Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
It's funny. Laugh. Science

Male Sweat Makes Women Happy 93

Posted by timothy from the because-it-means-they're-toiling dept.
guacamolefoo writes "CNN reports a study by the University of Pennsylvania that involved applying to the upper lips of women a solution containing underarm sweat from men who had not used deodorant in four weeks. It apparently elevated their moods and increased their fertility. Use this knowledge at your own risk."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Male Sweat Makes Women Happy More

Male Sweat Makes Women Happy

Comments Filter:

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by dankjones ( 192476 )
    Other male fluids do this as well.

    • Re: (Score:4, Funny)

      by darkov ( 261309 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:26AM (#5522201)
      Other male fluids do this as well.

      And on any part of their face, too.

      • Re: (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:43AM (#5522270)
        oh definitely.

        I never knew women could have an orgasm simply by having someone ejaculate on their face.

        however, i've noticed that the women i've dated usually make a face like i just asked them do drink ocean water mixed with raw eggs. they obviously were frigid or had emotional problems, which is why i didn't mind them cheating on me or dumping me.

        see, porn is highly educational! now, if i can just find a bitch who likes to wear dog collars...

  • Are they kidding? (Score:5, Funny)

    by darkov ( 261309 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:23AM (#5522192)
    a solution containing underarm sweat from men who had not used deodorant in four weeks.

    This solution, if it came from my body, would rednder women unconcious, if it didn't kill them straight up. Even after one day my body odour is so powerful, the American militrary would declare it a weapon of mass destruction. Even thinking of the smell of my unwashed armpit after four week makes me woosy. What are these people thinking?

    • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fobside ( 140397 )
      It doesn't say they don't shower or wash their underarms. It just says they don't wear deodorant. Does that mean deodorant does something to the smell even after you've washed under your arms? Still, I know where you're coming from here. One day without deodorant is not a pleasant thing with myself either.

      • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by You're All Wrong ( 573825 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:49PM (#5523868)
        Stop using deodorant, wash several times a day with the simplest soap you can find (not scented). Your body will eventually stop trying to _fight_ the artificial situation you're currently exposing it to. You are over-producing the hormones and scents currently, and the mechanism your body takes to overproduce these is to over-sweat.

        Shower in the morning, and have a freshen up - just with plain water or minimal soap - after lunch-time, and have another light wash after work. Within a month you'll start missing out the lunch-time wash as it won't be necessary any more. Wear cotton rather than man-made fibers, for improved breathability and wicking.

        It's not _sweat_ that smells, it's _stale sweat_. Fresh sweat, as this study indicates, is not unpleasant to most people. However, some of the hormones it contains, such as androsterone, are smelt differently by different noses. To some it's like flowers, to some it's sweet, to others it's like a jock's jockstrap. So don't expect everyone to think that you smell divine.

        I've not used an aftershave or deoderant for about 10 years, I simply make sure I keep good personal hygiene, and my girlfriend loves my smell. (She's one who likes androsterone)
        This article isn't news to me at all - hell, my girlfriend always nuzzles up to my armpits when going for a hug! However, I have a very sedentary lifestyle, and a cool flat (I'm exothermic), so I sweat very little on the whole.

        YAW.

        • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Mxyzptlk ( 138505 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @08:09AM (#5528069) Homepage
          It's not _sweat_ that smells, it's _stale sweat_.

          Not quite - the human have different kinds of sweat glands, which we have over all of our bodies. The greatest concentration of sweat glands are on the palms of our hands and soles of our feet.

          The watery kind of sweat is secreted by eccrine sweat glands; this kind of sweat consists of mostly water and some dissolved salts.

          The smelly type of sweat comes from the apocrine, or specialized, sweat glands. The reason that the sweat smells is that the apocrine sweat glands in the armpits and genital-anal areas produce sweat that 1) stimulates bacterial growth, and 2) is oilier and is broken down into smelly components.

          As a sidenote: yes, we "sweat" in our ear, but the apocrine sweat glands there produce earwax instead of normal sweat.
          • Yes, you're right, I was over simplifying to the point of inaccuracy.

            If I'm 'oily' sweaty, then I will usually have a cup of hot Masala Tea (indian tea with spices, including ginger and black pepper), which causes the 'wet' sweat to start. I find it easier, or at least more refreshing, to wash after I've added the wet sweat.

            Your 'broken down into smelly components' is what I meant by 'stale'.

            Eugh, was a lovely subject matter.

