Thread: Obsession!

Obsession!

Ever notice how we work overtime on negating the best tools we were given to work with? Our sensory organs are better than the fanciest electronic gadgetry any science and technology lab can come up with, yet we constantly try to override them. Designed to alert us to danger, spur us into action and not just incidentally to put us into reproductive mode, we circumvent them at every opportunity. Can’t see that as anything but reely, reely stoopid... but I’m no Ph. D’d former drip under pressure (“expert” to you higher types).

Take smell, for instance. Oooh... wrinkled noses already? The Messrs Proctor & Gamble put the kibosh on that one, bigtime. Not that centuries- millennia- of perfumes and incense hadn’t gotten a pretty healthy start. But it was Duz & Dial that convinced us civilized folk we were not supposed to smell like folk at all. Else why would we be smart enough to invent Scope and Sure? And Arrid Extra Dry and Massengill’s “pure”- smelling douche? The “if it can, it must” rationale. (F’r the record, all brand names mentioned are Reg’d TMs... us writers have give them credit/blame every darn time).

Your more basic in-touch-with-the-earth people like Italians & Greeks, who just “let themselves go” and go on smelling like... well, humans, for God’s sake!... they obviously don’t know any better. After all, what earthly good can it do to be able to tell what every body nearby took in for lunch? And with the aid of lipstick and mustaches who needs a nose to tell you which is male, which female? On second thought, nowadays, that last part could use some help. Seriously though, if women went around over here smelling like women, like they do over there, I guess the rape rate would skyrocket. Or maybe not, since our women are supposed to be sexy-smelling only when giving off whiffs of mint, strawberry, peach and other edibles. “Edibles” is probably significant. Flowers are okay, too. But not “woman.”

Forget criminal acts, for the time being. We’re here to consider our best inborn senses, not our acquired worst nonsense. The minor nonsense we dream up is bad enough. No one can have any idea how much damage is done by women trying like crazy to keep their most female parts from smelling female. Like it’s some deadly sin to be a human female! What the hell else are we, guys? You want flowers? Go pick some and see how good your “equipment” will feel plunging into a bouquet of stickery long-stemmed roses. Make love to a bowl of real cherries, and be happy. Isn’t it insane to anyone but me, to want humans beings to be one thing, but smell, look, taste and feel like something else? There’s money to be made with illusions. That’s always the be-all and end-all of these nutty goings on. Magic tricks cost a lot to pull off. Ask any magician. You think David Copperfield’s & Doug Hemmings’ show-stoppers are really done with just a wave of the wand? To make your heart’s (or groin’s) desire smell like what it ain’t costs big bucks, too. But to get a guy to come close enough to grab, she’ll mortgage her soul. So we have. Oh boy, have we ever!

Now P & G ‘n their more upscale cohorts have our he-men on the ropes, too. Men’s cologne, perfumes & deodorants almost outsell women’s. It’s only fair, finally. But is it? Is any of it? No smell’s “bad” until the smeller is told it is and is brain- washed into believing it. Ask any mommy who’s had to de-kaka a baby who suddenly discovered how much fun the slimy stuff is to play with. She’ll tell you how quickly she can teach the tot what a “bad” smell is! A “Baad!” look on mama’s otherwise loving face, wrinkled nose held while saying “Yuck!” or “Pee-yew!” & bad-taste tongue-wags just for good measure- if the kid hasn’t already explored that far- & baby now knows a bad smell when he sniffs it. How we can expect something to be good-good when plopped in the potty, at the same time it smells bad-bad, is beyond me. Beyond any 18-month old, too, no doubt. But they’re under our control and so will “learn”... or else.

And so will we. All of us will learn that underarm sweat, garlic breath ‘n “love-juice”, despite its nickname, are bad-bad stinks. All will agree to eradicate same at every opportunity. Or else. The “else” is, of course, everybody else’s withdrawal from the rebel. If all around you are smelling like plants & you insist on being an unignorable animal you’ll lead a lonely existence. That’s made crystal clear on billboard & bench, bus & TV screen. You’re even given samples of how you ought to smell. As you shop in stores, making the fatal mistake of cutting through the perfume department, you’re attacked & sprayed. Whenever you open a magazine, you’re assailed to the point of needing a gas mask to get through a whole article. You can’t even pay your bills without getting 6 or 7 fixes of the most “IN” aromas of the moment from the envelope flaps. All non-animal, naturally.

The silliest part of all this rigmarole that’s intended to make you smell like anything but what you are, is the one exception. After doing it all... laundry soap, deodorizing soap, douche, mouthwash, etc. when it comes time to do what all us animals are made to do and meant to do- act like animals- what do you suppose most people buy to start things up? Musk! Yep, that’s right. The one smell we had all along. Nuts. Everybody’s stark, raving, nuttier’n fruitcakes. Take a whiff and see... I mean smell.

You do go on, don't you?

There's an underlying assumption here that I (the title targetted me) agree with all or any of what you point out.

On the streets of Paris, the smells that offended weren't those of normal body smell, but that of old unwashed body smell.

I don't mind garlic smell nor do I require mint on the breath of anyone near me. But I prefer fresh smells, not old.

And frankly, most perfumes I smell leave me short of breth; that feeling is OK when some femme has stolen my gonads, but unwanted when it's via the nose.

Part of the problem is the mixing of cultures; you smell what you eat. When someone on an unfamiliar diet is nearby, their body odour is noticeably different, so things like washing regularly & then deodorant processes came in to reduce the differences; it started as an aid to getting along with your neighbours.

And I'm not into female bits smelling of chemicals, although natural fruit taste can be fun.

this old piece of mine was aimed at you only in a joking way, in re your poem... didn't think you'd take it as an affront... i'll take off the 'for' bit, ok?... and the reference in the poetry post... certainly didn't mean to offend you... sorry if you took it that way...

hugs, m

No, I'm not affronted at all. I just meant as I was spotlightee that you thought I was disgusted by normal human smells - believe me, after Egypt & the 11 hour train trip from Cairo to Aswan, normal human odours are pure perfume to me!

So I explained it was the age of the odours, not the normal smells.

(& the musk we use for those perfumes comes from non-human sources anyway. So it's still covering up the natural triggers)

glad to see we're not at loggerheads on this... sorry for the misunderstanding... m