Pollution, Purity, and Pong: The Connection Between Smell, Vaginal Health, and Sexual Impurity

Introduction
"[The womb] will in a manner descend or arise vnto any sweete smell and from any
thing that is noisome", (Crooke, Mikrokosmographia, 1615). Here Crooke discusses
connections between the female body and smell, arguing that its increased
sensitivity causes a woman's womb to wander throughout her body. Three hundred
years later, adverts stated that, without douching, wives could "lose the precious air
of romance" (Lysol douche ad, 1948). Now Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop promotes
vaginal steaming and the trend of 'wellness' grifting is causing harm to women and
their bodies for the purpose of freshness and purity. Connections between smell,
vaginal health, and sexual impurity persisted across centuries of social and medical
thought. I will analyse the historical use of smell in the olfactory othering of women to
challenge vernacular misinformation. Previous historiography underestimated the
role of sensory history in the construction of contemporary female experience.
Rather than assuming a culturally specific relationship, I shall demonstrate the
long-standing influence of ideas connecting smell, shame, and female impurity.
Misconceptions that natural vaginal aromas are linked to poor hygiene and sexual
impurity are so ingrained that women are ashamed to seek medical help, avoid
smear tests, and use dangerous chemicals for feminine hygiene. By studying the
olfactory othering of women, medical practitioners and women can better understand
the female body, phasing out misinformation impacting women today.
Research context, questions, and significance
The study of smell in concert with health and disease is becoming increasingly
common in history. The Foul and the Fragrant by Alain Corbin explores social
connections between a person's health and the smells surrounding them in
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France. However, vaginal health is a topic into
which academics are just starting to delve. With only brief mentions within a wider
analysis of sensory history, the impact of social constructions of vaginal smell on
women is underestimated. Corbin's work, though extensive, often fails to recognise
the modern-day implications that mediaeval and early modern perceptions of smell
and vaginal health have. Rather than being a culturally / temporally specific
phenomenon, the connection between smell, vaginal health, and sexual impurity is
present throughout history. There is currently only one example of a comparative
approach - "From Gorgons to Goop" by Margaret Day Elsner - in which Elsner
compares only two examples of the connection between smell and vaginal health:
ancient medicine and myths, and contemporary 'women-centred' holistic groups.
Both case studies demonstrate the use of misogynistic misinformation for the
olfactory othering of women. Expanding on this, I will investigate mediaeval, early
modern, modern, and contemporary examples, using a comparative method of
analysis. By doing so, I will show that the misogynistic misconceptions surrounding
vaginal health that are deeply ingrained into modern day constructs of gender and
race are not culturally specific but are, in fact, part of a much wider story.