            YAW.

        • Left out diet. (Score:3, Informative)

          by TomorrowPlusX ( 571956 )
          I should say right now my experience has been 100% identical. I haven't worn deodorant in years; my current girlfreind and previous ones have never said "you stink" and a couple have even said they like my smell. One was a fanatic for it -- but she was peculiar ;)

          But you left out the one, singularly most important aspect -- diet. You MUST eat properly if you're going to stop using deodorant.

          Stop eatinng fast food.
          Stop eating processed food.
          Stop drinking soda, drink more tea.
          Eat fresh veggies, lean meats.
          • Thanks for following up. My lifestyle is:
            Yes to { Tea, Lean meat, Fresh veg }
            No to { Fast food, processed food, Soda }
            Not by design, that's just what I like (maybe I can smell myself if I indulge in the bad stuff, and give myself negative feedback, bleh!)

            YAW.

        • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:3, Informative)

          by unitron ( 5733 )
          "It's not _sweat_ that smells, it's _stale sweat_."

          I thought the smell was supposed to be from the waste excretions of the (mostly anaerobic) bacteria living and multiplying on the areas of your skin that get the least exposure to fresh air.

          • Yup, bacteria are certainly playing a part, but a good thick sweat will give those bacteria loads to dine on.

            (not all smells are bacterial, some are fungal - particularly in foot and crotch areas. However, these are usually nasty, an you'd want to get something from your local apothecary.)

            YAW.
        • Stop using deodorant, wash several times a day

          My former roommate's boyfriend got that advice backwards. After three days without bathing, the other roommate and I agreed that if he didn't leave the premises we'd toss him in the shower ourselves.

    • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zulux ( 112259 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:44AM (#5522276) Homepage Journal
      a solution containing underarm sweat from men who had not used deodorant in four weeks.

      My girlfried and I do a lot of distance hiking ~ 90 miles in a week, and strangly enough, after about the third day of hard, sweaty hiking without deoderant, you stop stinking like a rancid kitchen towel.

      When friends come an pick us up at the end of out hikes - we've asked them if we stunk like limburger cheese, and never once has anybody piped up that we stunk. (They could be horribly polite)

      In our slacker civilisation though, I stink like cat puke if I don't slather on some deoderant every day.

      • Wow, and here I thought the action on my keyboard provided (nearly) all of my Physical needs.

      • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PeekabooCaribou ( 544905 ) <slashdot@bwerp.net> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:04AM (#5522516) Homepage Journal
        Several years ago, I gave a lift to a pair of Appalacian trail hikers. They had started in Georgia, and I met them in New Hampshire.

        "Rancid kitchen towel" isn't quite strong enough to describe the smell. They might as well have been decomposing in the back of my car.

        On a different note, my last girlfriend enjoyed my underarm smell very much. To each her own, I guess.

        • Re:Are they kidding? (Score:4, Funny)

          by zulux ( 112259 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:53AM (#5522649) Homepage Journal
          Several years ago, I gave a lift to a pair of Appalacian trail hikers. They had started in Georgia, and I met them in New Hampshire.

          "Rancid kitchen towel" isn't quite strong enough to describe the smell. They might as well have been decomposing in the back of my car.

          We see a few hikers here on the Pacific Crest Trail that stink like rotting tuna mixed with fermenting brussel sprouts - the're usually the hippy weed-hikers that roll their own feces into their hair.

          Nice pepole, from about 100 feet away.

          Also, stay away from the crazed skinny camo hikers - they usually smell like the rotting human flesh of their last victem.

          • We see a few hikers here on the Pacific Crest Trail that stink like rotting tuna mixed with fermenting brussel sprouts

            So that's what the patchouli oil I see in these online hippie shops smells like
        • I do long-distance hiking, also (working up for a thru-hike of the A.T. in a year or two), and "thru-hiker smell" just means that you've been neglecting your hygiene. It is possible to get clean out in the backcountry, if you have a liter of water to spare (but carry it away from the spring or stream to get clean; don't bathe there!); the fact that many male thrus seem to not bother is something I've always found mildly icky.

          OTOH, when did you fetch these hikers? There was a huge drought late last summe

      • They're being nice to you. I remember coming back after being out in the field (with my Uncle Sam) for a month or so. Several of us had gotten clean -- green scrub pads work good for that deep down dirt -- and were going out to eat. Another guy hadn't had anyone pick him up so we took him to his place. He stank soooo bad. We had to roll all the windows down and open the sunroof and could still barely stand it. And in early Colorado springtime, that can be rough...

