I don’t know about you, but I have had some boyfriends/partners with whom after sex I wanted to shower right away and get their smell off of me … and others where I was happy to wait until morning. I love the natural smell, both clean and dirty, of certain guys.  Other guys however, I find smell slightly funky.

It’s weird, I rarely think of a guy’s smell except when intimate (unless they are wearing cologne, and then I can’t help but think of it). And one would assume that a clean smell, regardless of who it is, would always be tolerable. Not so. Some people, even clean, have unattractive smells to other people. However, it is not a quantifiable good smell vs bad smell. Some guys who smell great to me, actually smell repellent to others. And visa versa.

As it turns out, there’s a reason for this – genes.

Our body-odor is “an external manifestation of the genes of our immune system.” Our immune system determines what diseases we can defend against, and what diseases are recessive within our make-up. It’s preferable to mate with someone who has an immune system least like ours so there’s both a greater range of diseases our kids will systemically defend against, and less recessive disease genes that can double up. Here’s a great article about it: The Scent of Sex

Hence, the men whose smell we are attracted to actually have immune systems least like ours. They are the ones that, biologically speaking, would be our preferred sires (I love using that term!). Crazy, huh!?!?!

There have been a number of experiments that prove this. Results even indicate that a man’s scent tends to be the most important feature determining whether a woman will find him sexually attractive. Does this mean us women are all programmed to mate above all else? Eeeek!

Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that while dating we will all encounter men who smell good to us, and others who don’t. We may even keep dating the unattractive-smellers because we like other things about them. However, now that I know his smell is significant, looking back, I’m not surprised that the guys in which I wanted to shower right away after being with are the guys that never worked out in the long run.

Check out this video on smell and sex: Dirty Sexy Smells