What exactly is that “spark” a woman refers to when she meets that man whom she wants to exercise her biological imperative with? Is that “spark” a result of hormonal imbalance, static electricity or spontaneous combustion?
During a speed-dating event that I once observed (purely for anthropological purposes. And for comic relief as well), I noticed how the men struggled to create a good first impression despite the necessity of opening their mouths. Now aside from unbuttoning their collared shirts to expose their well-groomed chest hair, some of these men sprayed enough cologne on themselves to knock out small children, asthmatics and ebola-infected swine. I truly doubt that the ability of a man’s cologne to suffocate his date will help make him more desirable, especially after he has permanently damaged her olfactory system.
However, these men might be considered potential sperm donors if the woman is able to link the man’s cologne to a past experience of hers that was memorable, pleasurable and that did not require fumigation.
According to Indiana University psychology professor James Craig, “It is pretty clear that much of peoples’ responses to perfume and other smells is learned.” Smell is a very potent memory trigger, and past associations with certain colognes often dictate how a woman will respond to a given scent. For example, if you are in a bar and a woman suddenly knees you in the groin, grinds the spike of her heel into your manhood, and calls you a “lousy cheating bastard!” then you are probably triggering not too pleasant memories. However, if you are in a bar and a softdrink bottle-shaped woman sporting twin satellites pounces all over you, shreds your clothes with her teeth, and plants kisses all over your well-groomed chest hair, then you know that your cologne will probably help you fulfill a biological imperative that night. Maybe fulfill it even two times. That is, until you discover her Adam’s apple.
Apparently, this “spark” that they are referring to is not electrotherapy. So, for men who want to short circuit the whole dating process and go straight to plug-and-play with the opposite sex, their hope does not lie with a spark, but rather, with a snort. Because the secret to short-circuiting the date and mate process lies with a people who smell as good as their cheese: the French.
Despite their much-maligned hygiene habits, the French are reputed to be the best and most robust-smelling lovers in the world. While we Pinoys pride ourselves on the fact that our pink parts smell sampaguita-clean, the French are even prouder that they have yet to surrender their pink parts to nuclear-powered kalamansi-fresh deo-colognes. And even if some Frenchmen smell like Gruyere cheese, their natural aroma has been known to disintegrate the undergarments of women for several centuries.
This could be the same reason why your only date during a Saturday night is your right hand: because you are just too damn clean! In fact, washing yourself too frequently in all the inappropriate places scrubs off your pheromones, leaving a woman unable to smell if you are the right one to help her overburden the Philippine population.
Pheromones are those small organic molecules that act as a form of chemical communication between two animals of the same species that can activate an animal’s — ahem — receptivity. The pheromones we emit come from our singits, kili-kilis, mucous membranes, nipples and genital juices in turn produce aromatic messages that travel through the air and affect the sexual behavior of the opposite sex. Let me give you an example: when I don’t shower for a couple of days, my Yaya Cora wants to douse me in Lysol.
In a horribly warped experiment to demonstrate the potency of pheromones, researchers anesthetized a male golden hamster and placed it in a cage. Then they let macho male hamster with anger management issues into the same cage. The normal hamster bitch-slapped the anesthetized hamster, bit his ears and hair-pulled him around the cage. And because these researchers were not having enough fun yet, they performed the experiment again, but this time around they rubbed vaginal secretions from a female hamster onto the hapless anesthetized hamster.
When the macho hamster was placed back into the cage with the anesthesized hamster, who reeked of Parfum à la Genitalia, the macho hamster’s reaction was quite different: he no longer tried to kick the derriere of our dazed and confused hamster. Instead, he tried to hump it. And it was only when the scent of the vaginal secretions wore off from the anesthetized hamster that the macho hamster realized the enormity of what he had done. After five minutes of screaming, the macho hamster curled up into a ball and cried while the theme song from The Crying Game played in the background. The macho hamster is now undergoing therapy.
But more disturbing than being slathered with a female rodent’s genital juices is the revelation that what makes us really attractive to the opposite sex is not the size of our bald spots (as my dad steadfastly believes), but our immune systems. According to a Psychology Today article, the process by which our body odors are perceived as pleasant and amorous by women is more selective than a World Bank bidding. We usually smell the most attractive to a woman whose genetically based immunity to disease differs most from our own immune system. In other words, we need to stink good enough to mate.
So if our aroma is the best way for us to attract a potential mate, then why do we men wear cologne to mask the essence of our singit? That is because cologne is the Trojan Horse that makes the female snort up our pheromones. Sniffing your natural odors into the deepest recesses of the female nasal cavity is the only way a woman will know that she is the right partner to bear your future basketball team. Given this, a pleasant-smelling cologne is used by crafty dirty old men (DOMs) to encourage unwitting members of the opposite sex to inhale more deeply the air surrounding them, increasing the probability that their pheromones will travel deeper into their nasal cavities. So, my three female readers, when you are within a 50-foot radius of DOMs, I strongly encourage you to wear nose plugs.
Indiana University chemistry professor Milos Novotny asserted that certain substances in colognes can also act like pheromones among humans and can potentially heighten a man’s sexual attractiveness, in spite of his physical attractiveness. Since women often say that men are animals, this gave perfume manufacturers, who were either very high or very desperate, the idea of using the secretions that animals use to mark their territories as the base for their perfumes.
Among the more popular secretions are the skunk-like spray of the civet cat, the castrum from the peri-anal glands of beavers (Drakkar Noir probably sounds much better than Eau de Peri-Anal), the musk from the dangling privates of the male musk deer and the ever-popular boar urine. Among all those secretions, boar urine appears to be the most robust — once female pigs get a whiff of the male boar urine, they arch their back to demonstrate their willingness to mate.
So, for all the No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB) fans out there who want to use pheromones for their own diabolical ends, allow me to present two divergent strategies: first, forsake hygiene as an imperialist concept and lock yourself in a room with no ventilation or plumbing for several days. Locking yourself in the room with livestock is optional. When your odor is full-bodied enough to wipe out cockroach colonies, then you know you are now ready to mark your territory with pheromones of mass destruction. Under-armed with your lusty aroma, proceed to the nearest bar where all the alpha males and shapeliest, twin-satellite-bearing females converge. You needn’t worry about the alpha males — they will flee at the mere whiff of you. Once the bar has been cleared of all competition, find that woman that you have pining for, wrestle her to the ground, and thrust your armpits fully into her nose. If she arches her back, you will know that she is immediately smitten with you. However, if instead you put that woman into a coma, you will be sent to a nondescript lab, pumped full of anesthesia, smeared full of female hamster secretions, and placed in a cage with several thousand macho hamsters.
Otherwise, you can take the other route of spending a ridiculous amount of money to pay off the Legacy group policyholders and drown yourself in cologne that smells like animal reproductive organs and pee-pee to attract the opposite sex. However, what the perfume manufacturers fail to mention is, although they are sure that animal secretions will get some animals to arch their backs for you, they aren’t too sure if these secretions will also work on human females. But even if the cologne doesn’t help you attract the opposite sex, you needn’t worry.
There are probably still some lonely female pigs out there.
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If you have comments, suggestions or want a bottle of my pheromones, text PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart or Sun subscribers. Or email ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.net.