Contents:
THE SCENT OF A MAN: GAY MEN AND PHEROMON
As his name suggts, Otterj draws his greatt spiratn om the slenr, hairy, beard, and often tattooed gay male subculture known as otters -- but not exclively. The men his photographs are unabashed exhibnists lookg for a place to f to a gay culture that has creasgly turned s back on a sexually aware world where leather and cisg are forms of liberatn.
However, other gay men I know report somethg siarly powerful recurrg experience spired me to search my mental Rolox of scent memori to see if I uld make any nnectns. A 2005 Natnal Geographic article about a bra study revealed that when gay men smelled male sweat (which ntas ttosterone), their cerebral activy the regn volved reproductive behavr looked parable to women’s cerebral activy. Another study showed that gay men preferred the odors of other gay men, while odors emted by gay men were the least preferred by straight earlit scent memori of my dad are of Old Spice, tobac, cigarette smoke, alhol (om the “high balls” he drank before g home at the end of the week), and….