The smell fetish: “Olfactophilia” or “Mysophilia”
So, are you a fetishist as well?
5 senses = 5 fetishes
A fetish is commonly referred to as a stimulant, thing or activity that alone has a strong stimulating effect or is required to achieve sexual arousal. Depending on the sense the fetish addresses, one distinguishes between:
- Pictophilia: viewing certain things (e.g. porn magazines and videos)
- Cryophilia: touching and feeling certain things (e.g. petting, touching intimate parts of the body)
- Narratophilia: hearing certain sounds or things (e.g. dirty and obscene words, certain voices or sounds)
- Podophilia: Tasting or licking certain things (e.g. oral sex)
- Olfactophilia: the smell of certain things (e.g. intimate odours, worn panties).
If you take look at the definitions of the five sensory fetishes, almost everyone will be able to unmask themselves as a fetishist of some sort in the broadest sense – and that’s a good thing!
Although the odour fetish does not seem to be as popular as the other, better-known fetish directions, this neglected fetish is one of the most pronounced. It also develops earlier than the others. Compared to all our other senses, a newborn child uses its sense of smell first of all to locate its mother’s breast to drink milk – as well as its mother as such.
Our sense of smell is also the most complex in chemical terms. Odours directly affect our subconscious, and some are even perceived unconsciously, such as, pheromones. In addition, our sense of smell also affects our other senses. For example, our sense of taste – people with a poor sense of smell also have a poor sense of taste, which any of us will be able to sing a song about if we were ever invited a delicious meal while suffering from a cold.