SEXUAL SNIFFING

Since I am afflicted with allergic rhinitis, I am terrified of being stuck in confined spaces with women who have doused themselves in all sorts of scents. Five minutes with these women and I am on my way to a clogged nose and a migraine.

Maybe most of these women just want to surround themselves in a fragrant haze so that they can block out other people’s stinky smells. Maybe some use perfume as a psychological armor against the world (which is how I think of it). But I’m also pretty sure that a good number of these women use scents to attract men.

Well, I’ve got news for the ladies in the last group: You are all wearing the wrong scents.

A study conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, and his colleague Dr. Jason Grussman, listed the real odors or odor combinations that are sure to get men all hot and bothered.

1. Lavender and pumpkin pie
2. Doughnut and black licorice
3. Pumpkin pie and doughnut
4. Orange
5. Lavender and doughnut
6. Black licorice and cola
7. Black licorice
8. Doughnut and cola
9. Lily of the valley
10. Buttered popcorn

Apparently, the volunteers’ response to the scents were correlated with the intensity (or lack thereof) of their penile blood flow.

Though it isn’t exactly clear to me how the good doctors and their team of research assistants actually measured the correlation of the smells to the men’s arousal levels, I am ecstatic over the results. I’m so happy to see that buttered popcorn is on the list.

But I’m a little perplexed about the multiple doughnut entries. Then again, maybe the doughnut’s shape also reminds men of a more desirable hole.

In any case, I was right all along. A woman doesn’t need to bathe in expensive perfume to get men to pay attention to her. All she has to do is hang out in the kitchen and make sure that the smell of food sticks to her clothes and hair.

Who said men were so hard to please?