# If you had to get rid of one of your five senses, which would you choose to lose? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2005, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935 "2005-09-16T06:28:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/21 "2005-09-16T22:56:23Z")
Touch Sight Hearing Smell Taste I wouldn’t mind losing taste, then maybe I’d finally lose these extra pounds! ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/22 "2005-09-17T01:43:57Z")
Touch Sight Hearing Smell Taste What do you know, it’s exactly like **Ghanima** ’s list. I use sight the most out of all my senses, but living without touch would be a whole new kind of nightmare. Losing hearing and smell would suck too, but then I have good hearing and smell and probably use them more than most people. Taste is the expendable one for me. I smell my food more than I taste it anyway, and I’ve often wished foods tasted as good as they smelled. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/23 "2005-09-17T14:58:21Z")
Smell. While smell and taste go hand in hand, that’s not always a good thing. I’m extremely sensitive to smells, and often, the scent of food will kill my appetite, rather than enhance it. ---
**Author:** ![MaddyStrut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@MaddyStrut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaddyStrut)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/24 "2005-09-17T23:13:55Z")
Touch Hearing Sight Smell Taste I’m not losing touch! Aside from wanting to know when I’ve injured myself, I kind of want to keep enjoying sex. That would be difficult without touch! Taste has to be the first to go. Sight and hearing are much more important for daily living than taste or smell. But smell is definitely more important than taste. As mentioned, smell is a large part of taste anyway. Plus, I’d want to know when my house, car, clothes, etc were stinky! ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/25 "2005-09-17T23:56:52Z")
I have no sense of smell at all; it just “went away” a few years ago. Every now and then it comes back for a week or so, then it’s gone again. To compare it to sight: It’s not like having your eyes covered, it’s like _not having eyes_. And yes, it affects taste dramatically; I can taste the five basic “tongue-flavors” and that’s about it. (I was formerly a serious food-fan and an extremely adventurous eater; this is definitely the worst part.) On those occasions when I have to take a steroid treatment, my sense of smell comes back for a week or two; I typically spend a few hours going through the kitchen smelling all the spices and everything, then I say to my wife, “Let’s go eat Thai food and drink wine.” I’ve been looked at by doctors, who tell me generally that I have an extreme case of rhinitis; they don’t know what causes it, and aside from surgery there’s nothing they can do. Once I get out of school and back onto a health plan, I’ll definitely look into surgical remedies. But yeah, if I had to lose a sense, smell is certainly the least life-impacting one to go. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2005, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/26 "2005-09-18T00:03:56Z")
I only have four to begin with, so Sight hearing touch taste ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/27 "2005-09-18T02:30:35Z")
Hearing is the most important to me _by far_. Music and language are such enormous parts of my life that I’d probably go insane. If I lost my sense of taste, I’d probably stop horfing so many ice cream shakes and eat a little healthier. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/28 "2005-09-18T04:12:51Z")
Sight Touch Hearing Taste Smell There are some things in life I’d rather not smell. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935/29 "2005-09-18T05:00:29Z")
> [@Large Marge](#): > > There are some things in life I’d rather not smell. I’ve always suspected that this might be the case. I hear more people complain about smells than are grateful for them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-to-get-rid-of-one-of-your-five-senses-which-would-you-choose-to-lose/321935.md?page=1)