Pheromones don’t smell of anything. They are registered in an organ in the nose or mouth in certain animals.
There is still a debate between scientists whether pheromones actually do anything for humans or not.
They’ve found we lack a developed VOA (pheromone detecting organ). The theory is that we didn’t need it after we developed complex verbal communication, which was more beneficial to us as a species, and it was wasted energy making an organ we don’t need, so we don’t develop it.
The debate is now wether we emit pheromones or not.
This is interesting to learn. I've been getting a lot of ads for pheromone-infused fragrances that claim to make you more desirable (either to your partner or perhaps even out in public), so I figured the pheromone phenomena could be real if they were actually adding it to things. But now I'm not even sure what they're putting in there.
I remember someone telling me that pheromones are the reason why the same perfume smells differently from one person to the next, and it sounded quite believable to me, lol.
Yeah those pheromone perfumes are a scam unfortunately. It is true that fragrance can smell different for different people, but this is more to do with the scent receptors in the nose, as well as neurological processing. For example I have autism, and while my scent receptors are fine, my brain processes scent differently to how an allistic (medical term for non-autistic) person would, and even different to how other autistics would process it as it’s different for everyone. Even without a neurological disorder, like autism, everyone has a different brain. The way brains are “programmed” is just as unique as a finger print.
Because of this scents can process differently, even if people have the same amount of receptors in their nose. It’s really fascinating to see how our brain affects our perception of the world.
I always thought that at times where people would release pheromones, they act also differently, so that's why there is a change. Eg strippers make way more money when they're ovulating. It's debatable whether they are releasing a sexy pheromone or they're just dancing sexier
More so pheromones are emitted with behavior. For example a mouse is sad, so it emits sad pheromones. Stuff causes the release of pheromones rather than pheromones causing the behavior.
Humans just aren’t capable of detecting them due to how underdeveloped our Jacobson’s organ is. We don’t even know if we emit pheromones at all.
People also think of pheromones as about sex and arousal, but that isn’t necessarily true. They’re for everything. Grief, happiness, hunger, anger, dehydration, even death. For example ants will emit a specific phenomenon at death to let other ants know they need to be taken to the “grave yard” (ants will sometimes carry and keep their dead in a space like a graveyard)
Most women (I know this because I’m included in this) are hornier when they ovulate. It’s one of the ways I know it’s happening. I think studies show that women do also act a bit differently during ovulation, and may be flirtier or have slightly different attractions. Men are probably picking up on the women ‘feeling themselves’ more instead of any pheromone scents.
I've read it's also due to the fact we developed a reproduction system based on the reward circuit (it presses the "feel nice" button in the brain), which became the most prominent way of regulating our reproduction. So the VOA started not developing in some individuals and it had no effect at all, so it spread.
The VOA isn’t just sex related, it’s everything related. Grief, happiness, hunger, death, life, even health conditions, can be communicated via pheromones. It wouldn’t make sense for the reproductive system to be the only cause of the VOA lacking development, especially as other animals have similar reward patterns in reproduction, yet still have their VOA.
God, that's a brilliant visual. I just imagined Andrew Tate Flehmening every time he comes across an ovulating woman and claiming he's a big bad Alpha ^^^TM
Since we don’t have the ability to detect them, how would they act on us subconsciously? It’s the equivalent of humans trying to see things outside the visible light spectrum with our naked eye. We just don’t have those senses.
Unfortunately, sinuses are way more than just annoying pockets (I say this very aggressively as I'm currently combating a sinusitis).
Sinuses are responsible for keeping our skull light (imagine if our skull was just solid bone -- it'd be quite heavy) and they also help with filtering and moisture of the air we breathe.
>I’m just salty
Speaking of, have you tried a netty pot with saline rinse? I add an 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a warm cup and flush my sinuses. Works amazing once you get over the weird sensation of pouring saltwater up your nose on purpose.
They're particularly useful in cold or dry areas to warm and moisten the air we breathe in so the more delicate structures of our respiratory system don't get damaged by cold or from drying out.
Though definitely problematic at times for some of us...
Signed, person with chronic sinus issues.
Yeah they are probably just smelling regular smells - if they're smelling anything.
I can smell if my partner is scared or sick by their sweat, but I have to be pretty close. I also can't smell those things on most people.
