Dr. Ally/Allie Louks

But people were like, you cannot possibly put that in literature.

I mean, I think we're experiencing more bodily realism in contemporary literature now.

I've certainly read some quite...

uh vivid yes yeah good word vivid descriptions of bodily processes in literature kind of produced in the last 20 years or so any passages you want to shout out any passages of smell in books that really made you go holy shit wow um so there's a book called wetlands by charlotte roche

And it has a great cover, which has kind of been emblazoned on my brain.

It's like bright pink with an avocado on the front.

And the entire story revolves around a woman who is hospitalized because a cyst near her anus has gotten infected.

I don't like that.

And she requires surgery to get it fixed.

And it becomes very clear how this could have occurred to this woman who does not abide by standard hygiene practices at all.

Interesting.

And so that, I think, would have absolutely scandalized Joyce's readership in ways that I don't think they could possibly have imagined at the time.

Yeah, it's a good and interesting book, but it definitely tests the boundaries of what can be considered pleasurable reading.

Yes, definitely.

Smell is a really, really important part of the romance genre in general.

You know, you have characters who have their kind of characteristic smells, often which are typically masculine or feminine, depending on the gender of the character.

And yes, I think smell is a way to signal a kind of desire and attraction that is difficult to explain through reason.

And I think we're all intrigued by that.

I think that's why so many people are interested in the notion of pheromones and are kind of actually a little bit invested in the existence of pheromones.

Now, in general, we have not got any evidence really that human pheromones exist and that we are able to detect them.