Can the smell of a woman intoxicate a man?

I remember seeing the movie ‘Scent of a Woman’ starring Al Pacino as a blind retired US Army colonel. If I remember correctly, Al Pacino makes a comment that he wishes he had a woman in bed and woke up in the morning with the smell of her permeating the bed. Does smell have any meaning when it comes to sex? Even more so for a man, the scent of a woman can be intoxicating.

The theory of smell or to use the scientific terminology pheromone is nothing new. Basically, it is a chemical secreted by certain animals like insects that often works as an attraction to the opposite sex.

Can this also be extended to humans? Scientists aren’t quite sure, but some people feel that it influences a relationship. It’s not an unreasonable thought that humans can subconsciously use the scent of a partner of the opposite sex to forge a closer relationship. Some enterprising people in the US and India realize this and organize meetups that help people choose partners based on smell. These parties are different from normal parties that feature men and women for friendship and marriage.

Many parties are now being organized in New York, Los Angeles and Mumbai, where the party takes on a revolutionary cast. I attended one of those parties where the girl’s sweatshirt or t-shirt is put in a plastic bag and given to prospective men. The men smell the sweatshirts of several of them at a table and decide which one they prefer.

In case a man likes the aroma that emanates from a particular shirt, he will communicate it to the organizer of the party. The next one involves the photo of the man with a summary being projected onto a screen. Now it’s up to the girl to accept him as a date. Such matches require good organizational skills and a lot of pre-match work. I smelled one sweatshirt in particular and liked the smell and reported my acceptance. I was delighted when I was introduced to the girl who was from Assam, the ‘Far East’ of India. Whatever the scientific basis for this, the fact remains that these meetings take romance to a volatile level. It’s like going back to the primitive era.

Research studies have shown that the reaction of men and women may be dictated by a set of immune response genes. The human nose is capable of picking up this incredibly small chemical signal. However, I will admit that while scent is a powerful aphrodisiac, relying on scent alone is not the end or the whole of life. It is just another part of the varied experience in life.