It’s getting funky over in the Semen Retention subreddit. Not funky like James Brown funky. Funky as in musty teenager’s bedroom funky.
Today one Reddit semen-retainer reported that he had begun to emit a not-always pleasant odor. “I smell like semen,” wrote Nomorewitches. “[A]ll of the sudden get whiffs of the smell of semen especially when i sweat. could this be my pheromones?”
The mods of the subreddit quickly took down the post (which is still available via the Internet Archive), but not before a number of other faponauts had reported the same thing happening to them.
“Yeah around when I reach ten days or so [of not masturbating] I notice I have a weird scent,” wrote Fuckface400.
Nomorewitches declared that the whole thing was “weird lmao, and the female attraction crazy.”
“haha yeah,” agreed someone called eijeroand.
if yo good looking too, look around the class room, they stare, when youre not looking at them, you can see the thirst in their eyes so easily. Haha
You can see the thirst in their eyes.
Haha indeed.
One Semen Retainer suggested that it wasn’t any funky scent that was winning over the ladies, but rather something more spiritual. “I think this phenomenon occurs at a the source consciousness level we are all connected to,” wrote TruthSeeker_199.
[B]ecause [it] isn’t only women and goals attraction face to face. I’ve experienced girls that used to ignore me now are trying to go at me, texting, calling. Opportunities coming out of no where. It got a be some metaphisic component here.
Or maybe they’re trying to serve you with an order of protection?
One renegade commenter, challenging all these interpretations, suggested a simple cause for the semen scent phenomenon: unchecked wet dreams. Wrote should_: “It’s because you’re unloading over every inch of yourself when you sleep.”
As much as I hate to agree with anyone posting in the Semen Retention subreddit, I have to say he may have a point there.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
Semen is secreted and stored internally, so how would women smell it? It’s like being able to smell bile, or dopamine.
Y’all make my brain hurt. Like I have said, it’s possible that pheromones are actually signaling that the dude is full of the stuff – an ex boyfriend of mine actually held on off on doing it, to save it up or something (which he actually did), and he smelled amazing, and previously I hated his smell. And he showered.
The site has been acting a bit flaky ever since the incident the other day. Notably:
Though both of these are mostly cosmetic issues, the failure to retain scroll position can significantly slow down the catching-up process, as it forces skimming the entire comment thread for “inserts” (comments that get added above existing ones, instead of at the bottom where all new comments are supposed to go), whereas if the scroll position is retained, inserts are easily detected by whether the preexisting comments that were at the bottom move down or stay put. If they move down, there’s an insert higher up on the page to go look for; if not, you can skip that step and be assured of not missing a new comment. If the scroll position is not retained, you can’t skip that step at all, costing time.
And now my own avatar is affected.
One more thing: the “post comment” thing is significantly slower than it used to be, taking 10-20 seconds instead of only 2 or 3 the way it used to. What did you do, move the server from a modern machine to a 486DX33?
@Mothkiller: I can just hear Mandrake’s baffled question where Ripper got this nonsense from. Fantastic film.
@Alan, well thought-of. That does indeed look like something that should be more widely known. Maybe worth bringing it to the attention of some of the independent media setups like The Canary, Double Down News or Novara Media? Having specifically UK audiences, and also quite big twitter followings, and being left and class conscious they could be into posting about it.
(oh, I’ve lost my avatar too it seems :-s )
um, opposablethumbs here (in case my nym has vanished also)
(sorry, just checking to see if I’m still me. It’s all looking a bit confusing here)
Guess what y’all. It’s covid now. I’m probably going to die.
My husband smokes liked a chimney and i find cigarette smoke as a sexy smell, especially mixed with his cologne. Maybe these guys just need to take up more things that cause cancer and heart failure to be sexy to a very small subset of people.
But semen doesn’t get “stored”, right? sperm cells are recycled if they’re not used. It’s not like balls inflate when people haven’t had orgasms for a while…
@Elaine: I’m sorry you’re ill and it’s covid. I’ve been symptomatic for a week and a half (though tests are negative somehow) now and my husband tested positive a couple weeks ago. I hope your symptoms are mild and you recover quickly!
Elaine, speaking as someone who has had Covid twice, I know it can be hard to think positive while you feel like shit and can’t seem to catch your breath, or whatever the latest symptoms are, but your odds are good. Omicron is one of the least dangerous variants and that is likely what you have. It might be rough, you might spend a month recovering and cursing every anti masking/vaxxer on the planet, but you are going to be alright. It’s horrible and I’m sorry you have to go through it, but just take your time and try not to panic.
