The odor of semen has not been investigated, but, according to Zwaardemaker, artificially produced odors (like cadaverin) resemble it.  The odor of the leguminous fenugreek, a botanical friend considers, closely approaches the odor given off in some cases by the armpit in women.  It is noteworthy that fenugreek contains cumarine, which imparts its fragrance to new-mown hay and to various flowers of somewhat similar odor.  On some persons these have a sexually exciting effect, and it is of considerable interest to observe that they recall to many the odor of semen.  “It seems very natural,” a lady writes, “that flowers, etc., should have an exciting effect, as the original and by far the pleasantest way of love-making was in the open among flowers and fields; but a more purely physical reason may, I think, be found in the exact resemblance between the scent of semen and that of the pollen of flowering grasses.  The first time I became aware of this resemblance it came on me with a rush that here was the explanation of the very exciting effect of a field of flowering grasses and, perhaps through them, of the scents of other flowers.  If I am right, I suppose flower scents should affect women more powerfully than men in a sexual way.  I do not think anyone would be likely to notice the odor of semen in this connection unless they had been greatly struck by the exciting effects of the pollen of grasses.  I had often noticed it and puzzled over it.”  As pollen is the male sexual element of flowers, its occasionally stimulating effect in this direction is perhaps but an accidental result of a unity running through the organic world, though it may be perhaps more simply explained as a special form of that nasal irritation which is felt by so many persons in a hay-field.  Another correspondent, this time a man, tells me that he has noted the resemblance of the odor of semen to that of crushed grasses.  A scientific friend who has done much work in the field of organic chemistry tells me he associates the odor of semen with that produced by diastasic action on mixing flour and water, which he regards as sexual in character.  This again brings us to the starchy products of the leguminous plants.  It is evident that, subtle and obscure as many questions in the physiology and psychology of olfaction still remain, we cannot easily escape from their sexual associations.

FOOTNOTES: 

[53] H. Beauregard, Matiere Medicale Zooelogique:  Histoire des Drogues d’origine Animate, 1901.

[54] Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has for many years carried on a series of experiments which would even tend to show that insects are scarcely attracted by the colors of flowers at all, but mainly influenced by a sense which would appear to be smell.  His experiments have been recorded during recent years (from 1887) in the Bulletins de l’Academie Royale de Belgique, and have from time to time been summarized in Nature, e.g., February 5, 1903.