Fridae

Walk like a man, talk like a man, said the still undisputed Queen of Trash, Divine, in 1985. And the saying still holds true today.

We want our men to be men, to look like men and to sound like men. We like men who go to the gym, men with muscles and men with facial hair. Our men should exude testosterone but know how to - yes, you've guessed it - take it like a man. But there's one manly thing that's guaranteed to get some of us screaming, and that's body odor. Even shit-eating drag queens don't sing "reek like a man." We want our men to look like they've been working out all day; we just don't want them to smell like it.

This is something I've never been able to fully understand. I have nothing against being clean and freshly showered to, say, go to the office, but when it comes to sex, what's with all this "hang on, I need to take a shower" business?

For me, there's nothing like that smell when you're nuzzling a guy under his balls, and when you pull back that foreskin and - OK, even I have my limits - men who aren't cut should give it a quick rinse in the sink, but that's the limit. The rest of him I want to smell and taste like he's supposed to, not of the latest Clinique shower gel pour homme, but the way nature intended. Musky, salty and male.

Armpits are just the sexiest things about a guy. When a man has his arm up and exposes his pit, there's something vulnerable yet oh-so-sexy about the tension in the triceps and deltoids. And that hairy pit with its natural, musky odor just makes you wanna bury your face in it. You can forget going back to the womb for comfort, the smell and taste of an armpit is for me like going back to that first primordial daddy, just after the Big Bang.

Be slightly hyperhydrosic myself (I sweat a lot), I've noticed that most Asian guys seem to have a lower tolerance for sweat and body odor than white or black guys, most likely because they generally sweat less themselves. Sweating is something that foreigners do, I've found, and a lot of gay Asian guys just don't like it. What I find interesting in this respect is that the guys I've talked to about this seem to think that they themselves don't smell at all, just because their singlets aren't soaked five minutes after getting on the dancefloor.

But it's not the water in the sweat that smells, honey, it's the chemicals your body produces, and we all produce roughly equal amounts of those. Maybe the reason that some Asian gay guys think that white and black guys "smell" is that they smell different. Now I might be getting into rather non-PC territory here, but humans are just animals after all, and there's certainly something tribal going on at a subconscious level when it comes to sweat.

That said, and cultural differences aside, gay guys do seem to be divided into two further camps when it comes to body odor. We're likely either deliciously intoxicated by a man's fragrance or will run screaming from the bedroom with a hankie over our nose. So why? The reason a guy's smell turns you on (or not) is the pheromones contained in his sweat.

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Pheromones are chemical substances that animals (including humans) produce for the purpose of communication. They are smells that are not consciously recognized, but which affect the behavior of others (the swoon or scream response). The word derives from Latin and means a communicator or excitement, and the pheromones of two people in close proximity will either magically blend or clash jarringly. Don't ask me what happens at an orgy. Well, to the pheromones, anyway.

But it wasn't too long ago that scientists believed that our response to smells was completely learned behavior and that humans had no innate olfactory triggers - if they'd just asked some gay men I doubt they would have waited so long to give pheromones their due credit.

All of the scientific studies done on pheromones that I can find have involved women, and all relate that women are 1000 times more sensitive to the odor of steroid musk molecules than men - but that would be straight men, of course - I myself can sniff out the steroid musk molecule that gets my juices flowing from 30 yards across a crowded, smoky, poppers-heady dance tent.

A recent study from the Department of Psychology, University College, London, indicates that Androstenol, a chemical found in male underarm sweat, has definite pheromonal qualities. Walk into the locker room of any gym to test this theory. There are even pheromones that have tranquilizing qualities, similar to those used in aromatherapy. This is why that certain guy's armpit feels like home - its aroma is stimulating you sexually/physically while relaxing you mentally/emotionally at the same time.

There are also pheromones in saliva and semen that can trigger the same response of exuberance. Mother Nature designed it so you'd let down your defenses and open your legs. And who can argue with her? Another pheromone called Androstenone has a very different effect. Its smell is that of dominance in man, and acts as a lure to attract others who will feel a sense of security and warmth emanating from the aroma. This is known as "animal magnetism," or heaven - you choose.

Pheromones are an area where we certainly need some scientific studies involving gay men. If certain pheromones can tell woman who is the right mate for her, surely it's different pheromones that explain why we like the smell of one man and not another, why some Asian gay guys hate the smell of white men and why some white men can't even smell Asians at all (apparently).

So while the eyes may well be the windows to the soul, but your sense of smell is the doorway. Gay relationships are as natural as heterosexual ones, so you can't tell me Mother Nature overlooked this little fact.

When you're in a long-term relationship with a guy, you can't avoid each other's smell, however many showers you take or - god forbid - colognes or sprays you use to cover up your natural odor. So if you really can't bear the smell coming from your lover's armpit, and it doesn't both excite and relax you, well, you can turn your nose up as much as you like but that's just nature's way of telling you that he's not the one.

Love maybe blind, but it sure can smell.