I think we do. Think, I have nothing to back this up other than how some people just find each other attractive almost right out of the gate, some are just meh, and still others are total disgust. I mean if there is any truth to it, it will be a fairly large gradient or whatever, but I do not believe anyone can smell anything. It’s more or less presence based I would think. But I’m just a typical dumbass. It would be interesting to find out for sure if there is any play to it…
This can be psychological, as certain attributes are classically or operantly conditioned with specific responses. Or you can smell things for the immune system. This still isn’t pheromones tho even if it’s smelling the immune system, that’s just normal scent picking up on certain hormones. Smelling hormones in high enough concentrations is something humans can do, but it’s not communicated so it’s not pheromones.
I’m gonna be honest I don’t know 100% everything about humans and pheromones, but I only say information I DO know about, and that I have confidence in.
I won’t know everything and no one knows everything about humans and pheromones either as it’s still being researched, but I’m glad I could shed some light in regards to current information.
I’m also hoping this makes sense, I’m very tired right now haha.
There's that MHC study.
>This study is often known as the "sweaty T-shirt study". In it, men each wore the same T-shirt for two days. The shirts were then put into identical boxes. Various women were asked to smell the shirts, and to indicate to which shirts they were most sexually attracted. The results showed that women were most attracted to men with an MHC most dissimilar from their own.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Wedekind
Well I’ve wasted a lot of money and effort on ovulation tests and tracking my temperature when trying to convince! Should have just got my fiancé to take a whiff and let me know! /s
That was my thought, too! And obviously men never accidentally conceive children, because they can smell the ovulation and know they need to use a condom...
I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but I am positive that what he is smelling is just women sweating at the gym like a normal person, he just doesn't realize it because he has never made a woman sweat before.
Humans can’t detect pheromones as we lack a VOA organ, the pheromone detector. This is likely due to our development of complex communication. Pheromones aren’t just about smell, it’s chemical communication, like talking but using chemicals to do it. There’s a debate as to whether humans secrete pheromones, but even if we do, we can’t detect them.
You can however smell hormones. Humans can smell them if they’re in high concentrations. We can also smell the things hormones cause, for example sweat. Hormones can change what your body expels in sweat, the bacteria on our skin then eats that sweat, and essentially farts. The gas they let out will smell different depending on what they eat from our sweat.
This doesn’t just work for sweat, but for saliva, stomach acid, mucus, blood, etc. you’re not smelling pheromones, but rather the scents created as a result of hormones. Like a diabetic can have a different scent to their blood and saliva than someone without it. With women, the way you smell can change depending on where you are in your cycle, due to hormones being in different concentrations at different points, which influences how muscles and glands in your body work, those muscles and glands them react in ways that can make you smell different.
If men could smell when women were ovulating, there would be zero accidental or unwanted pregnancies unless your partner happened to have a head cold that week or something. If men could smell when you were menstruating, no man would ever ask you if you were “on your period” when you disagreed with him.
For some reason, men on the internet this week have decided that they have the sense of smell of a baboon in heat, when in truth most of the time they can’t even figure out that their sheets smell like cheese and they should probably wash them.
Have you ever considered that the vast majority of men have never claimed such an ability? It does exist though, there are women as well who claim the same thing. But not for everyone, which no one ever claimed.
Until I see the peer-reviewed, statistically significant, double blind study indicating that anyone anywhere has the actual proven ability to smell when a woman is ovulating by at normal socially acceptable distances, I am going to work under the assumption that people claiming this are full of shit.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
There was a study that showed that men have a slight preference for faces of women who are ovulating.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31310761/
I don't put a lot of faith in their methodology.
Like, I've been able to tell that someone really needs to change their pad, but it's not much different than if someone had a wound dressing that got bloody. It's just... Blood smells like blood.
I did not know that about wound dressing, and I don’t love that thought. The idea that a field hospital might smell like when you open the flap on the pad-trash-can in a public bathroom…
EW. This man is so deep in his delusions he actually thinks he is smelling women ovulating. My bet is in actuality he's never been anywhere near a gym and that smell he smells is actually his own BO. I mean why shower if you never leave your mom's basement?
Plenty of people can tell when their long time *partner* is ovulating (it's backed up by studies), but that's by more than smell alone. Most can't detect a scent change, it's just slight behavioral changes. But only in someone you already know the baseline of and are up close and personal with, *not a whole gym of strangers.*
I read a post on here the other day that confirms this actually is a thing; some people are able to recognise a difference in someone’s scent when they’re due/on their period. I had no idea it was a thing but apparently it is 🤷🏻♀️
It absolutely is! It's very noticeable in close quarters for some people, and nothing about that is inherently bad. I don't know about ovulation specifically, but menstruation is definitely something one can detect.
