Our new blog series “The 5 Senses of Sex” explores the ways that intentionally focusing on each of our senses can deepen intimacy, passion, and sensuality and heighten sexual pleasure. Check out last week’s entry for sight, and follow us this month when we’ll be covering hearing, taste, and touch.
The sense of smell—sensitive, wordless, elusive, mysterious, it’s perhaps the most individual and personal of the senses. Each person finds different notes in any scent and experiences a completely unique landscape of emotions and reactions within their heads.
It’s also our second strongest sense in terms of how many receptors are dedicated to it; only sight has more. Despite this, it’s a safe bet that most of us have never really thought about the connection between scent and sex, except for a spritz of perfume before a date—or the worry about whether our bodies smell good to our lovers. There are so many wonderful ways to use our senses of smell to rev our sexual engines, though, so let’s go exploring.
Why smell is so powerful…and personal
Without getting too anatomically-nerdy about it, there’s a lot going on when we smell something, and it’s all pretty fascinating. First of all, with the sheer number of olfactory receptors we have (10 to 20 million), we’re taking in a huge amount of information. Not as much as your average cat or dog, admittedly, but a lot by human standards. Second of all, if you’re also tasting something, your sense of smell is determining the flavor—“flavor” is the equation of taste + smell. Third of all, we’re also literally feeling the scent; most smells stimulate the trigeminal nerve, which is why we perceive minty smells as “cool” or find harsh smells irritating.
What really gives smell its immediacy and makes it such a unique experience, though, is how quickly scent information is passed to the amygdala, which affects emotion, and the hippocampus, which affects memory associations. That’s why you’ll react so strongly to some smells, experiencing emotional responses and memories.
At the same time, it’s actually fairly common to have temporary or permanent loss of smell. Being born without it entirely is rare, but it can be affected by anything from illness to lifestyle (e.g. smoking or working with harsh chemicals) to age. On the flip side, many people have mild-to-severe reactions to various scents including shortness of breath or migraines—or may just have sensitive enough senses of smell that “bad” smells trigger the gag reflex and even some “good” smells may be quickly overpowering (that’d be me!) As with everything else we talk about, all of these things are normal, and your body isn’t better or worse for the ways it can experience sexual or sensory pleasure.
Revealed: the list of sexiest scents for setting the mood!
Spoiler alert: there isn’t one. Sure, there have been studies suggesting that certain smells have aphrodisiac properties, including vanilla, citrus, and almond. But before you go rubbing yourself down in Creamsicles, there’s something important you should know: No scent is universally liked or disliked, and no one knows exactly why.
Our sense of smell is very adaptive—meaning that we’re not born being able to distinguish “bad” or “good” smells very well in terms of what’s harmful to us or not. On the contrary, it’s more like we’re overall skeptical of a scent the more completely unfamiliar it is, and we learn from there whether we like it or not. “New” smells that we immediately like or dislike are more likely to be reminding us of other smells that we’ve classified as good or bad. Plus, our emotional associations with scent are so strong that we each may hate scents that other people tend to like (such as finding a specific floral cloying or sickly-sweet) or, conversely, love “stinky” scents like skunk. And to top it off, cultural associations play a part in our perceptions of scent—for example, whether a scent is associated more with candy or with medicine in different countries affects whether people in those countries are likely to love it.
So this brings me to Important Point #1 about using scent to heighten sexual pleasure: You’re going to need to spend a little time finding out what scents both you and your partner love, or at least which ones that one of you likes and the other doesn’t dislike.
FUN FACT: In one study, the scent of pumpkin pie increased both vaginal and penile blood flow. So hey, maybe science does have an explanation for why so many people lose their damn mind over pumpkin spice everything every autumn.
ONE WEIRD TRICK for using pheromones to have mind-blowing sex!
…Nope, sorry.
One of the biggest sex-and-scent myths is that humans are driven to sexual madness by inhaling pheromones, and that perfumes “infused” with pheromones are guaranteed to drive your lover wild.
Except that 1) pheromones are not odors, 2) they’re not perceived by the olfactory system or even by the nose, and 3) human beings don’t have the sense organ needed for pheromone perception. Also, “pheromone perfumes” usually contain pheromones from other animal species, which are only effective among members of those species.
On the plus side, it eliminates the possibility that using a “pheromone perfume” will leave you dealing with people you’re not interested in suddenly making Tex Avery eyes at you.
For that, you’re going to have to douse yourself in pumpkin spice, apparently.