And now I have an even bigger problem. I just found a note slipped under my door threatening me with eviction. It claims that I haven’t paid December’s or January’s rent; despite which, it was accompanied by the receipt for January’s rent and, bizarrely, that for October’s, along with a small blank scrap of paper.
I can, obviously, use the January receipt to prove that I’ve paid January’s (and even that the accusation otherwise was made in bad faith), but after a quick flip through my documents box I can’t find one for December — though I’ve got June, July, August, September, and November to add to the October and January ones.
The same flip through my documents box has revealed a second problem: I don’t seem to have any recent bank statements. Whenever I find one in the snail mail it goes straight into that box after a cursory skim to verify there are no unexpected charges. If there are no recent ones in the box, then they must have stopped arriving for some reason, though I never told the bank to make any changes in that area (nor gave them a change of address).
A bank statement, officially issued by the bank itself, could obviously also have proved that the December rent was paid, assuming that they deposited the check. But apparently somebody switched off my receiving of bank statements, which would have required impersonating me to the bank, presumably to set up this current situation. (Remember that my adversary is quite capable of playing a long game. The lengths they went to to obstruct my getting a certain medication are legendary. No doubt the difficulties scheduling my third COVID shot are their machinations as well.)
Leaving aside the long term question of how I’m supposed to deal with an adversary who seems to be almost omnipotent and who likes to use me as their stress squeezer (maybe I should re-watch all the Q episodes of Star Trek: TNG for ideas?), this current threat needs to be dealt with, and the threatening note gave me a deadline of just six days from now.
As far as I can tell, there are three possibilities for what’s happened.
If I simply re-pay the December rent, then in case 1 I will be out nearly seven hundred bucks, and they will have, essentially, mugged me for that amount. (Given the climate here and the time of year, that note might as well be a gun pointed at my head.) A bank statement would prove, or rule out, case 1 (just look for the December check being deducted, or not), but the only way I could get one, it seems, would be to take an extra (COVID-risking) trip out to physically go to the bank and ask them. (And, while I was at it, demand to know why they stopped sending statements to me in the mail without permission or even explanation!) That would have to be tomorrow given the short-fuse deadline.
Cases 2 and 3 would likely require me to redo and resubmit the December check. The danger here is that the original December check could resurface someday. I don’t know if there’s a way to write a check so that, if it’s deposited, it invalidates an earlier check if that one has not been deposited; otherwise I run the risk that it morphs into case 1 retroactively someday. And without any bank statements I’d likely not even know I’d been ripped off, at least not right away.
I could use advice from someone who knows more about checks and banking than I do. (Assume only basic end-user knowledge on my part of how to write, and deposit, checks without any unusual circumstances.)
Also, before anyone asks or suggests it: No, I have not done anything to set up any e-banking arrangement, nor had I any intention of doing so. Part of my defense-in-depth against hacks and other similar threats has been to not do any kind of banking on any electronic devices (aside from the bank’s own ATMs, which are their responsibility to secure). So I’ve no way that I know of to electronically review a bank statement or investigate whether the original December check went out or not. (And if, hypothetically, I found that it had, I’d still need a paper document from the bank to that effect to prove that it was already paid, wouldn’t I?)
So, please answer two questions here:
Surplus, go to your bank in person. Tomorrow. If you have the checkbook with the receipt copy, bring it. Do whatever you need to, to get there during open hours.
They can look up your account, provide you new copies of statements. They can look up your rent check by number if you have the receipt, and tell you the day it cleared your account. If your landlord deposited your rent via atm, they (the bank) will even have a scanned copy of it time stamped with when it was cashed or deposited.
Ask for a copy.
If they can’t find it, pay the balance your landlord says you owe.
If they find it, present your landlord with the copy of when they deposited it. Gently. Even if someone stole it from them, the check clearing will prove it was on them, not you.
I had to do this a couple weeks back, because someone (incorrectly) thought I hadn’t paid them. It is not the end of the world.
Good luck, hope they find it cleared! If not, be as nice and chill and apologetic as you can manage, and catch up on your rent. If you’re chill enough and desperate enough and cannot pay 100% right away, propose a payment plan you CAN do and see if it will fly.
Evicting people is hard and annoying, give them a good reason to not bother trying.
Elaine, I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve got COVID.
As .45 says, this is not a death sentence. It could go that way, but there is no certainty it will and there is decent chance it won’t.
Try to keep up hope.
I know it’s hard, and I wish I could help with more than just words.
Take care, hydrate, rest. Good luck and healing be with you.
Addition to the ‘What do I do’ question:
Try your best to be kind, chill, and patient when you talk to the bank clerk tomorrow. They personally did nothing to you, and it’s a lot harder to find things under the pressure of an angry person on the other side of the desk.
