Imagine how much more pleasant life would be if flatulence had a nice aroma, rather than an odor. A scent nearly universally appreciated, like baking bread or vanilla (or some otherwise unknown but very pleasing fragrance).
Would we have conversations like this?:
Nellie: “Who farted.”
Hubert: “I did.”
Nellie: “Mmm, that’s nice.”
Would the breaking of wind be considered socially acceptable? Would the aroma be appreciated, knowing that it came from an anus?
mmm
Do you realize how many people complain about perfumes on people and in products. I’m sure your flatulence would trigger assama attacks.
No, they’d be disgusting because basically smelling a fart is inhaling vaporized shit. Shit can be green, and most people like green, but they’re not usually so fond of diarrhea green.
Yeah, but perfumes are nowhere near universally accepted as smelling nice. On the other hand, I have never heard anyone fuss about the smell of cinnamon rolls in the oven.
mmm
St. Shittamon Bakery - Just like dad used to make!
Baking bread and vanilla smell good because they are associated with positive things. Farts smell bad because we are designed to recoil from the smells of potentially disease bearing things, like rotting flesh or feces.
So if farts smelled like baking bread, it’d be most likely that we’d start hating the smell of baking bread, and bakeries would be considered noxious industries.
I’d say that, since the instinctive dislike of all things scatological (well, for most people) was a result of many eons of natural selection, even if it smelled “like” lilacs we would come to loathe it anyway.
Which brings up an interesting question: Does shit smell bad because it smells bad? Or does it smell bad because it is shit.
Does bread smell good because it smells good? Or does it smell good because it’s bread.
mmm
If a fart is released in a blanket and no one is lies there to smell it does it still stink?
I once read an essay by Benjamin Franklin where he suggested that someone come up with an “X-Prize,” as it were, to encourage the development of a pill that would make farts smell pleasant.
I think it was satirical.
I’ve never heard of anyone catching a disease from exposure to farts.
They probably would be called something other than “farts.” Perhaps “borborygmi,” the medical term for stomach rumblings.
Well, my own farts smell perfectly fine. It’s you guys who give farts a bad name.
For some people, farts smelling nice is the current state of affairs. It takes all kinds to make this crazy world go 'round.
All I know is my shit don’t stink.
Medical term for farts: flatus.
As in, “Pt. has hyperactive bowel sounds in all four quadrants with copious flatus after eating beans and cabbage.”
Exactly.
So, what if they smelled nice? They probably do smell nice to the very few people occasionally born with a mutation that makes them like the smell, and those people are less likely to have healthy lives and procreate, and it’s no fun to be them. That’s what if.
Read on the 'Dope somewhere:
“Farts smell so deaf people can appreciate them, too.”
Good question. Is reaction to smells a learned behavior or is it something we’re born with?