They are barking mad if they think that rubbing the unattractive odour of male armpits into your chin will make you desirable. I don't care how many surveys they quote, tests they run, statistics they publish - this is a non-starter.
It's based on a theory that the musky smell of the armpits of sexually active men is such a turn-on that the man who exudes it will have to be beating off huge amounts of unexpected attention. A company has actually marketed this scent called Athena Phermon 10X with the most extraordinary amount of press and media attention. People are fighting to know the magic ingredient which is claimed to be based on secretions that provoke a subconscious biological effect in others. A climate has been created where it is now widely believed that women will be unable to control themselves when they get this musky odour into their nostrils, and that men who slap a bit of Athena Phermon 10X around their chops before heading out for an evening will have to watch out for themselves - so great will be the amount of desire directed at them.
So far, possibly because its main target area has been middle and even red-neck America, the stuff has been marketed with an entirely heterosexual message. And for a lot of men out there, that's just fine. They wouldn't want to risk putting on this Athena and accidentally get themselves a boyfriend. So the company, having created a huge amount of interest, decided to have trials before packaging the stuff and committing millions of dollars to its launch.
They gave it to a test-group of very eager men to try it out over a short period of time.
And guess what?
Most of these men reported a great increase in sexual popularity.
Up to now these men admitted to having been only so-so in the groping and being-groped-back stakes. No great Romeos, no lady-killers. But apparently after a blast or two of this souped-up aftershave, they were irresistible. They had never been getting so much of it. They would never have believed it possible that this should happen. They have been written up in a serious article in Archives of Sexual Behaviour, they have been on primetime television all over the place.
It works, people say, because these men who tried it say it works. But they would, wouldn't they? I mean, they're hardly likely to say anything else. Imagine filling in the questionnaire on the clipboard and saying that you never scored at all - even though you were drenched with the stuff. Who would confess to being so unlucky in love, so desperately undesirable that even when exuding musk all over the shop you still couldn't get a date?
SO they gave a great report and the whole of America is trying to buy shares in the company.
And, of course, there isn't nearly enough of the stuff to meet the demand, so those who can't get their hands on a spray or Athena Permon 10X are sadly resorting to the Real Thing and allowing their armpits to be smelly in case it might all work in its natural form.
Please don't do this.
When I was at UCD there were 4,000 men, most of them with appallingly smelly jumpers, shirts, jackets and duffle coats. The memory of my earliest romantic dances was clinging to people who smelled of sweat, tobacco and drink. We yearned for someone who might smell a bit of soap. Yearned for it I tell you.
And the only ones who might have washed at all where the clerical students, and we weren't allowed to cling to them.
It's all very well showing images of Marlon Brando in a sweat-stained T-shirt brooding and glowering his way around A Streetcar Named Desire. But it wasn't the sweat that people went for in Marlon. In those days Marlon could have smelled like a hen house and we'd have forgiven him.
Let's suppose for a moment that these men who filled in the questionnaire were being truthful. They might be.
So why should they think they are having 11 per cent more intercourse and 37 per cent more fondling or whatever the statistics suggest unless Athena Phermon 10X does work?
Its because they're confident, that's why. They have sprayed themselves with a magic potion so they feel confident that the magic is working for them.
What's working for them is that they don't feel humble and fumbling and apologetic anymore. Now they expect people to like them, and that rather than the close unpleasant smell of armpits is what makes them score.
Since time began, people have been going to various kinds of witch doctors looking for a spell that will make other people love us. Recently the consumer society has sort of hinted that we might be easier to love if we brushed our teeth, used a breath freshener, a deodorant and changed our clothes. They were much supported by the huge cosmetic multi-nationals in this and so in search of love, we all cleaned ourselves up like mad.
And this really was no harm. No bad thing at all. Even if everyone didn't actually find mad passionate love immediately, at least they were all nicer to sit beside. So let me beg the people who are trying to get this sweaty substance either in an aftershave bottle or from the actual underarm source to think again. The smelly waft of the 1950s and 1960s is something that a lot of us had hoped to have waved farewell to a long time ago.