olfactory assailant with a severe anosmic condition wounds two

As soon as I sent the text message I knew my friend would think poorly of me...he did. The message went something like this "it is beyond me why some people on this planet boycott showers and soap-i just had to move desks"...his reaction "hmm...thats not like her to be that rude and judgmental"

But this was not a case of overly harsh shallow judgement. This was self preservation.

And so he found out.

My dear friend had the good fortune to sit next to the human nasal ninja for an entire hour and a half in a small cinder block room with his sweater pulled up to his eyeballs suffering in silence as moving (unlike in my situation) would make a bad situation somehow obvious.  

I was forgiven for the text, as he now had come to understand: it was not a judgement, it was a warning.

And I struggle with this situation...

Indeed how is it possible that in this day and age of hypersensitive physical awareness [in regards to appearance-the physical and the material], heaped on by hollywood starlets and the mega media, can one Not be aware of the cultural aversion to lewd stank?

--So I sought an answer to my question--and was very surprised to find that: 

Due to the Enlightenment and its brainy participants smell became one of the "lesser valued" senses in Western culture.  More emphasis was placed on eyesight and hearing in the 18th and 19th centuries because those senses seemed more adept in assisting the pursuit of the new gods, Logic and Reason.  The sense of smell was "deemed to be of a considerably lower order-a primitive, brutish ability associated with savagery and even madness".  Smell was connected with raw emotion-something the Enlightened thinkers tried to step away from.  They sought to maintain logical detachment- and something as "earthy" and emotional as smell would certainly cloud any rational reasoning. [thanks guys]... Thus an actual Decline on the emphasis of sense of smell in Western culture occurred. Nice. This unfortunate sentence has sealed the fate of scent and follows us even today, for, aside from certain specialty areas (think wine tasting) a keen sense of smell isn't likely to be a selling point on a personal ad. (when's the last time you saw SM w/huge nose seeks SF to stop and smell the roses) 

Now...the offensive nasal ninja in question appears to be American (or at least to belong to the ranks of Western culture) however, I have not ventured close enough to confirm...so on a whim-I researched the sense of smell and the importance of scent in other cultures to obtain a more globally informed opinion on the crisis of cologne. [or lack thereof]

This is where it gets Interesting. 

In many non-Western cultures, smell has long been established as the emperor of the senses. [leave it to the Enlightenment to screw that up] In some cultures personal odor is heavily linked with personal identity, and the mixing of these odors is highly regulated.  In fact, "many of these olfactory regulations serve important social functions, such as preventing sexual intercourse between close relatives". [good call- someone may want to relay that to certain areas of this country...might cut down on the inbreeding-if it smells like your uncle-don't sleep with it]

Quick facts:

For the Ongee of the Andaman Islands, the universe and everything in it is defined by smell. Their traditional greeting is "Konyune onorange-tanka?" [meaning "how is your nose?"]. 

The response can go one of two ways: if the person replies they feel "heavy with odor" then the greeter must inhale some of the surplus...if the person feels a bit short of odor energy-the greeter then blows some of their "odor energy" onto the person. [let's hope they didn't have the garlic pesto pasta for lunch]

In India, the traditional affectionate greeting [think hugging aunt sally] is to smell the person's head.  An ancient India text declares "I will smell thee on the head, that is the greatest sign of tender love".

The Temiar, of the Malay Peninsula, believe each person has an "odor-soul", located in the lower back [we can see where this is going]. If you pass too closely behind a person, the odor-soul is disturbed and can cause disease. This can be prevented by forewarning the odor-soul and calling out "odor odor" when approaching an individual from behind. [i find myself saying that when certain members of my family unit eat broccoli-pretty sure it has nothing to do with their soul]

The cattle-raising Dassanetch of Ethiopia revolve their personal scent around the cow. The men wash their hands in cattle urine and smear their bodies with manure. [honey-i'm home...i know dear-smelled you when you were two streets over]

The Dogon of Mali rub fried onions all over their bodies.

The African Bushmen think the loveliest fragrance of all is that of rain.

In short my brief foray into nasal logistics has led me to realize that the complexities of personal odor, of which the average Westerner is largely unaware [or in nasal ninja's case-completely ignorant of] are the subject of sophisticated classification systems in many other cultures. 

And yet...I do not reside in Mali, Africa, India, or the Amazon River Basin...I am here...and I find I am still at a loss on how to approach things with my dear nasal ninja. 

And I don't think offering him a stick of gum is going to do it.

For more interesting news in the world of the nose

check it out at

www.sirc.org/publik/smell_culture.html