Great blog! Yes, I agree that scent and attractiveness are largely a matter of familiar 'happy memory' associations. There are, however, IMHO, some bodily ...one wants to say 'odors' here, but Proctor & Gamble, et al, have permanently ruined that term via TV, so I'll say... 'aromas' which are naturally attractive in spite of our constantly being hammered at that bodies 'smell' and we need to go to Target or Marks & Spencer for strong deo. The main sex aroma is secondary sweat as well as natural smells from our hair, particularly secondary hair. Sadly, way too many young people have bought into the fad of razoring it all off of late –Which I consider a form of aromatic self-castration. This hair, bluntly: pubic and underarm, has been retained and perfected by eons of natural selection to FUNCTION at dispersing a cocktail of natural indicators to arouse others nearby. Raise your hand if you believe it's a just a stupid coincidence that we only start to grow this hair at the onset of puberty... True, men like less hair on women than visa versa (a generalization, of course). Until just this morning in human history's timeline, girls at age fourteen made the finest mates. In nomadic and agrarian cultures, a fourteen year-old barely-pubescent girl was at peak reproductivity and the most likely to survive repeated births. Consequently, males still desire just barely ripe fruit, even though society now scorns it and men are carefully taught to deny the fact, but teenagers don't know all they're going to learn about the world by that age like they did as nomads or even farm girls. They go through an entirely extra ten-year worldly learning cycle and the changes it brings, but Mother Nature's genetics haven't caught up with that recent development yet. The point is, there ARE some smells which are universal signals for sexual readiness and attachment. Most people who've lost a spouse after years of marriage lament how they miss the irreplaceable smell of their partner when they lie in bed at night. I don't believe they're referring to vetiver, oak moss or something from the House of Dior. I manufacture a new male scent which is designed for straight, bi or gay men alike. It represents what many consider to be the most basic parts of the virile gender's aroma profile. My users tell me it works, even though I don't begin to claim to have the myriad nuances down fast and hard. Each individual carries his or her own unique aromatic calling card. But a man can augment the broad stokes of his maleness and sometimes that's worth a lot. Michael Storer, indie perfumer in Los Angeles http://michaelstorer.com
