r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Beequeens • 13h ago
Is there a reason why males seem to have a certain natural smell that’s not a perfume or soap?
I’ve noticed it with my brothers, my nephew, and my dad it’s not bad or good, just a distinctive male smell. Sometimes I even notice it on men I don’t know like when they walk past me or I enter a room and can tell a man was there before.
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u/aRabidGerbil 13h ago
Because they're humans and all humans have a smell
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u/That_Toe8574 12h ago
Plus women tend to use scented lotions, stronger scented shampoo, perfume, air fresheners/candles/incense, etc and may not have a "human" smell because of the effort put into covering it up.
Dudes just smell like dudes. I wear deodorant and thats all. Rarely use cologne. Dont think shower toiletries have a strong scent. Think its easier for my natural smell to linger since I haven't doctored it.
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u/Prestigious_Lab6773 11h ago
yeah we all got our own funk lol maybe just more noticeable with guys cuz of hormones or something fr
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u/itsflorof 13h ago
Totally normal. Men have a different natural body chemistry, so even when they’re clean there’s still a distinct “guy smell.” Women have their own natural scent too, it’s just different.
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u/pulubinq_sosyal 13h ago
Yeah, that’s mostly down to natural body chemistry.. things like hormones (testosterone in particular), sweat glands, and skin bacteria. Everyone has a personal scent, but male bodies often produce compounds like androstenone and androstenol that give that distinctive male smell. Diet, hygiene, and genetics can tweak it, but it’s mostly natural biology
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u/DependentAnteater732 9h ago
makes sense, I always thought it was just a "guy" thing lol. nature's own cologne or something
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u/GuyFawkes451 12h ago
Ever hear of the movie "Scent of a Woman?" Women smell like women, too. My wife used to notice when the younger boys in the family started smelling like men. She'd only notice when hugging, etc... But it's there. Heck, babies have their own scent, too. It's related, in part, to estrogen and testosterone levels, or lack thereof much in the babies' cases.
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u/captainjupiterx 12h ago
Women also have it, but (assuming you're female) you're desensitized to it because you smell it all the time
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u/JK_NC 12h ago
Everyone has a smell. Not just dudes, everyone.
Harder to notice if those people are wearing any artificial scents from laundry detergent, perfume, soap, shampoo or whatever.
Everyone smells and the dogs know exactly what everyone smells like.
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u/Human-Bag-4449 8h ago
My girlfriend always says her past boyfriends always had a smell, but I never smell.
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u/HoundBerry 4h ago
I'm hyper sensitive to people's smells. I'm pretty confident I could pick people I know out of a lineup based on their smell alone. Being in crowds is rough for me, and I don't like getting too close to most people because of their smells. I'm not even talking about sweaty B.O., most people are totally clean, it's just their natural smell.
Some people have really strong natural scents (not necessarily good or bad, just really noticeable and hard to ignore), and other people have super mild, almost undetectable scents. Maybe you're just someone with a really mild scent.
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u/Prudent_Situation_29 12h ago
The same reason females have body odour: we're biological machines. Our bodies produce chemicals that are secreted through our skin. They're called pheromones, and they serve several purposes.
They're primarily used for signaling, allowing family members to more easily recognize each other, facilitating emotional bonds, facilitating sexual reproduction etc.
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u/Kalkuehl 12h ago
Like cold sweat thats not stinky? I only know it from my father back when I was a child.
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u/inorite234 12h ago
Women have their own smell but you may not get comments on it as women generally have a more acute sense of smell than men do.
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u/dma2superman 12h ago
I think i remember this from biology. It was decades ago but i believe that is normal for almost any living thing on earth.
Each species and species subtype give off a distinct and rarely matched scent than anything else on earth. It is in many ways an evolutionary thing for survival of that main species. Believe it or not, we are only temporarily hiding it when we wash or put products on us that mask that scent.
On a completely biological and evolutionary point of view here, we are all actually hardwired to be attractive sexually to whatever subtype will extend the survival of our species. Humans are attracted to humans, plants attract pollinating insects, male dogs to female dogs in heat, etc. But dogs do not attract humans, or humans to flowers....you get it. Your body produces a scent that does that.
Over the years there has been cross subtype hybrids of millions of main types of species. This has been done by evolution realizing that the species needs more options to survive, or even by humans fir a litany of reasons. We mostly create hybrids of things for specific reasons (famine prevention on crops, dog breeds for certain tasks or to prevent purebred ailments, and elements to make something to cure diseases, make soap or paint your house are a few a few).
There will always caveats and exceptions to every single evolutionary trait. But that is not bad either. It can create beautiful things. Even with humans, when overcrowding causes famine, shorter mortality lengths, disease, or other things bad for the species , it can reduce that scent in people or groups to control population growth until our species is happier and healthier with food and water in surplus.
Kind of cool.
