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Summer Sex |
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Realm is available locally at the cosmetic/perfume counters of department stores such as Meier & Frank. Prices range from $28 to $60. |
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Most women do not necessarily prefer a man with a larger-than-average penis.
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Many years ago, when I was still able to muster at least a semblance of interest in such things, I knew a girl who appeared to have some sort of mysterious power over men--myself included, I must admit. When I say mysterious, I mean that nobody could figure out what was so hot about her. She wasn't unattractive, but neither was she endowed with the sort of comeliness that makes men write bad checks and forget to visit Mother in the Intensive Care Unit. Some women (and men, of course) have a charm that has little to do with physical attractiveness--a quick wit, a roguish gleam in the eye, or a ready laugh that sparks romantic interest. The lady I'm talking about, however, was not one of them. She was, in fact, rather manipulative, grasping and mean--some people used the word "evil." And yet, for some reason, everyone wanted to sleep with her. As I was still at the age when the attainment of a romantic ideal seems a good deal more important than a satisfactory bowel movement, this became something of an obsession for me. What would you call it--oh, yes, I think "crush" was the word we used to use for this type of situation. I remember that once, when my obsession was near its zenith, another young lady asked me where the fascination lay. Not in so many words--I believe the exact phrase was "Dude, what is up with her?" In a flash of quickly forgotten insight I replied, "One word: pheromones." At the time, I thought I was being flip, but now I'm not so sure. Flash forward to 1997, where one Erox Corporation trumpets thinly veiled promises to make precisely the sort of ineffable allure I'm talking about available to anyone with 20 bucks and a paucity of self-respect. Since WW was willing to put up the 20 bucks, I fit the bill perfectly. I test-drove "Realm," a cologne these people have put on the market that purports to contain actual human pheromones. But I'm getting ahead of myself--those of you who haven't spent the past 15 years diligently researching (as I have) any possible agency by which you might contrive to get a member of the opposite sex to talk to you for 10 minutes probably don't even know what pheromones are. Briefly stated, pheromones are secretions by which animals communicate with each other at a chemical level--often, though by no means always, for purposes of courtship and mating. A few drops of the pheromone that says, "I'm a female moth and I'm hot to trot," for example, will attract male moths from miles around. People often think of pheromones as odors, though human pheromones are odorless (at least at the conscious level); they are detected by a special organ in the nasal cavity called the vomeronasal organ. I bet you're getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it. Anyway, according to a lot of scientists with very big brains, pheromones do indeed play a role in human interaction, though the whole phenomenon is much more poorly understood than some hucksters would have you believe. The people at Erox (nice name--it implies that sexual desirability can be photocopied) are more circumspect than some. Realm (marketed as a perfume for either men or women that includes "a synthesized human pheromone component") is not supposed to make individuals of your preferred gender and orientation collapse at your feet in a quivering mass of frenzied tumescence. (Although if you want to go ahead and believe that it will, that seems to be fine with them.) Rather, it's supposed to make you and those around you feel relaxed, sociable and self-confident. Well, as hard as it is to believe, that's not total bullshit. In my study--untainted by any pretense to objectivity and conducted with reckless disregard for anything approaching scientific method--Realm did seem to have some effect. It did not get me laid (but then, what could?), but there was definitely something out of the ordinary going on. Do you want to know what Realm does? Realm makes people want to shake your hand. Normally if someone puts out their hand, I will grasp it weakly, out of politeness, though I seldom encourage the gesture. But when I walked into the club where I'd decided to give the stuff a spin, everyone I knew even vaguely was putting 'er there. Weird. Also, people leaned in on me more. I wore the stuff for about a week straight, and in situations where I was in close physical contact with others--say, sitting on the same side of a restaurant booth--the person next to me would continually make casual physical contact, or maybe even lean into me a little bit. And yes, girls did do it more than boys (probably because straight boys are paranoid about physical contact with other straight boys). Honestly, though, that's about it. So what conclusions can we draw? Well, lotharios envisioning an elixir that will cause others to swoon at the snap of a finger are out of luck. The conscious mind is still in the driver's seat. If you'll notice, every response I attributed to the effects of the pheromones was the sort of thing that we do unconsciously. Sometimes you put out your hand for a shake; sometimes you don't. But you never think about it. It's also worth noting that the better someone knew me, the less likely he or she was to be affected. This is probably because those who know me well have already seen hard evidence that I am a bitter, spiteful man whom you would not wish to touch, and they're not going to be swayed from that opinion by some wispy olfactory protestation to the contrary. So, a word to would-be pickup artists: Pheromones may get your foot in the door, but liquor is quicker. |
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