Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In ManEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
It must be borne in mind, however, that, while every person has, to a
sensitive nose, a distinguishing odor, we must regard that odor either as
but one of the various sensations given off by the body, or else as a
combination of two or more of these emanations. The body in reality gives
off a number of different odors. The most important of these are: (1) the
general skin odor, a faint, but agreeable, fragrance often to be detected
on the skin even immediately after washing; (2) the smell of the hair and
scalp; (3) the odor of the breath; (4) the odor of the armpit; (5) the
odor of the feet; (6) the perineal odor; (7) in men the odor of the
preputial smegma; (8) in women the odor of the mons veneris, that of
vulvar smegma, that of vaginal mucus, and the menstrual odor. All these
are odors which may usually be detected, though sometimes only in a very
faint degree, in healthy and well-washed persons under normal conditions.
It is unnecessary here to take into account the special odors of various
secretions and excretions.[35]
It is a significant fact, both as regards the ancestral sexual connections
of the body odors and their actual sexual associations to-day, that, as
Hippocrates long ago noted, it is not until puberty that they assume their
adult characteristics. The infant, the adult, the aged person, each has
his own kind of smell, and, as Monin remarks, it might be possible, within
certain limits, to discover the age of a person by his odor. Jorg in 1832
pointed out that in girls the appearance of a specific smell of the
excreta indicates the establishment of puberty, and Kaan, in his
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, remarked that at puberty "the sweat gives out a
more acrid odor resembling musk." In both sexes puberty, adolescence,
early manhood and womanhood are marked by a gradual development of the
adult odor of skin and excreta, in general harmony with the secondary
sexual development of hair and pigment. Venturi, indeed, has, not without
reason, described the odor of the body as a secondary sexual
character.[36] It may be added that, as is the case with the pigment in
various parts of the body in women, some of these odors tend to become
exaggerated in sympathy with sexual and other emotional states.
The odor of the infant is said to be of butyric acid; that of old
people to resemble dry leaves. Continent young men have been said
by many ancient writers to smell more strongly than the unchaste,
and some writers have described as "seminal odor"--an odor
resembling that of animals in heat, faintly recalling that of the
he-goat, according to Venturi--the exhalations of the skin at
such times.
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