You’ll be shocked at how lovers can recognize each other’s smell!
Actually, this one is for the most part true. Although there’s not yet proof that we each have a base body scent that’s as unique as a fingerprint, evidence to date strongly suggests that we do—and that even though our sense of smell is so much weaker than other mammals’, we still have some ability to recognize our own or other people’s smells.
Squeamish about the thought of your lover smelling your natural scent? You’re not alone. It’s very common to be worried about how you smell to your sexual partners, especially whether your genitals are “stinky”. Sex-negative jokes about bad body smells definitely haven’t helped with those feelings of anxiety and shame.
Put your mind at ease: First of all, most “B.O.” smells that we think of as bad are actually caused by bacteria lingering on the skin or occasionally by strong spice or food smells being released through the pores as that food is being metabolized. In other words, nothing a shower can’t fix. Second of all, remember how our reactions to scent have a lot to do with memories and emotional associations? Your lover is likely to enjoy the smell of your body because they associate it with the pleasure of having sex with you. There’s also limited, but promising, scientific evidence that we might smell better to a partner when we’re aroused.
Ways to explore scent for sexual pleasure
Despite my Debbie Debunker mythbusting about some of our misconceptions around scent and sexuality, the good news is that there ARE still effective ways to use the sense of smell to create a more intensely sensual, sensory experience with your lover(s).
Use a signature scent. If you have a perfume or other scented product that your partner likes on you, you can amp up its eroticism by only wearing it when you’ve got seduction on the mind. Over time, when your partner smells that scent, they’ll register it as “time for sexytimes”. They can do the same for you, too.
Lust is in the air. Along similar lines, you can talk about what scents you both find really appealing, and use essential-oil room sprays, incense, scented candles, strongly-scented cut flowers or flower petals, or reed diffusers to scent the air in the room when you’re preparing for a hot night in. Just make sure you have enough ventilation for the strength of the scent you’re using—you want to go for something gently pleasing, not “Yankee Candle store at Christmastime”.
Rub it in. Using a scented massage oil, honey dust, or bath oil (if you’re starting out sharing the tub together) combines scent and touch or taste for a sexy feast for the senses.
Go to Starbucks together in the fall. …Sorry, I’m still hung up on the possibility that the entire nation is actually horny for pumpkin spice.
Take them in your…nose. Take your time exploring your lover by scent. Let them lie back and get comfortable while you nuzzle your face against their skin and inhale deeply. Necks and hair tend to have a distinctive, warm, yummy smell. Breasts, armpits, the creases or insides of joints, and of course genitals all also tend to have stronger natural skin smells. Your lover gets the sensory pleasure of feeling your face (and hair, if you have long enough hair or facial hair) against their skin, while you get to enjoy consciously experiencing and learning their unique scent. You can help ease their anxiety, if they have any, by making pleasure sounds or telling them how good they smell to you. Then, let them reciprocate!
Amp up your anticipation. If you’re at home on a day when you know you’ll be having sex when your lover arrives, prime your pump by burying your nose in something that smells like them—their pillow, a shirt left behind, even a whiff of their signature scent spritzed on the sheets. Your associations with their scent will kick in all kinds of wordless, pleasurable reactions.
Send them on a scent-sual pleasure hunt. Dab yourself in different places on your body with a scent your partner likes. Invite them to explore your body and tell them you want to be kissed (licked, bitten, stroked, etc) anywhere they discover that scent. (One caveat—be careful using scented products near mucous membranes like the mouth or vulva. Irritation is not sexy!)
Lust is in the air, Part 2. Certain places have their own distinct scents—for example, the smell of salt air close to the ocean. If there are atmosphere scents that one or both of you especially like, use that as an excuse to vary up your lovemaking locations. Woodworking shops, new cars, and freshly-mowed fields were never so sexy!
Absence makes the heart grow hotter. Going to be apart for a while? Exchange pillowcases or shirts with each other, so that both of you have something that smells like the other. Put it under your head while you masturbate, so you’re experiencing a little bit of physical closeness to them while you’re getting sexual pleasure, and know that they’re doing the same thing.
Take some time to explore the rich palette of scents out there and enjoy the luxurious feeling of breathing in the smell of flowers, spices, resins, perfumes, and even textiles (ask any leather-lover about the smell of good leather) as you discover which ones put you in the sexiest frames of mind. If you’ve never really thought about it before, you might end up unlocking a whole new realm of pleasure to make your sex life even more sensual.
