JohnQ
|
People have long had a morbid curiosity about body odor. Part of us seems to enjoy body odor. Some scientists believe that this is due to pheromones, chemical scents our body gives off that attract the opposite species for mating purposes. Parts of our body seem to be made to capture body odor just for this reason. Researchers theorize that body odor is the reason why we have body hair under our arms and in our genital area. Those regions contain special sweat glands called apocrine glands. Apocrine sweat glands release large amounts of proteins and oil that feed the bacteria which produce the stench of body odor. The hair in those regions is there to trap the proteins and oils, thus producing a greater, more concentrated scent.
We have both a physical reason and a psychological reason why we are immune to our own body odor. These reasons also hold true for our breath, and one of them works to explain why people don’t seem to mind the smell of their own flatulence. The physical reason why we are immune to our own body odor has to do with a phenomenon known as olfactory fatigue. The more we smell something, the less we notice it. The scent becomes part of our base background scent and allows us to smell other, newer scents. As we develop body odor, we are constantly smelling it, and our nose becomes accustomed to it. The psychological reason is that body odor is our baby. We tend to be proud or think positively about anything we create. We think, “It can’t be that bad. After all, I made it!” Some people can become very defensive and protective of their body odors. They don’t believe when someone tells them they smell, so they don’t do anything and they go on smelling.
Posted 5391 day ago
|