I find that for me as an exotic dancer the biggest difference is whether they speak a competent amount of English. I don't mind foreign guys as long as I can communicate clearly.

I think the issue of scent is a culture one, rather than a racial issue. I used to avoid a certain *dentist* at my office because she was Indian and smelled like curry. It's not a huge issue unless she's leaning centimeters over my face for an hour or more. Smell is a sensitive issue for lots of people; one of those deeply rooted things we can't easily "unlearn", just like our sexual proclivities. Makes sense that the two would be related.

i find that latino and asian men smell the best with black men and white men in a tie. i have such a small sample size for indian/pakistani and middle eastern men that i can't generalize. for me, smell is the most important measure of attractiveness. I wouldn't be too upset if my husband were disfigured but if he smelled different i'd freak out. I'm really pretty sure this has something to do with genetics. I've read that women are attracted to the way men smell based on genetic compatibility.
(i'm a white female btw)

I am so sorry to hear that the type of Black men who pay for white escorts seem to need extreme washing intructions. At any rate being Blackand having lived with plenty Black men, I can tell you, the normal ones always smell good and love to be clean more than anything.

I do agree that maybe different people have different smelling sweat. Black people have long commented that white poeples swaet smells like "wet dog"- but of all the times I have heard a Black person make this comment it is never in rudeness or malice...just sort of a curious musing and instinctive understanding that there are differences between races, smells and what we are used to.

I would second that issues tend to be more of culture than race. When I was stripping, one of my sweetest regulars was Japanese-American. But I always cringed when tour busses of Japanese businessmen would pull up (apparently we were on some sort of "sex hot-spots of San Francisco" tour for Japanese tourists). They tended to be grabby, disrespectful, and cheap, and treat women as objects with no personality, just boobs. One of the many reasons I left that club was that I was turning into a racist--cringing when I saw Japanese men on the train. And I hated that about myself. (BTW, I never had anything but the sweetest black clients, but my black co-workers who were drop-dead gorgeous consistently made less money than the white girls).

Oh, and my current boyfriend is Mexican, and while he smells delicious to me, can't say it's in any way different than my white partners. For what it's worth. And I am a girl who **loves** the smell of sweat on a man I'm attracted to.

I like how "Middle Eastern" isn't a racial/ethnic group according to the US government or any standardized test I've ever taken, but is well-recognized and disparaged by most of the women you managed to interview. Two things:

-FYI, Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/etc. people are not Middle Eastern. They are subcontinental Asian. Arabs, Persians, Armenians, etc. are Middle Eastern.

-Don't these ladies think that their impressions might be slightly colored by our present zeitgeist? You, Matisse, remember Black clients/dancers being discriminated against in the South in, I presume, the 80s/early 90s. Luckily for Black people, we as a culture have largely moved on to hating Middle Eastern people (and the people who are unlucky enough to be assumed to be Middle Eastern). Convincing oneself that one just doesn't like the way people from this area of the world smell (which, by the way, is not like curry) is a pretty good excuse for adopting the racism of the moment. People used to say very similar things about Black people, as I recall.

@8:
I see your point, but you still can't deny that there are huge cultural differences in the way women are treated in the Middle East and America. I can see that if you are a sex worker, you might want to avoid men from cultures that repress women, as this may influence how those men treat sex workers.

I am not a sex worker, but I encounter a lot of the same ethical, cultural and racial issues in my work as a massage therapsist. I am not sure about difference in smell (although living in a predominately black place I can attest that most Black people I know are way more fanatical about bathing than Whites). There are many Middle Eastern businessmen here, and while many of them are the sweetest, most hospitable, protective men I've met, a great number of them also equate massage with sex work. I have had them call me, assuming I'm a sex worker, and start ordering me around on the phone, their voices thick with contempt. When you are working with the general public in the service industry, it's very hard not to begin stereotyping, and I can sympathize with those who struggle with their inner conflict around this. I inwardly cringe when I see a Black male client, only because as a rule, they tend to have extremely dense muscle tissue and they just plain wear me out!
Sex work is an important part of our society and helps prevent a lot of crime. It's one of the main issues at the forefront of legitimizing and separating massage therapy from sensual massage, and I'm sad to see how prudish and scornful MT's are of sex workers. I think if it was more out in the open, it would be easier for both sides to define and separate their services. It would make it easier for the clients and eliminate a lot of uncomfortable situations in session. Every MT should have a go-to sex worker they can refer clients to who are looking for sexual service.

Eh, I had a Korean health teacher who told us that Asians (in Asia) think Americans/Westerners smell like butter. Apparently all the dairy products we consume makes us smell like butterine, the chemical in dairy products that give it it's taste/smell. When she first immigrated to the U.S., her students actually made her ill when the room was really warm. The scent was unbearable.

#14

It's funny your Korean teacher thought Americans smell bad. Having the highest per capita consumption of garlic in the world, no one smells quite as ripe as a sweaty Korean.

The conversation about scent is fascinating. My first really serious boyfriend was a great guy, but one day I came back from a trip and his scent had changed from making me hard to something nauseating. He was still the sweet supportive guy I'd fallen in love with, but every time we became intimate half my effort went into trying not to gag from the smell rather than getting him off. We broke up a few months later due to new jobs in different states, but I would have had to end it anyway because the new smell was unbearable to me.

As for issues with Middle Eastern men, I think @6 & @9 have it right. It's not an issue of individual men, but rather that many men from cultures that do not treat women as equals have a tendency to treat their sex partners (female or male) rudely. I've experienced this as a gay man with several (but not every) partner I've had from countries like Bahrain, India and Japan. Bossy, self-centered and abusive partners are simply unattractive to most of us - no matter where they come from or what they smell like.

i'm a white girl who smokes a lot of pot and bathes less frequently than a lot of people, so my body odor generally smells like pot. i've had guys really love it, and i've had guys stop seeing me because of it. basically what i'm saying is that one guy's "gross" is another guy's "fucking hot." also, that i agree with the people saying that differences in smells are cultural and not racial, ie. i smell the way i do cause i'm a stoner punk, not because i'm white.

This is a fascinating subject to me. I agree with those who say its largely cultural, as opposed to racial. So much of what determines the smell and taste of a person's skin and bodily fluids has to do with a person's diet and environment. I remember reading a book in which a character
found another character's smell intoxicating, and found it wasn't some scent she was wearing: rather she lived near a place where incense was manufactured, and a resulting smell permeated her hair and clothes.

What really makes this subject interesting to me, is that I don't have a very strong sense of smell. Chronic sinus problems mean that a person has to have a powerful odor before I can even detect it. So about the only time I'm put off by a smell is when they smell like nicotine or like they fell into a vat of perfume. Usually I have to already be intimate with a person before I get a chance to enjoy the subtler scent of her hair, her skin, etc., etc.

Of far greater interest to me is what a person (women in my case) tastes like...and thats very much a product of culture, diet, and habits. The first girl I ever kissed was Japanese, and her mouth tasted strongly of the dried fish and seaweed snacks she was often eating. It took some getting used to. I've noticed over the years with several lovers that their juices will vary widely in taste based on what their last meal was...and I suspose I like Italian women because I like the seasonings in Italian food...

So to those who suggest theres some sort of racism in preferring people who smell a certain way...its just a personal preference. We're all attracted to, and put off by, different things. If you're into red hair and freckles,
you probably won't date many Pakistani. That doesn't make you a racist.