Literally. Check this out, from: Scientists discover secret sex nerve, via MSNBC:
Nerve “O” has endings in the nasal cavity, but the fibers go directly to the sexual regions of the brain. Indeed, these endings entirely bypass the olfactory cortex! Hence we know the role of Nerve “O” is not to consciously smell, but to identify sexual cues from our potential partners.
What sexual cues do our scents give off? For one thing, we are more likely to be attracted to people whose scent is dissimilar to our own. Family members often share similar chemicals, so our attraction to differing chemical makeup suggests that sexual cues evolved to protect close family members from procreating together. On the other hand, pregnant women have been shown to be more drawn to people with similar chemical makeup, which might be due to the fact that during this crucial time, women are more apt to seek out family members than potential mates.
Research has also shown that these unconscious cues processed in Nerve “O” can make or break a relationship. Couples who have high levels of chemicals in common are more likely to encounter fertility issues, miscarriage and infidelity. The more dissimilar your and your partner’s chemical makeup, the better chance you will have at successfully procreating and staying together.
So the question is, how does one go about shifting their bouquet of aromas to their advantage?
One of my female friends attests to the above:
haha, i always knew that
one of the first things I do when talking to a guy is take a quick inconspicuous wiff
[my boyfriend] always says "you love me for my smell, not for the secrets in my heart!"
because half the time i have my nose shoved in his armpit
And another seems to agree:
thats interesting
never even thought about that before
kinda makes sense though
i’m totally attracted to the scent of some people and others not
Most of us are probably aware of this on one level or another. Anyone else got sexy smelling stories out there? Post them in the comments here. I can safely say that I can genuinely get myself off just smelling a women I am with. Particularly breathing their breath and the scent of their sweat during sex. I often prefer it over the act itself.
March 25, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Secret Sex Nerve is my new codename for when I join the Justice League ;?)
March 25, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Too much information!
March 25, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Too much information is me telling you that I like a finger up my butt. Suck it up, princess.
March 26, 2008 at 2:22 am
picture is relevant to my interests.
March 26, 2008 at 10:31 am
My girlfriend is often burying herself in my chest hair, and says I smell good. I also found out that using the Axe products actually does help with attracting the ladies. The ads are an exaggeration, but there’s some truth to it.
March 26, 2008 at 11:56 am
The power o’ phermones , taking my annual shower ;0′
women would hold apples under their armpits for a few hours, then gift departing knights with them to keep them inspired.
March 26, 2008 at 2:40 pm
http://www.humpjones.com/rear/entry/the_third_nostril_raw_animal_sex_and_you/
March 26, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Yah, what is it with Axe! My brother SWEARS by it. He’s given up colognes entirely for all the compliments he gets from chicks off his spray-tube. I call conspiracy theory on their ingredients…
March 26, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Scent is an important sexual and emotional factor. I’m very partial to men’s natural scent. Just a whiff can get me excited.
I’m also sensitive to colognes and perfumes and things. Scents embed themselves in my memory.
March 26, 2008 at 7:19 pm
In my lectures, I go into the writing of Diane Ackerman, in her A Natural History of the Senses😕
Smell is the most direct of all senses. When the olfactory bulb detects something ? during eating, sex, an emotional encounter, a stroll through the park ? it signals the cerebral cortex and sends a message straight into the limbic system, a mysterious, ancient, and intensely emotional section of our brain in which we feel, lust, and invent. Unlike the other senses, smell needs no interpreter. The effect is immediate and undiluted by language, thought, or translation. A smell can be overwhelmingly nostalgic because it triggers powerful images and emotions before we have time to edit them. What you see and hear may quickly fade into the compost heap of short-term memory, but, as Edwin T. Morris points out in Fragrance, “there is almost no short-term memory with odours.” It’s all long term. This is why perfumes and incense are so powerful in magical rites and operations, as they are not polluted by the control mechanisms of language from memory and affect us on the genetic, primal level, tapping a power mostly long forgotten. A connection to nature and the primal forces of creation.
Early in our evolution we didn’t travel for pleasure, only for food, and smell was essential. Many forms of sea life must sit and wait for food to brush up against them or stray within their tentacled grasp. But, guided by smell, we became nomads who could go out and search for food, hunt it, even choose what we had a hankering for. In our early, fishier version of humankind, we also used smell to find a mate or detect the arrival of a barracuda. And it was an invaluable tester, allowing us to prevent something poisonous from entering our mouths and the delicate, closed systems of our bodies. Smell was the first of our senses, and it was so successful that in time the small lump of olfactory tissue atop the nerve cord grew into a brain. Our cerebral hemispheres were originally buds from the olfactory stalks. We think because we smelled.