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The season of delicious smells is approaching us – personally, I just love the fresh scent of pine trees, the warm and cozy smell of apple cider and cloves, the tingly scent of peppermint, and yummy smelling gingerbread and pumpkin pie (not to mention all the other tasty food)!
But do all these nice smells do something more than make us feel festive (and hungry)? Is there a little more to the excitement you feel when you smell pumpkin pie?
According to a neat study run by Drs Hirsch and Gruss – yes!
This team of researchers rounded up 31 guys and gave them 40 scratch and sniff cards with different scents. Then they asked them about their sexual preferences, sexual practices, and which cards they had liked best.
The team picked the top 24 selected scents and mixed up 6 combinations of the top scents to make 30 different batches of smells. After this, the study got really exciting.
The men were hooked up to a plethysmograph to measure the blood flow into their penises and were given masks with the different scents on them to smell. As they sniffed each scent, the plethysmograph measured how hard that scent was making their penis.
The researchers found that EVERY smell increased penile blood flow – BUT not every smell turned guys on the same amount. While the smell of cranberries only turned guys on a little, it turns out that the combined scent of pumpkin pie and lavender made guys the hardest! (Check out the full list of scents and penile blood flow increase HERE)
Pretty neat stuff – amiright?!
It gets crazier – the team of researchers also found some interested relationships between the men’s characteristics and the scents that affected them. For instance: older men had a stronger reaction to vanilla and men who were satisfied with their sex lives got harder when they smelled strawberries.
However, while we do know that these smells were giving the dudes a stiffy, we don’t really know WHY the smells were making them hard – was it because the smell of pumpkin pie reminds guys of being with partners that turn them on around the holidays? What it because the smell of doughnuts makes them feel relaxed?
Dr. Hirsch has also done a similar scent study with women – but the results weren’t quite the same.
He found that some smells actually decreased sexual arousal in women – like Cherry! And yet that weird combination of pumpkin pie and lavender ALSO worked to turn women on – but the smell of Good and Plenty combined with cucumber was most arousing.
Here too they found some neat relationships between characteristics and response to scents: the women who enjoy masturbating preferred the smell of Good and Plenty combined with banana nut bread…. mmm banana bread. (Incidentally, women who DON’T like masturbating were more turned on by the smell of baby powder and were actually turned off by the smell of Good and Plenty!)
In conclusion – when will sex toy manufacturers stop making cherry scented lube and toys and start making things that smell like pumpkin pie and lavender?! ^_~
What Scents do you think turn YOU on?
this post reminded me of a girl that her smell always turned me on!! and she didn’t smell like caramel Or banana bread (2 if my fav smells), she smell like…. like her! and each time i smell her it turned me on. Even if i got into an place she had just left.
The other funny smelly thing that happened to me is that from time to time i remember my first girl friend smell… I cant tell u why or how but sudently I just got her smell with no reason were the source could be. some time i’m just in the middle of nowhere literally and the smell shows up. My guess has always been that i remember her smell just like you remember something about someone
Pumpkin pie and lavender? Mixed together? That’s gotta be a weird smell.
I certainly hope they don’t start making lavender scented sexy products- I have a lavender allergy! *sniffle*
I would have guessed pumpkin pie – but lavender?!
I’m going to stock up on those pumpkin scents that are out now!
lol… I was once conditioned on a scent. It was a jasmin massage oil my ex-boyfriend always used, and after a while I got very aroused only by the smell of it ;o)
shay!! NEW diary of a futa!!
I wonder if the scents that turn on the women are due to shape associations as banana (though not banana bread), cucumber, and Good and Plenty (although the name might have some effect) have a somewhat phallic shape.
This study also might explain the oddly high consumption of strawberries and strawberry Pocky (by both myself and the then girlfriend) during one of my better relationships.
Oh jeez Maikeru, I don’t think it has anything to do with phallic shapes. Plus, if this is your theory, it doesn’t hold for pumpkin pie working on both men and women.
It could be multiple reasons. As in one reason for certain scents and another reason for others.
Anyway, a comment more in line with some of the others…
A group of friends I got to talking about odd flavour associations while we were waiting for the cookies to bake at a baking party (I think that I was the only guy from the normal group there there since I’m the only guy who cooks and didn’t have conflicting plans). My female friend’s friend started talking about how she always loved peanut butter, but accidentally conditioned herself badly enough that she couldn’t eat it plain (as in off of the spoon) without her getting turned on. Apparently she had used peanut butter to help train herself how to deep throat her boyfriend. I don’t think any of us there expected a comment about sex from a relatively tame topic.