It’s okay to be frustrated and mad, but do your best to wait until you’re somewhere private to scream out the frustration.
Sorry you have to deal with this. It happens. Hope the bank can find your payments, and you don’t need to do some quick work to figure out paying more rent.
@Surplus – Ugh, that sounds like a pain! Seconding what Contrapangloss said. Also, it shouldn’t be too dangerous to go into a bank if you have a good mask (I’ve been wearing a KN95 one when I have to take the bus – makes me look like I have a beak and tugs at the back of my ears, but it’s worked so far).
While you’re there, you might ask if they can send you your bank statements by email, and hopefully get that cleared up too.
@Elaine – That sucks! Hope you feel better soon.
Herbal tea is my go-to non-sugary comfort drink – even when I can’t taste much, the warmth is comforting.
You don’t need tea bags necessarily – if you have a tea strainer, chopped-up fresh ginger* gives a nice flavour, just pour on boiling water and leave it for a few minutes. It’s not magic, but it’s soothing on the throat and you can add lemon juice or honey. (Ginger isn’t that expensive, but I don’t know what the grocery store situation is like where you are.)
*1 or 2 spoonfuls
@Elaine: Socially distanced hugs.
Ginger tea is also my go-to when sick. If chopping it up is too much effort right now, it comes in teabags. It’s warm and soothing and really great for your upset stomach. I had some after each of my Covid vaccines, and I felt better, so it’s probably good for the real thing too.
I bought a pulse oximeter online last week just in case, particularly as I had a scare where I (and the advice line) thought it was the rona, but a stick shoved up into my sinuses said nope.
@epitome: For some reason, I kinda like the beak look. I really like having more room to breathe. If I could get KN95s with actual beaks printed on them, I would. But no luck… I was just happy to get some in blue instead of black or white. And to get some, period.
My only problem is that they all stink. I end up having to put just a tiny bit of something dry on the inside so I don’t have that chemical smell. The stink lasts longer than the masks do otherwise.
This site is behaving kind of wonky, where it looks wrong, but wrong in a different way each time I reload it? Anyway…
Most women (or for that matter, people) don’t much care for the smell/taste of semen. I do, but I’m kind of weird that way. There’s a reason for that: semen contains trace amounts of putrescine (think “putrid/putrescent”), which is a harmless waxy substance but is normally an indicator of rot. It might be caused by the breakdown of the chemically similar spermicine or a side effect of it’s production, or it might even somehow be chemically useful in of itself, but I don’t know if that was ever worked out.
If you don’t wash properly or often enough, the resulting musty stink is partly caused by putrescine, so…
@Snowberry
I agree. most people don’t like the smell of a vagina either. Yet there are people who liked to sniff used underwear as a fetish. I think that guy has something similar to that and just assumes everyone has that. Apparently one commenter here has that fetish cause he won’t shut up about it. But most people don’t.
It’s all just kinks and fetishes, and that’s nothing wrong as long as everyone is consenting but you really shouldn’t be talking about your kinks or fetishes out in the open like that, like it’s a normal topic of conversation. This guy is just involving women into his kink when they didn’t consent to it, and that’s fucked up.
@all my well wishers
Thank you. I really appreciate it. I’m miserable but I’m thankful that my beloved is here to be with me while I go through this. I’ve been getting lots of rest and being held constantly. Things are going well as can be.
…I only realized later that my intended implication might not be obvious to some people, so just in case: semen and body funk don’t smell the same (source: personal experience which is very much TMI), but there’s enough similarity that if you didn’t make a real effort to compare them, it wouldn’t be a completely unreasonable for someone who already had no-fapper beliefs jump to thinking the down-there smell is caused by semen smell leaking out and not by improper washing – ignoring the fact that the ideas which lead to them becoming a no-fappper in the first place were most likely very stupid ones.
That being said, “enough similarity” is not the same, and if anyone interpreted it as meaning that I’m into unwashed body stink… hahaha noooo thanks.
Hey, what happened to David’s latest post? The one about female astronauts ruining the manospherians’ plan B (in which they go live in outer space, goodbye and good riddance)?
MAJOR glitch now — I can’t reload the current leading-edge thread! The one after this one.
MAJOR GLITCH: I can’t reload the current leading-edge thread! The one immediately following this one. Also, replies are sometimes not being posted, without any error message, just silently disappearing. And the form autocomplete no longer remembers my name or email.
@Kat: I haven’t even seen that one (the astronauts thing) yet. So far, for me, this no-fappers thread has always shown up as the last entry. It’s also still displaying the site very inconsistently from my end, appearing incorrectly in a different way each time I reload. Several of other people’s posts also temporarily vanished from this thread.