Interesting Links for 31-05-2018

[andrewducker]

People with a keener sense of smell find sex more pleasant and, if they are female, have more orgasms during sex

(tags: sex smell )

Are there benefits to breastfeeding until the age of five?

(tags: breastfeeding health )

Italy can't blame Brussels for its descent into the abyss

(tags: italy politics economics )

Vitamin D deficiency may increase risk of miscarriage

(tags: pregnancy vitaminD )

Obese people enjoy food less than lean people

(tags: psychology food obesity )

European Data Protection Board backs ban on 'cookie walls'

(tags: cookies surveillance web europe )

Comments

[simont]

Although there are a few obvious practical inconveniences, I've always felt that at least in the pure pleasure stakes I wasn't missing out on too much through having no sense of smell at all. Certainly going by my school days, the number of times I heard someone say 'Mmmm, that smells good' was vanishingly small compared to 'Faugh, who's farted?'

But perhaps I should rethink that judgment!

[andrewducker]

There's definitely something smell/pheromone-related going on with sex, in my experience.

[simont]

Mmmm. Pheromones have always been an interesting question for me anyway – they're one of those things that are on the borderline of what does and doesn't count as "sense of smell". I don't have any idea what part of my sense of smell is actually broken; I've never gone in for tests. It could be, for example, that all the receptor hardware (as it were) in my nose is just fine but that something in the neural layers prevents any of the data being delivered to my conscious mind. In which case I might have been subconsciously affected by pheromones all my life, just like anyone else. (And since it's all so subconscious anyway, it's hard to find out the answer by any simple test!)

[gingicat]

As an obese person with an overdeveloped sense of smell, I protest both of the related links.

[nancylebov]

I wonder whether some obese people get less pleasure from food because they feel guilty about eating.

[rmc28]

I am obese, and have been most of my adult life, and my relationship with food is _not_ happy: there's oodles of guilt and defiance and miserable wishing I could just simply enjoy food, and consciousness that my visible responses are setting a pattern for my children, so I need to model healthy attitudes even if I am only pretending to have them.

So yeah, even the most delicious meal comes with complicated Feelings. I question whether that research has cause and effect mixed up.