I could see that being of effect.

Not a lot of spare time; cranking furiously on The Romanov Rescue.

Smell cues are a big big thing but if a woman is on the pill, the signals will get messed up badly and women will crave men who are incompatible with them.

And no this isn’t an anti birth control rant, non hormonal methods are generally goo things in my world view but the pills and its cousins need to go.

Welcome back, sir, it’s been a while since we’ve seen your comments.

But if you don’t smell right, you’re screwed or, rather, never will be. At least not by her.

These are very good points, sir. From what I’ve seen, you’re absolutely right. That’s how you know that a woman is a keeper. Back when St. Ronald Magnus was shot and lying in hospital recovering, Nancy slept with one of his shirts to remind her of his scent. Those two were truly the perfect match.

That said, yes, lots of things in modern society have fucked up that nearly infallible method of female mate selection. I think it could and should still work, but we need to look more into what’s fucking with it and fix that.

My suspicion is that bad food and the endless barrage of body-covering scents has a lot to do with it. Men definitely should use deodorant – I say this coming from a part of the world where stinky pits are commonplace and noxious. But too many men, and women, go too far into the extremes. Men douse themselves in those nasty AXE body sprays that make the problem 100x worse in the other direction, and women seem to be desensitised thanks to overuse of perfumes.

I also think that eating overprocessed garbage food may well have desensitised our olfactory systems – especially those of women. But that’s just a suspicion, I have no scientific basis for making it beyond understanding that one’s sense of smell drives 90% of one’s sense of taste.

There is, by the way, some objective evidence for this. A couple of examples: Women who like to sleep in your funky t-shirt, and will exchange the old funky t-shirt for a new and funkier one regularly. JAPs, Jewish American Princesses, known for being miserable wives and girlfriends. What did they tend to share in common? Nose jobs, and arrogant doctors who snipped out important olfactory receptors. We are sight hunters but they are bloodhounds.

That said, yes, lots of things in modern society have fucked up that nearly infallible method of female mate selection. I think it could and should still work, but we need to look more into what’s fucking with it and fix that.