So far we have been mainly concerned with purely personal odors. It is,
however, no longer possible to confine the discussion of the sexual
significance of odor within the purely animal limit. The various
characteristics of personal odor which have been noted--alike those which
tend to make it repulsive and those which tend to make it attractive--have
led to the use of artificial perfumes, to heighten the natural odor when
it is regarded as attractive, to disguise it when it is regarded as
repellent; while at the same time, happily covering both of these
impulses, has developed the pure delight in perfume for its own
agreeableness, the aesthetic side of olfaction. In this way--although in a
much less constant and less elaborate manner--the body became adorned to
the sense of smell just as by clothing and ornament it is adorned to the
sense of sight.
But--and this is a point of great significance from our present
standpoint--we do not really leave the sexual sphere by introducing
artificial perfumes. The perfumes which we extract from natural products,
or, as is now frequently the case, produce by chemical synthesis, are
themselves either actually animal sexual odors or allied in character or
composition, to the personal odors they are used to heighten or disguise.
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