smelling like a human is forbidden truth, non-verbal communication

[belenen]

icon: "self-love (me, sitting in the crook of the trunk of a large tree, hugging myself and leaning my head back in a relaxed way)"I learned shame about my scent from my biofamily and my first lover (who I was with for 8 years). They complained about my smell, or told me about it in lowered embarrassed voices, and so I washed it off, chemically

Comments

[kehlen]

I agree that the level to which it is considered "proper" to mask your scent is excessive.

I, too, like both my natural scents, but I am also uncomfortable when I smell too strongly. It is difficult, too, because I perspire all the time (being too hot is my natural state), and cannot use deodorant regularly, since every single one I've tried irritates my skin.

My feelings about others' scents are strange though. Most often it's either "I don't notice any smell" or "they smell unpleasant", and only very rarely "wow, they smell nicely".

[song_of_copper]

Very interesting topic. Animals (non-human ones) mostly communicate through scent, don’t they? I wonder if some of the strong response we have to person-smells has to do with that? (Perhaps we can subconsciously tell whether we can like or trust someone via their smell?) It seems very subjective, though, as to whether a particular individual ‘naturally smells nice’ to another person. Since society makes us spend hours and hours in close proximity with each other, maybe diluting/covering the natural smell cuts down on instinctive conflict between naturally incompatible people

[con_grazia]

I'm with you 100 percent on all of this. I haven't been with someone sexually for a long time, but even before then I so appreciated natural smells of sweat, all body smells (although I'm not big on really smelly garlic smells - personal taste

[delicatexflower]

smell has always been a sensitive subject with me. i was bullied badly in school for how i smelled. my mom never told me the "importance of deodorant." but since i didn't use deodorant, i became closer to a natural smell. i didn't notice.. it wasn't as bad as the kids (and teachers--who got involved since the kids teased me so bad, i told the teachers and they just made it worse--) to this day, i don't think someone smell makes them dirty, it is simple their smell. i really hate the stigma that smell has with being dirty, though :(

[lilywolfsolomon]

Slowly catching up, having been in a bit of a funk. This reminds me of a quote from Kenneth Cohen's Honoring the Medicine that I read years ago: "Olfactory sensitivity is fundamental to physical and social survival. Inuit people can smell different qualities of sea, ice, and weather... Lovers breathe and smell each other to kindle their passion. Wrong choices are made because human scents are masked by perfume and deodorants. Divorces occur because of olfactory incompatabilities