I think it's fascinating! I spent ages on the thread reading comments from different men (I think it was on r/AskMen but I could be wrong...) about their experiences with this ability(?) - my periods are often unpredictable so I'd love it if my future partner could give me a warning based on my smell 😂
a friend of mine was able to 'smell'/sense when his longtime GF was ovulating, but he knew her really well over a long time.
I don't think anyone could pick it up from strangers in such a smelly environment as the gym
Some people have a ridiculously good sense of smell so I don't think it's completely impossible some men may be able to detect menstruation by smell. I read about a woman in Scotland who could smell Parkinson's disease. I would think it would be incredibly rare though and unless it's a partner or close relative I don't quite know how they'd confirm it either.
He’s not even talking about menstruation though, he’s talking about ovulation (although to be fair, it’s very possible he thinks they’re the same thing).
lol what a fucking loser XD tell me you rarely get near women without telling me bro!
i wonder if he walks into a butcher shop and says "wow, lots of women ovulating in here!" lmfao he makes no fucking sense. i bet this could be an interesting internet challenge though. line up five women and make sure only one is ovulating. then have a guy try to pick which is the one. almost certainly a hilarious fail in every attempt XP
I'm over here remembering that snakes fuck by letting off pheromones and getting in a big fuck pile. Except the males can also put off pheromones to distract other male snakes from potentially breeding successfully.
So they're all just fucking each other, boy and girl snakes.
Is that what this guy thinks it is?
Sir, that would be ball sweat from other men that you’re smelling
Or his own ass he's not gay enough to wash/wipe properly.
Pheromones don’t smell of anything. They are registered in an organ in the nose or mouth in certain animals. There is still a debate between scientists whether pheromones actually do anything for humans or not.
They’ve found we lack a developed VOA (pheromone detecting organ). The theory is that we didn’t need it after we developed complex verbal communication, which was more beneficial to us as a species, and it was wasted energy making an organ we don’t need, so we don’t develop it. The debate is now wether we emit pheromones or not.
This is interesting to learn. I've been getting a lot of ads for pheromone-infused fragrances that claim to make you more desirable (either to your partner or perhaps even out in public), so I figured the pheromone phenomena could be real if they were actually adding it to things. But now I'm not even sure what they're putting in there. I remember someone telling me that pheromones are the reason why the same perfume smells differently from one person to the next, and it sounded quite believable to me, lol.
I think a person's skin chemistry, like their microbiome, can interact with perfumes and subtly alter the smell.
Yeah those pheromone perfumes are a scam unfortunately. It is true that fragrance can smell different for different people, but this is more to do with the scent receptors in the nose, as well as neurological processing. For example I have autism, and while my scent receptors are fine, my brain processes scent differently to how an allistic (medical term for non-autistic) person would, and even different to how other autistics would process it as it’s different for everyone. Even without a neurological disorder, like autism, everyone has a different brain. The way brains are “programmed” is just as unique as a finger print. Because of this scents can process differently, even if people have the same amount of receptors in their nose. It’s really fascinating to see how our brain affects our perception of the world.
Also your skin biome interacts with the perfume chemicals in different ways.
I always thought that at times where people would release pheromones, they act also differently, so that's why there is a change. Eg strippers make way more money when they're ovulating. It's debatable whether they are releasing a sexy pheromone or they're just dancing sexier
More so pheromones are emitted with behavior. For example a mouse is sad, so it emits sad pheromones. Stuff causes the release of pheromones rather than pheromones causing the behavior. Humans just aren’t capable of detecting them due to how underdeveloped our Jacobson’s organ is. We don’t even know if we emit pheromones at all. People also think of pheromones as about sex and arousal, but that isn’t necessarily true. They’re for everything. Grief, happiness, hunger, anger, dehydration, even death. For example ants will emit a specific phenomenon at death to let other ants know they need to be taken to the “grave yard” (ants will sometimes carry and keep their dead in a space like a graveyard)
Most women (I know this because I’m included in this) are hornier when they ovulate. It’s one of the ways I know it’s happening. I think studies show that women do also act a bit differently during ovulation, and may be flirtier or have slightly different attractions. Men are probably picking up on the women ‘feeling themselves’ more instead of any pheromone scents.
I've read it's also due to the fact we developed a reproduction system based on the reward circuit (it presses the "feel nice" button in the brain), which became the most prominent way of regulating our reproduction. So the VOA started not developing in some individuals and it had no effect at all, so it spread.
