Xref: utzoo sci.research:1605 sci.psychology:4575 sci.bio:4619
Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!pyramid!infmx!herbach
From: herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach)
Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.psychology,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Skunk Glands
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.193145.12281@informix.com>
Date: 14 Mar 91 19:31:45 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.005509.20271@massey.ac.nz> <11949@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Sender: news@informix.com (Usenet News)
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Lines: 37

>>I am interested in making some SKUNK ODOUR.
>>
>...
>... I am really interested in copying its aversive properties.
>>
>>-- 
>>Arnold Chamove
>Not meaning to be culturally presumptive, but inasmuch as skunks are
>not native to New Zealand, it crosses my mind that perhaps Mr. Chamove
>is believing what he reads about skunk odor.  (Sorry if I'm mistaken,
>Arnold.)  By most first-hand accounts, skunk odor is highly aversive
>only when one is a fairly direct beneficiary of the baptismal fluid
>itself.  In my Midwest U.S. youth I've smelled hundreds of skunk
>emissions, and only when I've been very close (e.g. to a recent road
>kill) has it been particularly unpleasant.  Many of us backwoods hicks
>think that the distant odor of skunks is a nice part of a summer
>evening.  (I hereby invite the disdain of Big City diesel-sniffers.)  
>Ron Amundson

In fact, 10% or so of the population find skunk somewhat alluring.  There
was a short radio piece reporting this study several years ago.  It 
prompted some conversation at a dinner party that I was at.  The hostess
admitted that she had always been sort of turned on by the smell, but had
kept it to herself, thinking it too perverse to be revealed.  She was
quite relieved to come out of the closet.

Perhaps there is some pheremonal history to this scent which explains
why it is perceived in so many different ways (and would also shed light
on its origin).  BTW, I seem to recall that many more women than men find
the odor attractive, but that could be related to their general olfactory
acuity somehow.

P.S. For sheer stink power, try methyl mercaptan.  That's the stuff
they add to natural gas so that leaks are detectable.  In college, a
friend synthesized some and tossed a vial with about 5ml off a major
New York area bridge.  The "gas leak" caused evacuations over a fairly
wide area before the power company called an all-clear.