Primate Perfume

Abstract

Humans have a limited pheromone vocabulary. Compared to more articulate members of the animal community, we are deficient in our ability to communicate eloquently with each other by our body secretions. For example, a dog has 20 times as many nasal receptor cells as a human and much larger olfactory bulbs in the brain. We take pride in our ability to improve on nature. Millions of buyers and users of perfumes and scented soaps, lotions, creams, powders, and pomades of various kinds are convinced that scents can enhance feminine and masculine appeal. The magnitude of this aspect of human behavior raises multiple questions. Is perfume simply the use of substitute pheromones in the hope of accomplishing what nature failed to provide? Or do natural body odors themselves, through some vestigial instinct, affect sexual behavior of the human primate? The odor of secretions produced by the female rhesus monkey has a powerful effect on the sexual behavior of the male monkey. This can be demonstrated by inactivating the male's sense of smell with nasal plugs, in which case he will not respond sexually until the nasal plugs are removed. Richard Michael and E. B. Keverne, at the Primate Research Laboratories in Beckenham, England, found odor-producing substances in the vaginal secretion of the females. Six months after removing females' ovaries, when these substances were applied to the female sexual areas, male partners were immediately stimulated to sexual activity. Michael and his co-workers identified 189