If the odors that our bodies emit mean they are doing their job properly, then why are their smells so offensive to us?
In: Biology
Humans dislike smells that they assume are related to disease. Feces and other bodily wastes can cause disease – so we find those smells bad. It causes us to avoid them.
If you’re a dog you’ll shove your nose up another dogs arse despite having smell 40x stronger than a human’s, because the smell is just information to a dog.
The smells are not bad, we have just evolved to find them disgusting. Since humans eat mostly sterile cooked food, we are more susceptible to harmful bacteria and finding certain smells associated with bacteria or mould disgusting just improves our survival.
Definitely due to our clothing and what we use to mask our BO. Deodorant while making you smell good requires you to regularly use it because the gel is the perfect place for the odor bacteria to grow. That is why your pits stink the next day. If you spent time outside during the summer without a shirt, you should not have smelled. The sun exposure would have killed the bacteria as it formed. If you did smell, it probably was due to what you ate or there is something wrong in your body.
We have been conditioned all of our lives that body smells are bad. People that are raised in an environment without advertising for deodorant don’t find personal body fragrance any more offensive than personal sound of one’s voice. It is just part of what defines individuals.
Do you refer to the natural body smell that we have. Or the the more foul and disgusting smell that is a byproduct the bacteria that live on our skin? This is the same thing that makes our clothes smell.
Excess bacterial growth that cause lots of bad smell is a sign that something isn’t correct. Humans have learned to connect bad smell with disease, death, decay, and rot, things that are bad for you.
Human skin isn’t meant to have clothes. The oil and sweat get trapped on to our clothes, when they are supposed to just wear off to the elements.
Because evolution does not create perfection
We produce waste because our bodies do not absorb and utilize everything we eat (even if we ate some ‘perfect’ diet)
Waste ends up smelling bad so we know to avoid it and not get sick
Theory of Abjection says we find repulsive those things that remind us of our animal nature and, ultimately, our mortality.
Throwing this out there. Horses roll in some patches of dirt but don’t in others. They did a study to figure out what the difference was, and discovered a strain of bacteria that is very friendly–acts as a sort of natural deodorant while replacing bacteria that cause strong odor. This probably helps horses avoid predators who hunt by scent. I read that they’re working on bringing a culture of this microbe to some kind of marketable product we could put on our skin to quell offensive body odors. Someone’s going to ask me to post a link. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find it.
I have never worn deodorant. Maybe I have on some very rare occasions.
When living in quarters with other people that don’t wear deodorant either nobody can smell a thing unless someone is particularly dirty/sweaty. Have lived in 2 houses where this was the cases and nobody was ever offensive to me.
However I can always smell the nasty chemical fragrance that makes me sneeze that so many people wear.
Your own body odor is not normally offensive to you, and neither is your families. People outside of your tribe or clan smell bad. The more foreign, the worse the smell. It is an evolutionary adaptation for survival to ensure group cohesion while excluding outsiders. Americans are not tribal so we notice it more, but our mates are still partially selected for smelling good to us.
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