On Sweat

A few nights ago, I slipped quietly into bed and snuggled up to Liv, who was already fast asleep. She’d exercised that evening – a particularly energetic Joe Wicks workout – and while she’d got in the bath with our daughter a short while later, she’d neither washed her hair nor used any soap. When I pressed my face into her neck, I could smell the sweat on her skin.

Over the course of a six-year relationship, you get to learn your partner’s different scents inside and out. The way their brand of shampoo lingers on their hair. Their aftershave or perfume. Their genitals; in the case of someone with a vulva, their genitals at different stages in the menstrual cycle, as well as pre- and post-orgasm. The skin on their hands and face. Their morning breath.

And their sweat. Even that comes in different forms: fresh and stale; face, armpit, underboob and groin; in sickness and in health. I sweat pretty heavily, especially in hot weather or at the end of a run, but as a cis man who’s Very Online, I’ve amassed plenty of evidence over the years that, rather than being repulsed by it, many women find my sodden t-shirts and slick, pungent skin an active turn-on. In erotica, among my horny Twitter pals, and fairly frequently across more mainstream culture, men’s sweat is regarded with thigh-rubbing glee. In some cases, it’s more explicitly fetishized, and hey, that’s just fine by me.

The smell of sweat on women – and I do mean the smell specifically, rather than the flushed sheen that accompanies it – features less prominently in the conversations I see about Shit That’s Sexy. How does the old adage go? ‘Horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies merely glow?’ Well quite.

I love it though, and I love it on Liv especially. Going back to the way we build up a scent profile of our partners, it’s inevitable that we come to associate many of the individual smells with familiarity, comfort, intimacy and love. Burying my face in Liv’s hair and getting a big whiff of her shampoo is like coming home. I dunno: even though it’s the same shampoo I also use every day, it just smells different on her.

With sweat, I prefer it a few hours old. Fresh sweat doesn’t really smell – not in the same way – but I find that once it’s had a chance to dry on her skin, to blend with everything else she’s carrying around with her, there’s a really distinctive aroma that I just want to inhale greedily any chance I get. Because it’s sexy as fuck.

Some of that goes back to the first 12-18 months of our relationship, when we spent a significant chunk of our time together either fucking or running. Or sitting in a bar/restaurant having already done one of those two activities. I remember being able to lick dried salt off her neck and shoulders, and the way her skin felt warm even hours after we’d been tangled up in bed or chasing each other round London. Smelling her sweat meant smelling sex, adrenaline, endorphins, closeness, exploration, and fun. It was one big, intense olfactory hit of so many things I’d already grown to love.

Like the sweat itself, that scent memory lingers. However, there’s a more practical, everyday element to it as well. Liv doesn’t wear perfume or heavily-scented deodorant. She showers when she needs (or wants) to, rather than dragging herself in there every single day*. She’s a doctor, a mother, an active woman who gardens, runs, walks, fucks, and sweats her way through it all. I love all those things about her, and I love the level of comfort she has both in her own skin and in my company; a level that means she doesn’t feel like she has to mask herself in any way**.

I realise the scientific evidence around pheromones – or their function and impact, at least – is contested (to put it politely), but whatever their chemical properties, there’s something wonderful about the fact that all I have to do on any given day (assuming she hasn’t just showered) is press my nose to her skin and I can breathe in 100% Liv. It’s brilliant.

In bed at night, when I pull her close and feel the warmth of her body against mine, that ever-present thrill of skin-on-skin contact is given greater depth and richness by all the other sensory signals my brain is receiving. The sound of her breathing. Her curls brushing my face. And yes, that salt-tang imprint of a full day’s activity – or a short burst at the end of it – drifting up to greet me as I go in for a kiss, or just to rub my face against her.

It’s the best.

*As a doctor who spent several months last spring/summer working on a Covid ward, there are clearly times when ‘every day’ is necessary!

**Except the obvious.