The Smell of Love | Psychology Today
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Why do some people smell better to you? A look at how human body odor influences sexual attraction
After long dismissing the search for a human pheromone as folly, scientists have begun to take a second look at how human body odor influences sexual attraction. The magic scent is not some romantic elixir but the aromatic effluence of our immune system. The only trouble is we don’t give it half a chance.
How do we humans announce, and excite, sexual availability? Many animals do it with their own biochemical bouquets known as pheromones. “Why do bulls and horses turn up their nostrils when excited by love?” Darwin pondered deep in one of his unpublished notebooks. He came to believe that natural selection designed animals to produce two, and only two, types of odors—defensive ones, like the skunk’s, and scents for territorial marking and mate attracting, like that exuded by the male musk deer and bottled by perfumers everywhere. The evaluative sniffing that mammals engage in during courtship were clues that scent is the chemical equivalent of the peacock’s plumage or the nightingale’s song—finery with which to attract mates.