Why Modern Women Smell Terrible in Bed

I had been scrolling my phone thinking about the challenges in the dating market when I came across a tweet that said it all. The author was a well-known internet personality and writer, who also holds PhD in Philosophy from Yale. He wrote that all year, he’d been having bad sexual experiences with women — because they smell terrible.

This tweet hit home because it aligns with my own experience. I’m not going to comment on who or where, but I think the Yale PhD and I are both noticing something deeper than surface-level hygiene. We’re repulsed by a core, rotting-flesh body odor that — whether the Yale PhD knows it or not — is linked to metabolic dysfunction and gut dysbiosis.

When your gut microbiome is out of balance, the mix of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes in your intestines produces strong-smelling compounds. In particular, you get an increase in compounds like putrescine and cadaverine (what apt names!). These chemicals are absorbed into the bloodstream, circulate through the body, and come out through the skin. An unhealthy gut can also produce strong sulfur compounds, which stink from an evolutionary perspective because they signal danger (rotting food, toxins).

So what causes gut dysbiosis?

An unhealthy gut is the predictable result of working inside all day under fluorescent lights, eating processed foods, overusing antibiotics and medications, and dealing with chronic stress. When you make no effort to expose yourself to natural light, you’ve ignored the world’s most powerful remedy.

About 50% of total solar energy is in the infrared range. These wavelengths are able to penetrate several centimeters into tissues. If you go out in the sun with your shirt off, getting sun on your gut, photobiomodulation increases the quantity and diversity of beneficial bacteria in your intestines while reducing dysbiosis-linked strains.

There is also a circadian angle to smelling like shit. Circadian rhythm disruption, particularly a lack of morning sunlight, impacts digestion timing. Inefficient digestion can lead to more fermentation and putrefaction in the gut. Additionally, your liver detoxes your system along a daily rhythm. Circadian misalignment reduces the efficiency of the way your liver processes compounds like putrescine, cadaverine, and sulfur metabolites.

It’s also worth noting that low vitamin D, from a lack of midday sun, can affect gut barrier integrity and microbiome composition. If your gut barrier is compromised, the gut environment changes to favor pathogenic bacteria and dysbiosis.

In fairness, most men are also underexposed to sunlight. I’m sure they stink too. It’s just that only men are picking up on this problem, since birth control is known to destroy a woman’s sense of smell.