Dear Alex,
I’m worried my new fuck buddy thinks my goodie bits smell weird… How do I make sure I smell fresh down there?
Obsessed Desperately Over Reek
Dear ODOR,
You are not alone! All people question how their features are perceived by the people who see us at our most vulnerable (read: naked). In fact, it could be perceived as common courtesy to have a cleanly happy place while someone’s face is in our crotch. In fact, “How do I make my junk tasted better?” is one of the questions I get most frequently while facilitating Sex Out Loud programs.
Let’s start with the basics: Each individual has their own unique scent and taste, and that’s natural. Many products market to make our bodies smell and taste different, but those are totally unnecessary! Our bodies regulate and clean us all by themselves—showering every day or two is all we should need.
Basic truth number two: We are what we eat. Even more true when we talk about bodily fluids. We all know the “asparagus pee” smell, right? That smell and others we acquire from food make a big difference when it comes to the taste and scent of everything from goodie bits.
However, there are certain methods to make semen and vaginal secretions smell and taste fresher. Keeping our bodies hydrated by eating fresh fruits—yes, including pineapple—and drinking a lot of water will help our bodily fluids from seeming as sour.
College students are not the best hydraters. Why? We tend to overendulge in coffee and beer (for obvious reasons), and those drinks dry us out, leaving stale liquids in the body. And they doesn’t taste very nice, does they precious?!
If we aren’t happy with our partner’s or our natural scent or taste, we can use products like sex dams. Yay! Sex dams are simply flavored pieces of latex which we can drape over any part of the body and lick away without concern for passing along sexually transmitted infections.
Another method is to simply suggest a group shower with our partner to provide optimum freshness. Also, we’ll get to see their naked bodies covered in water. Yum!
Soon, a product called Masque will hit shelves. Masque is like, totally the coolest. It works like Listerine Breath Strips, although we cannot detect the taste it provides immediately. Only once our mouths come into contact with semen does the strip provide the flavor advertised (vanilla, mango, strawberry, etc.) HOW COOL IS THAT?
Interestingly, a study, which tested peoples’ reactions to personal scents against their reactions to images of people they might find attractive, found that people said they were most attracted to the owner’s of the scents they ranked among their favorites. That is to say, scents people were attracted to often matched the “look” of a person to whom they were attracted. Neat-o, right?!
In conclusion, smells matter! Tastes matter. We want our partners to perceive us as delicious, so openly communicate about what works and what doesn’t. What foods make us smell best? Which drinks make us taste worse?
We should all aim to pay attention and work to please ourselves and our partners as much as possible. It will encourage everyone to increase their sense of lovin’... pun intended!
Any more suggestions for our friend ODOR? Email Alex so she can pass along the info at sex@dailycardinal.com.