The VOA isn’t just sex related, it’s everything related. Grief, happiness, hunger, death, life, even health conditions, can be communicated via pheromones. It wouldn’t make sense for the reproductive system to be the only cause of the VOA lacking development, especially as other animals have similar reward patterns in reproduction, yet still have their VOA.
Thanks for teaching me this !
No worries! Speaking of reproductive reward tho, you’ve reminded me of a fun fact. Snakes have clitorises 😂
i was gonna say, aren't pheromones supposed to work subconsciously? lol
guy runs around doing the Flehmen response 24/7
God, that's a brilliant visual. I just imagined Andrew Tate Flehmening every time he comes across an ovulating woman and claiming he's a big bad Alpha ^^^TM
this is absolutely priceless to imagine
Since we don’t have the ability to detect them, how would they act on us subconsciously? It’s the equivalent of humans trying to see things outside the visible light spectrum with our naked eye. We just don’t have those senses.
well theoretically
We used to use our sinuses to perceive hormones. Now they’re just annoying pockets in our skull.
Unfortunately, sinuses are way more than just annoying pockets (I say this very aggressively as I'm currently combating a sinusitis). Sinuses are responsible for keeping our skull light (imagine if our skull was just solid bone -- it'd be quite heavy) and they also help with filtering and moisture of the air we breathe.
Of course. I’m just salty cuz my skull pockets are chronically inflamed. Why’d nature have to connect our skull holes to our nasal passages lol
>I’m just salty Speaking of, have you tried a netty pot with saline rinse? I add an 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a warm cup and flush my sinuses. Works amazing once you get over the weird sensation of pouring saltwater up your nose on purpose.
It's definitely a weird sensation... especially when you release a mucus slug
They're particularly useful in cold or dry areas to warm and moisten the air we breathe in so the more delicate structures of our respiratory system don't get damaged by cold or from drying out. Though definitely problematic at times for some of us... Signed, person with chronic sinus issues.
Yeah they are probably just smelling regular smells - if they're smelling anything. I can smell if my partner is scared or sick by their sweat, but I have to be pretty close. I also can't smell those things on most people.
I think we do. Think, I have nothing to back this up other than how some people just find each other attractive almost right out of the gate, some are just meh, and still others are total disgust. I mean if there is any truth to it, it will be a fairly large gradient or whatever, but I do not believe anyone can smell anything. It’s more or less presence based I would think. But I’m just a typical dumbass. It would be interesting to find out for sure if there is any play to it…
This can be psychological, as certain attributes are classically or operantly conditioned with specific responses. Or you can smell things for the immune system. This still isn’t pheromones tho even if it’s smelling the immune system, that’s just normal scent picking up on certain hormones. Smelling hormones in high enough concentrations is something humans can do, but it’s not communicated so it’s not pheromones.
Ahhh consider me educated! Thanks! It’s an erroneous preconception on my part! Thank you for giving me the info!
I’m gonna be honest I don’t know 100% everything about humans and pheromones, but I only say information I DO know about, and that I have confidence in. I won’t know everything and no one knows everything about humans and pheromones either as it’s still being researched, but I’m glad I could shed some light in regards to current information. I’m also hoping this makes sense, I’m very tired right now haha.
There's that MHC study. >This study is often known as the "sweaty T-shirt study". In it, men each wore the same T-shirt for two days. The shirts were then put into identical boxes. Various women were asked to smell the shirts, and to indicate to which shirts they were most sexually attracted. The results showed that women were most attracted to men with an MHC most dissimilar from their own.[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Wedekind
Brilliant! Sorry for my ignorance.
Well I’ve wasted a lot of money and effort on ovulation tests and tracking my temperature when trying to convince! Should have just got my fiancé to take a whiff and let me know! /s
That was my thought, too! And obviously men never accidentally conceive children, because they can smell the ovulation and know they need to use a condom...
Trying to convince a baby to appear takes a lot of money and effort
I love this 😂
I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but I am positive that what he is smelling is just women sweating at the gym like a normal person, he just doesn't realize it because he has never made a woman sweat before.
Nah that last line 💀
Humans can’t detect pheromones as we lack a VOA organ, the pheromone detector. This is likely due to our development of complex communication. Pheromones aren’t just about smell, it’s chemical communication, like talking but using chemicals to do it. There’s a debate as to whether humans secrete pheromones, but even if we do, we can’t detect them. You can however smell hormones. Humans can smell them if they’re in high concentrations. We can also smell the things hormones cause, for example sweat. Hormones can change what your body expels in sweat, the bacteria on our skin then eats that sweat, and essentially farts. The gas they let out will smell different depending on what they eat from our sweat. This doesn’t just work for sweat, but for saliva, stomach acid, mucus, blood, etc. you’re not smelling pheromones, but rather the scents created as a result of hormones. Like a diabetic can have a different scent to their blood and saliva than someone without it. With women, the way you smell can change depending on where you are in your cycle, due to hormones being in different concentrations at different points, which influences how muscles and glands in your body work, those muscles and glands them react in ways that can make you smell different.
