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The Scent of Eros: Mysteries of Odor in Human Sexuality. By James Vaughn Kohl and Robert T. Francoeur. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1995, 276 pages. Hardcover, $24.95.
Reviewed by Michael W. Wiederman, Ph.D., Department of Psychological Science, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 473060520.
What is behind our apparently widespread interest in oral sex? Why are women so much more sensitive to smell than are men, and why does female olfactory acuity show marked variation over the course of the menstrual cycle? Cross-Culturally, why are there more social prescriptions for women to remain covered (especially the hair and breasts) than there are for men, even to the point of requiring female topless dancers to cover their nipples and areolas? These are the types and range of questions Kohl and Francoeur attempt to answer, or at least explore, in their intriguing book on the role of odor in human sexuality. In so doing, these authors attempt to answer, albeit speculatively, the larger question: What role does the sense of smell play, both consciously and unconsciously, in our sexual experience?
As Kohl and Francoeur point out, in our highly visual culture, the sense of smell has been relatively neglected in scholarship on human sexuality. Much work has been conducted on the role of scent, particularly pheromones (chemical messages from one organism to another), in the initiation and regulation of behavior in other animals. It appears, however, that most researchers have drawn a line at humans, assuming that creatures as complex as we are must not be influenced to a significant degree by odors emitted by our fellow humans. Kohl and Francoeur challenge this assumption and encourage further empirical consideration of this relatively neglected sensory system.
The authors assert that scent indeed plays a more important role in human sexuality than previously recognized. Their speculative assertion rests on the reasoning that the effects of pheromones on the sexual behavior of other mammals has been well documented, and humans have the same or similar neuroanatomical components, so it is plausible that human sexuality is also influenced by scent. More specifically, they argue that in mammals pheromones influence genes. These genes are found in individual neurons. These neurons secrete gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH influences sexuality because of its...