A post on X asking for perfume recommendations to “smell like a French whore” recently went viral, garnering 50,000 likes and a flood of replies suggesting perfumes heavy with animalic notes and overpowering florals. While provocative, the idea isn’t new. The link between scent and sex work runs deep. In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman notes how many slang terms for sex worker – like the French putain and Italian puttana – derive from the root pu, meaning “to rot” or “decay” (as in putrid), reflecting a long history of associating sex workers’ bodies with foul odours.
In Ancient Rome, brothels, or lupanaria (“wolf dens”) were sensorially overwhelming: cramped, poorly ventilated, the air thick with smoke from oil lamps,...
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