• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, July 1, 2005

If you are of the male persuasion and are standing anywhere near a magazine rack, whatever you do, don't raise an arm over your head and take a mighty whiff of your sweat-encrusted armpit. Not only will it offend the others around you searching for the latest developments in the Cruise-Holmes match, (and might even ignite that familiar refrain, "Hey pal, this ain't a library ya know,") but most dangerously, it could cause you to unconsciously buy up all the men-oriented titles from SI to Maxim to Car and Driver.

It is bad enough when your wife finds her copy of the Victoria's Secret catalogue in your bedside waste basket, but now imagine saying you "can't explain" how you ended up with 13 different lad books in your briefcase. One way out might be to show her the news stories on research from the University of Ulster and the University of Vienna that reveal chemicals found in under-arm sweat can persuade men to buy men's magazines.

Before she compares this to federal research on why people pick their noses ("because that's where the buggers are") you have to explain that according to a study of 120 students, when exposed to the underarm pheromone which smells like sandalwood, men were more likely to buy the magazines.

At this juncture, you might get a wee bit of pushback since you needn't have spent your formative years in too many locker rooms to know with a high degree of confidence, that of all the smells that emanate from the male underarm, sandalwood is simply not one of them.

You might also want to do a little more research to find out how all this ties back to buying magazines. I could understand if this was yet another unpolished gem from the MPA-funded study on the "wantedness" of magazines, but had I discovered a pheromone that made guys buy stuff, I'd be spritzing the hell out of my Hummer showroom and not targeting the grocery store check out line.

The pheromone "is similar to that found in perfumes designed to make the wearer irresistible to the opposite sex," says one of the researchers. Which does spark some skepticism since every fragrance on both sides of the isle is marketed under that very premise and I can attest from gallons of my own research that the only thing that makes a middle-aged male "irresistible" to the opposite sex is appearing on the Forbes Richest Dudes in the World list. Or having a British accent. Or better yet, both.

That the P&Gs and L'Oreals of this world have not stampeded the campuses of U of U or UV, is convincing evidence that 120 students subjected to underarm-smelling magazines does not a trend make. But take no chances. If you smell BO when next you pass a magazine rack, run like hell.