Archive for the ‘Smell’ Category
May 22, 2023
(considerable talk about male genitals, man-on-man sex, masturbation, and excretion, mostly in street language — pretty much a dirty jackpot — so not for kids or the sexually modest)
In conversation with my caregiver Erick Barros on 5/18, he complimented me on my being well-groomed and smelling good; this was not mere pleasant social talk, but a significant professional opinion from an experienced employee of Bay Area Geriatric. Who has no doubt seen aged folk who have tended to disregard grooming and bodily hygiene in the face of pain and concern with more pressing matters of life; and especially some men who tend to see things through the lens of a normative masculinity that (as part of a rejection of anything that smacks of femininity) views disregard for grooming and cleanliness as an assertion of masculinity — the attitude that leads to all-male getaways where the guys defiantly don’t shave, bathe, or change into fresh clothing and generally behave crudely (as an escape from the strictures of women).
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Posted in Formulaic language, Homosexuality, Language and medicine, Language and the body, Masculinity, Movies and tv, My life, Smell | 2 Comments »
February 27, 2023
Ann Burlingham, posting on Facebook today, recalled with delight the emergence in 2020 of the snowdrops that she had planted when she and Jason first moved to Pittsburgh:
(#1)
And then the discussion roamed far and wide, to fragrances, Switzerland, and Viking ships.
Stroll with me now through the fields of associative memory…
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Posted in Language and plants, Smell, Switzerland and Swiss things | 1 Comment »
February 22, 2023
The CCC — last seen in action in my 2/18 posting “A Neanderthal breakthrough”, in which an inventor cavewoman carves the first definite article out of stone — strikes again in the Piccolo / Price Rhymes With Orange cartoon of 5/21/21, in which a cavewoman devises a precursor of the candlelit dinner:
(#1) An announcement in Caveman Talk of the first romantic dinner for two; since these beginnings, it has evolved into a elaborated cultural practice
Cultural innovations often come with bold experiments in form at the outset (consider the history of photography and film) — in this case, apparently, in the adventure of scented fire.
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Posted in Books, Comic conventions, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Smell, Style and register | Leave a Comment »
October 16, 2022
(Gets right into gay men’s sexual parts, fore and aft, and man-on-man sexual acts, using street language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
… or like cherry, vanilla, peach, or pumpkin spice. These are the Tasty Hole flavored body scrubs, formulated to make your hole tasty for the guy who’ll be rimming you.
(Just for the record: I hate flavored condoms. And flavored lubes. And flavored douches, which is the territory we’re moving into here. Unless the flavor is something like Male Sex Sweat. As for cherry flavoring, I hate it in cough drops and syrups and all that stuff, so I’m certainly not going to get it up for licking cherry scrub out of my trick’s hole. Your tastes might differ, of course. But you should know ahead of time that I’m inclined to mock the basic idea of Tasty Hole products.)
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Posted in Double entendres, Emoji, Language and food, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Language of sex, Phallicity, Signs and symbols, Smell, Vaginality | Leave a Comment »
August 7, 2022
(Racy-raunchy topic, probably not to everyone’s taste, but not actually into sexual organs or man-on-man sex.)
From the annals of commercial naming: today’s entertaining ad flashing by me on Facebook, for Leather Daddy cologne:
(#1) [ad copy:] “Dominate your day with a scentsational blend of Leather, Scotch, Vanilla, & 18 Erotic Spices 😈”
A narrowly targeted product with a carefully chosen name: not just leather, referring to a scent widely perceived as both erotic and highly masculine (so used in colognes and after-shaves from all the high-end men’s fragrance companies — Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren, Cartier, Fendi, John Varvatos, Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior — and plenty of others besides); but leather daddy, evoking the BDSM world of rough, commanding daddies (in their leather gear) and their subservient boys. That’s Way Gay that you’re soaking in, Blanche.
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Posted in Homosexuality, Language in advertising, Language of sex, Masculinity, Smell, Trade names | Leave a Comment »
November 28, 2021
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro takes us to the Men’s Department, where a salesman of extraordinary style purveys clothing, shoes, accessories, and men’s fragrances:
(#1) The striped shirt is a marinière, and the two scents are jokey takeoffs on men’s fragrances (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
From my 2/16/21 posting “Hello, sailor”, this description of
la marinière, the cotton long-sleeved shirt with horizontal blue and white stripes; characteristically worn by seamen in the French Navy, it has become a common part of the stereotypical image of a French person
More on the shirt below. Meanwhile, the cologne Horse Soccer (from Barf Lauren) is a play on Polo (from Ralph Lauren); the source of the name Royal Whiff for the other cologne is still a mystery to me, but no doubt an enlightened reader will explain the joke to me (though Royal Whiff would be an entertaining name even if it has no direct model).
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Posted in Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Smell | Leave a Comment »
November 22, 2021
Brief bulletin from the Native deodorant people (super-earnest, offering coconut oil-based deodorant sticks, no aluminum or parabens, etc., usable on private parts):
Treat your armpits to holiday cheer with specially crafted scents for the season.
For holiday-cheerful armpits. Sugar cookie. Candy cane.
Do I want my armpits to smell like sugar cookies? Or my crotch to smell like candy … oh, hmmm …
If these won’t do, then men can get the regular bergamot + pine scent, all woodsy and manly.
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Posted in Holidays, Language and the body, Smell | 1 Comment »
November 5, 2021
It’s November 5th: Guy Fox Day … um, Guy Fucks … Gay Fucks … Gay Folks … Gay Fox … oh hell, Gunpowder Day. Bang!
For the day, a smoking-gun cartoon, by Frank Cotham from the 10/11/10 New Yorker:
The duelists stood back to back and began the requisite number of paces before turning to fire their pistols — except that the banker wheeled around partway through and shot his opponent — dead — in the back. The cartoon plays on the stereotype of bankers as reckless and driven only by self-interest: Bad, bad Banker Brown / The baddest man in the whole damn town.
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Posted in Holidays, Language play, Smell | Leave a Comment »
June 16, 2021
Smells like queer teen spirit.
Ads for the Boy Smells company have been popping up with some regularity in my Facebook feed — no doubt because I posted a while back on some fragrances for men, one of the two scented product lines the company offers, the other being candles. A third line is underwear, all of it explicitly labeled by the company, “This comes unscented”, but in an ad for Boy Smells products, it’s hard not to think of pungent teenager skivvies. Some ads combine the boy image of actor Tommy Dorfman with an Extra Vert Candle. Ad copy:
Discover the intimate world of Boy Smells with unique candles, fragrances & underwear. 10% of Proceeds From The Pride Collection Will Be Donated to Support the Trevor Project [providing suicide prevention efforts among LGBT+ youth].
(#1) The boyish Tommy Dorfman, something of a queer, and genderqueer, icon — attired in jade
(#2) French vert ‘green’ (suggesting the green herb tones in the scent) + extravert / extrovert ‘an outgoing, expressive person’
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Posted in Ambiguity, Gender and sexuality, Movies and tv, Semantics of compounds, Smell, Trade names, Underwear | 1 Comment »
