The Strange And Elusive Science Of Smell And Sex

I‘ll just blurt it out before I lose my nerve. I smell.

I ‘ll just blurt it out before I lose my nerve. I smell.

You likely know what that means, although in my case, just so we’re clear, I smell like onion soup. I can step from the shower, skin gleaming and taut and pink and shining, the hot gusts of steam still fogging the mirror — and smell.

It started of course — like so many bodily wrestlings that prove to be lifelong — around puberty, around 12. My hyperhidrosis is also hereditary — both my mother and my aunt suffer at the hands of being “overly sweaty” women.

Beginning in high school, my armpits became the center of my very universe.

I attended boarding school, which allowed me to indulge compulsive management of my sweat and smell; I changed clothes three to four times a day, slathering on Secret and Teen Spirit and when I was feeling particularly fearful, Mitchum or Speed Stick for men. They all came in scents like Pink Crush and Spring Breeze and Mountain Air and Active Fresh and they all smelled like a chemical bath.

Rivulets of sweat would stream down my sides as I typed madly typed my papers in the computer lounge. After field hockey or lacrosse practice, I would duck into the dining…