        You are also prolly mistaking the fac
      • I've done the same thing, though not with hiking. I've noticed that if I don't shower for say 3, 4 days or so, I don't smell at all. I'm 90% sure that this is because of the natural things in your skin. Most of the American public is way too hygiene obsessed--taking showers every 32 minutes and such. The problem therein lies because the body doesn't have enough time making up all the oils and everything else that were just Brillo-padded out of the skin for the ump-teenth time. By not showering non-stop, you
      • The keyword is "without deodorant". Not to mention "without soap". I assume you also neither smoke (including weed) nor drink alcohol.

        Left to itself, with no added chemicals (internal or external), and with sweat allowed to evaporate in a timely manner, even a long-unwashed human body doesn't smell like much of anything (sweat itself has no smell). Odor becomes an issue due to skin bacterial imbalances (soap, deodorant, and perfume are common culprits), and due to chemical waste being excreted thru the ski
    • heck, my stink is so bad that when I left my shirt on the floor, the cat tried to roll in it. Honestly.

  • My Guess (Score:2, Informative)

    by DarkKnightRadick ( 268025 )
    Is that it has to do with pheremone's present in sweat. I'll assume they used underarm sweat as we have a lot of sweat glands there.

  • non-bully women (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:59AM (#5522324)
    common sense implies the sweat samples were provided by men who are computer geeks - just ask yourself "what class of society wouldn't shower for a month?"

    additionally - lisa simpson has taught us that the sweat of geeks sets off some nerve in bullies.

    conclusion - the women in this study were not bullies. which is good for us men - it means there are women out there who beat the sh*t out of us before we say hi.

  • If it turns out... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:55AM (#5522487)
    ...that the reported effect is real (the sample size of the experiment was ridiculously small), it would be interesting to see if the reverse situation would have a similarly involuntary and detectable effect in males. Also it might be interesting to do a double blind test to examine any biological origin of homosexuality since the presence or absence of sweat in a sample would be (consciously) undetectable(or presumably easily masked judging by the article) by the subject.
    • For anyone troubled by trying to figure out if you're gay or not it could settle worries.
      • (not knowing being a worry not actually the worry of being)
      • Ok, I better make sure this comment isn't misunderstood!

        What I was trying to say is that this knowledge that the article conveys has a real application.

        It took me ages to accept that I'm Bi. Not Gay, not straight, just Bi. It is questionable and damn worrying that it's possible that you can scientifically determine your sexual orientation but I would have personally have found it of value. The value of this is outwieghed by risk, granted.

        Original comment was:-

        " For anyone troubled by trying to figu
    • I thought of this too, but it was in regard to an article about some researchers who found that images of attractive women activated the same pleausure center that food or drugs do. So men do get physical pleasure from looking at beutiful women. I think it would be very interesting to test to see if gay men have this response for men instead of women. If they do it would be a powerful argument in the favor.
    • The sample size is small, just barely adequate for an ideal random sample, and much smaller than should easily have been obtained, I think. Perhaps they couldn't find enough women of the kind they were looking for willing to smell sweat for several weeks, or at least for the amount of money offered.

    • examine any biological origin of homosexuality

      This article suggests a credible explanation, basically linked to oestrogen like chemicals.

      http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9 99 92493
  • Well, now I finally know how my buddy Adam Snider got laid!

  • one page fact sheet (Score:3, Informative)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:13AM (#5522540)
    Here [uiuc.edu] is a one page fact sheet on human pheromones from a bio class at UIUC. As you can see, this is not exactly news.
  • "if the active agent in male perspiration could be isolated."

    This _may_ be a media misquote.

    The active ingredient they're talking about is probably Pheromones; the language of smells we also use, certainly for sex.

    However what they may mean is that there is something else other than Pheromones in it.

    Washing quietens the dialogue between people via smells making society a stonger influence over who's having sex than the individual?

    Next time you get a hot flush notice the feeling under your arm

  • Pheromones (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:23AM (#5522563) Homepage Journal
    Smell and pheromones play very important roles for many species. Though it is less in humans, it is still significant.