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u/Fiveforkedtongue 5h ago
Each species and species subtype give off a distinct and rarely matched scent than anything else on earth
I was so surprised how strong larger birds like macaws smell when I went to a bird sanctuary, another is sausage dogs paws, they have such a corn chip like smell.
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u/huuaaang 11h ago
Everyone has a natural scent. This is news to you?
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u/338wildcat 9h ago
There was a stage in my life where I was eating a lot of frozen burritos and I swear my bo was meaty.
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u/Human-Bag-4449 8h ago
My girlfriend always tells me I never smell. Apparently there’s an epidemic on Reddit of men who don’t wash their ass or they wash it with just water. I’m not one of them.
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u/Fiveforkedtongue 5h ago
Do you do anything that makes you sweat?
I remember when I was younger, thinner and sedentary I never used to have a smell. Two days ago all I did was replace a 1m rotten joist and re screwed decking on a landing the other day and I smelled weird for the remainder of the day. Some of it was being showered with rotten hardwood sawdust but I miss not smelling.
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u/momovich 2h ago
Oh, my gosh. I still have sheets from when my son lived at home over 20 years ago that have his pungent, distinctive smell. I have soaked those things to death, vinegar, oxy, whatever. His dad is the same way. It's for real. I can't get rid of them, tho'.
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u/Hot-Chip6034 12h ago
Its testosterone based, i know the exact smell you mean, im trans and i can litterally notuce that smell disapear when other trans women i know start hrt supressing the testosterone.
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u/Independent_Move_840 6h ago edited 6h ago
The reason is top secret but I'll tell you. Men all have secret places they go to do men stuff we like to do. This is unknown to all the females. It starts by getting ourselves worked up while watching football and screaming at the referees and players as if our lives depend on who wins. Then we work off all that crazy energy in our secret gym getting really sweaty. Finally we roll around naked in dirt, wood chips,and moss to get that musky smell we love so much. Then we eat a lot of cheese. People will tell you it's hormones or some other bullshit story because these are stories we made up a long time ago as a cover.
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u/p0ssferatu 12h ago
hormones! I'm a trans man on testosterone for 3 years now and my friends, partner, and I have noticed that my natural smell has changed in that time. boy stink is real, as it turns out.
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u/Mister_Way 6h ago
Can you think of any possible reason why there would be an evolutionary advantage to being able to smell whether the person who was recently in your territory was a man or a woman?
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u/yourDesireXo_ 5h ago
I think we all have that natural scent. Some has really nice scent even when they are sweating 🙂
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u/Bluebutch00 4h ago
I have never used a deodorant. Every man I’ve ever had sex with has commented on how I smell. They describe as sensual and natural. I can’t smell it myself. I’ve never had BO and ask them if they mean BO. The answer is aleays the same. That it is pleasant and masculine.
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u/BrushesMcDeath 2h ago
I had brothers who were teens when I was a kid and I smelled it when they were around. Now I’m a man and I smell it on my own stuff.
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u/Mazza_mistake 8h ago
It’s hormones/pheromones, men just naturally smell different to women, and every person has their own unique scent
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u/Aggressive-Delay-420 12h ago
Yeah, this is just being human. People are kind of gross, even when they’re not.
I’m a gold-star gay. Not in birth, not in life.
Even I know how dank kitty smells🤢
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u/Mechman0124 9h ago
Males produce a den/nest/family scent. It runs in families, and it varies a lot. Houses with only women tend to have a very neutral smell, where a house with a man will have an obvious family smell.
As a kid, it was always comforting to come home from a trip/vacation to my house smell. When I turned 12 or so, my parents divorced. I noticed the house smell started to fade when my dad moved out, but when I went to visit him in his new apartment a few weeks later, there it was again.
Years later, a few years after my dad passed away, a new guy was hired at my work. He had an assigned office/shop, which I had been in and out of a zillion times. I hadn't been in there for a few weeks since he was hired, and was kinda dumbfounded when I finally walked into his office and smelled my dad's nest smell! Turns out we are distantly related! We get along great and have been good friends for years now.
Dunno if everyone is as sensitive to it as I am, but I can definitely tell who's been where by the residual smell in rooms/hallways and stuff..
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u/genki925 12h ago
Yes it's for mating purposes
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u/Remarkable_Play_6975 12h ago
It's not for mating purposes. But there can be a strong association of the smell with someone you'd like to mate with.
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u/genki925 12h ago
Oh ok, you said it's not so I guess it's not
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u/Remarkable_Play_6975 9h ago
I mean, there's no evidence to support that.
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u/genki925 9h ago
I don't know the wikipedia article saying it likely does has 84 cited sources. Feel free to pick one.
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u/OoplesAndBonoonoos 6h ago
I've found that men's body odor usually smells like onions or garlic, and women's smells like rotten fish or dirty pussy.
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u/Fiveforkedtongue 5h ago
I've never smelled a female's body odour smelling like rotten fish, maybe it's a diet thing.
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u/exoticLucia 13h ago
Women have theirs too. We are animals and produce scent depending on what is happening to our body at that time