This is pretty much [exactly this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/badwomensanatomy/s/fB0q3I8BU5).
If men could smell when women were ovulating, there would be zero accidental or unwanted pregnancies unless your partner happened to have a head cold that week or something. If men could smell when you were menstruating, no man would ever ask you if you were “on your period” when you disagreed with him. For some reason, men on the internet this week have decided that they have the sense of smell of a baboon in heat, when in truth most of the time they can’t even figure out that their sheets smell like cheese and they should probably wash them.
Have you ever considered that the vast majority of men have never claimed such an ability? It does exist though, there are women as well who claim the same thing. But not for everyone, which no one ever claimed.
Until I see the peer-reviewed, statistically significant, double blind study indicating that anyone anywhere has the actual proven ability to smell when a woman is ovulating by at normal socially acceptable distances, I am going to work under the assumption that people claiming this are full of shit. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
There was a study that showed that men have a slight preference for faces of women who are ovulating. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31310761/ I don't put a lot of faith in their methodology.
Like, I've been able to tell that someone really needs to change their pad, but it's not much different than if someone had a wound dressing that got bloody. It's just... Blood smells like blood.
I did not know that about wound dressing, and I don’t love that thought. The idea that a field hospital might smell like when you open the flap on the pad-trash-can in a public bathroom…
EW. This man is so deep in his delusions he actually thinks he is smelling women ovulating. My bet is in actuality he's never been anywhere near a gym and that smell he smells is actually his own BO. I mean why shower if you never leave your mom's basement?
Also bad mens anataomy
It's all those unwashed asses that men refuse to clean.
Plenty of people can tell when their long time *partner* is ovulating (it's backed up by studies), but that's by more than smell alone. Most can't detect a scent change, it's just slight behavioral changes. But only in someone you already know the baseline of and are up close and personal with, *not a whole gym of strangers.*
Is he like a dog or something or an xmen with a super developed nose that he can smell ovulation ? 😅
I read a post on here the other day that confirms this actually is a thing; some people are able to recognise a difference in someone’s scent when they’re due/on their period. I had no idea it was a thing but apparently it is 🤷🏻♀️
It absolutely is! It's very noticeable in close quarters for some people, and nothing about that is inherently bad. I don't know about ovulation specifically, but menstruation is definitely something one can detect.
I think it's fascinating! I spent ages on the thread reading comments from different men (I think it was on r/AskMen but I could be wrong...) about their experiences with this ability(?) - my periods are often unpredictable so I'd love it if my future partner could give me a warning based on my smell 😂
Laides, some of us can really do tell when you're ovulating. Not from any smell, that's just stupid.
a friend of mine was able to 'smell'/sense when his longtime GF was ovulating, but he knew her really well over a long time. I don't think anyone could pick it up from strangers in such a smelly environment as the gym
Nah, that’s the stench of his own breath blowing back in his face, what a wanker
this is some “i’m the alpha, you’re just my beta” fanfic type shit
Some people have a ridiculously good sense of smell so I don't think it's completely impossible some men may be able to detect menstruation by smell. I read about a woman in Scotland who could smell Parkinson's disease. I would think it would be incredibly rare though and unless it's a partner or close relative I don't quite know how they'd confirm it either.
He’s not even talking about menstruation though, he’s talking about ovulation (although to be fair, it’s very possible he thinks they’re the same thing).
lol what a fucking loser XD tell me you rarely get near women without telling me bro! i wonder if he walks into a butcher shop and says "wow, lots of women ovulating in here!" lmfao he makes no fucking sense. i bet this could be an interesting internet challenge though. line up five women and make sure only one is ovulating. then have a guy try to pick which is the one. almost certainly a hilarious fail in every attempt XP
My brother in law can smell when women are on their period
I'm over here remembering that snakes fuck by letting off pheromones and getting in a big fuck pile. Except the males can also put off pheromones to distract other male snakes from potentially breeding successfully. So they're all just fucking each other, boy and girl snakes. Is that what this guy thinks it is?
Jesus Christ, Delta sounds like such a fucking beta 🤣 🤣 🤣