in preparation for a lucky night with his lady. Even if the scene was poking fun at a witless playboy character, I hated the idea that it might make the men watching feel like they should douse their dicks with chemical fragrances. And let’s face it, the idea that body spray is going to entice us to put a penis in our mouths if we don’t already want to is laughable.

I know I’m just one person, just one woman among millions, and we all have different sexual and romantic proclivities. But I want to be a voice to encourage people to embrace their bodies as they are.

I don’t want to let these corporations win at shaming us for their own profit.

And I don’t want men — or anyone, for that matter — to feel that the way they smell isn’t desirable to potential partners. The fact is, the right partners will explicitly be attracted to your scent, to your pheromones. If someone doesn’t find the way you smell to be pleasing, they aren’t the right match for you. (Literally. Chemically.)

Men, please. Let us smell you.

This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2019

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Now for the other side of this story, please read this piece by Joe Duncan — it’s a must-read for women.