    The study says there is no evidence for sexual arousal, but that this could be because the tests were done in a sterile enviroment. Biologically, however, the primary function of pheromones is sexual communication. Here is an article [stars.com] on pheromones in humans and animals. Relevant portion:

    Smell has a dramatic effect on sexual desire for several reasons. Firstly, particular smells recall mental images that reduce anxiety, making a person more receptive to sex. Secondly, some odours stimulate a link in the brain.Scientists have ascertained that all animals produce pheromones (quite aptly translating from Greek as 'to transfer excitement') or scents in the form of a chemical substance, designed to stimulate behavioural responses usually some form of attraction or repulsion within the same species.

    ...

    Pheromones are found naturally in minute amounts in the perspiration of all guys and we can recognise pheromone-power in cultural, historical trends and habits. Members of a tribe in New Guinea actually say good-bye by putting a hand in each other's armpit and rubbing themselves with it! In medieval England, lovers exchanged 'love apples' - peeled apples were kept in a woman's armpit until it absorbed her odour then given to her lover so he could inhale her fragrance while they were apart - supposedly the anticipated effect was that of an aphrodisiac confirming the true strength of pheromones (not forgetting that Medieval Europeans never washed, this was a sure test of love!). It is even reported that Napoleon sent a message to Josephine prior to his arrival home "Home in three days, don't wash"

    I don't know if the Napoleon story is an urban legend and if it is related to the myth that Frenchwomen don't wash.
  • wow....no need for further reseach here!

  • Poor methodology? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CarlDenny ( 415322 )
    I wish they had a more complete pointer to the study, it sounds deeply flawed, like they're just trolling for an interesting sound bite.
    Where's the comparison with women's sweat, dog's sweat, floor wax, nothing? I don't here any mention of a control group, etc. I bet sitting most women down in a sterile environment for 10 minutes would elevate their moods without smearing anything on there noses.

    This strike me as a very weak experiment, scientifically, with more vague and ill-formed conclusions drawn fro

  • Semen works too! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrWa ( 144753 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @03:33AM (#5522761) Homepage
    According to this study [bbc.co.uk], semen works to make women happy as well!

    I can't even begin to record here all the things this combination brings to mind...

  • Speaking from Experience (Score:4, Funny)

    by jeramybsmith ( 608791 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @03:52AM (#5522815)
    I have been to linux conferences where the collective BO was peeling the paint off the walls. I didn't see a single booth bunny who was happy.
  • "... Procter & Gamble has announce it's newest line of exclusive deodorant products geared at the female audience. The company claims that by marely applying small doses of the fragrance to the upper lips, women will generally experience hightened moods and feel less tense. Further, women may also expect a rise in levels of the reproductive luteinizing hormone that typically surge before ovulation... " (from unknown sources).

    Hmmm... bastards, sounds like some companies are already cashin in on the n

  • I can already imagine the spam (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpkunst ( 612360 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @04:53AM (#5522933)
    jpkunst, discover the SECRET of male sweat! 56yyegjhhf
  • Well they probably didnt know what was in it - and a product containing this wouldnt work - haha id like to see what their marketing department did :)
  • I haven't even had breakfast yet, but I am supposed to run into the bedroom, uncover my wife and rub my (unwashed) armpits on her mouth so she can have a great day???

    What else did I not know on how keep women happy???

    And I am sure she will understand when I do this....

  • This explains (Score:3, Funny)

    by s4ltyd0g ( 452701 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @03:57PM (#5524647)
    why the chicks in Paris are so hot... (-;
  • Supposedly if you leave a hankerchiff under your arm (without deoderant of course) for awhile, and then put the hankerchiff in your shirt pocket, you'll attract more women. Something to do with pheromones I think.

    And that's how stinky men get laid.

  • I was surprised to read this CNN article from a team at Penn who have apparently done nothing more than to reproduce a set of experiments that were carried out in 1987 by Martha McClintock's group (http://cns.bsd.uchicago.edu/faculty/mMcClintock.h tml) at the University of Chicago. You can read the gist of their experiments in a Newsweek article dated 1/12/87 (http://www.athenainstitute.com/mediaarticles/news week.html)

  • Addendum (Score:2, Informative)

    by juushin ( 632556 )
    The correct URL for a previous description of McClintock's work is the following 1998 ABC article - http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNe ws/pulse_sexsmells0328.html.

  • There is nothing more pleasing to a woman... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17, 2003 @12:49PM (#5529590)
    Than to see a man sweating his ass off to try make her happy.

  • Fits with history (Score:3, Informative)

    by willpost ( 449227 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @01:07AM (#5534620)
    Roman gladiators would scrape the sweat off themselves and women would buy bottles of it.

Slashdot Top Deals

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

Close