Re: Why does the way men smell burn my nose?

Dear Meagan,

I've never heard of such an ammonia-like male smell before - it's certainly 
not in the physiological literature.  I've also run this by several female 
friends/colleagues, and they claim never to have experienced such a pungent 
male odor.  However, people are different from one another and I do believe 
your experiences are real.  Though I don't know the answer, let me mention 
a few possibilities.

Ammonia and similar molecules belonging the amine class of organic 
chemicals have the acrid smells that you describe.  One class of amines, 
called the polyamines, have rather pungent smells and are often produced by 
decaying flesh, as indicated by the names of some of these molecules (for 
example, putrecine and cadaverine).  However, two similar polyamines are 
present at high concentrations in semen (spermine and spermidine) and give 
semen its characteristic smell - and thus men can indeed produce such 
ammonia-like compounds.  Since a woman's sense of smell can increase 
substantially during ovulation (which occurs roughly a week and a half to 
two weeks before your period), you might be hypersensitive to even small 
amounts of these polyamines during this part of your menstrual cycle.  

Another possibility is that you are smelling chlorine, which has a similar 
acrid smell (you've probably experienced this at the swimming pool).  
Chlorine is very often added to the water supply in order to kill bacteria, 
but it is usually present in such small amounts that you cannot smell it 
normally.  But it is possible that you can smell this chlorine gas on a man 
right after he gets out of the shower during the ovulation part of your 
menstrual cycle (when your sense of smell is very sensitive).  But this 
smell should quickly dissipate since chlorine is very volatile and won't 
stay around for long.  Of course this wouldn't explain your observation 
that effeminate men don't smell of chlorine - but perhaps you should repeat 
the experiment a few more times.

A third possibility, though rather unlikely, is that you are experiencing 
an olfactory hallucination.  These are perceived smells that occur 
sometimes during certain types of epileptic seizures that affect the part 
of the brain that analyzes smell.  In fact, the hallucinated smells are 
usually very pungent/acrid (like ammonia).  Now it is possible that this 
part of your brain is somehow becoming stimulated when you are sexually 
aroused.  Since sexual arousal in many/most women increases substantially 
during ovulation (for obvious reasons), the timing would make sense.   In 
addition, you may be aroused more by "masculine" men than by effeminate 
men.  This would make sense of all of your observations, but it's only an 
unlikely guess.

I hope this answers some of your questions!

Your MAD scientist,
Dave