Are you a pit fiend? Does the salty smell of a man’s armpit reduce you to a puddle of wax? If so, you are far from alone. Men who love pits are no strangers to this community, for several reasons.
“From the vigorous personal trainer to the oh-so-helpful handyman, to even the steamy fireman… there’s always something situational going on that’s getting the sweat flowing. That’s intentional,” one Irishman told Queerty in 2023. “It’s about a gay man’s yearning for ultimate masculinity.”
Apparently, we have science to thank for this very understandable reaction. According to Bros actor and gay relationship coach Aidan Wharton, there’s more going on inside the humble armpit than that very sexy scent. In fact, there’s a complex world of Darwinian evolutionary cues at work. Who knew?
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Our pits carry a completely unique signature scent, thanks to a reaction between the bacteria that live there and our apocrine glands, which work to produce sweat in our pits (and bits.) According to Wharton, gay body odor is different. Or at least, it produces a different response in other gay men. A 2005 study found that gay men not only recognize, but potentially prefer the smell of other gay men.
Which sounds kind of crazy, but listen—science IS crazy! But there’s a method to its madness. A separate, infamous 1995 study known as the “T-shirt test” found that people of all genders are most likely to be attracted to the scents of people with different immune makeup than their own. This is for standard evolutionary reasons: seeking out mates with different immunity profiles to boost your offspring’s survival chances is pretty much Darwin 101.
That’s why a man’s choice of fragrance can be so intoxicating. If it works with your natural scent, it can “enhance the chances to be guided to a partner with whom sex is not only pleasurable but also biologically useful,” according to one professor.
But don’t get it twisted: none of this means that skipping showers and going around in ratty gym shorts for a week is guaranteed to attract your dream partner, as straight men recently FAFO’ed with the doomed “pheromone-maxxing” trend. Because while, yes, we all love a good stinky armpit, evidence of the existence of pheromones in humans remains scant.
The good news is that we don’t need pheromones to know what we like. The old reliable human nose is a good enough instrument for figuring out whether someone’s unique scent turns us on or not. There’s also an important difference between gross old sweat that’s been hanging out in someone’s gym clothes all day and fresh, invigorating sweat—and yes, we can all smell the difference.
So yes, we know that pits are pretty much nature’s way of saying, go get your man. But as much as science tells us about why we like what we like, there’s still enough mystery concerning the human armpit to keep things sexy. So go forth, and sniff with pride! You’re in fine company.
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