The most unexpected thing about becoming a woman: smell.

My sense of smell, my odour, my pheromones, and the smell of my sacred yoni.

You know how pineapple makes a difference in what a man tastes like?  Well, it works for women too.  Eat it every day and it starts to pervade your whole body.  I love dried pineapple with an insane passion.  Of course, eating dried fruit is going to promote weight gain, and as a woman that is a serious consideration, but pineapple is in my life for two other reasons.

First, the pineapple is one of the most anti-inflammatory foods out there.  And as a post-op transsexual who woke up from her sex change operation and had an intense and immediate craving for pineapple, I know to listen to my body, for it tells me what I need.  The second is that bromelain, the substance that works this anti-inflammatory magic, is also an appetite suppressant, and is a good partner in a weight management programme.

Makes sense, no?  Sugar is inflammatory.  Carbs are inflammatory.  Shifting a diet which is built on protein, naturally occurring sugars in fruit, and fats coming from nuts and avocado and fish, are the building blocks of a healthy post-surgical body.  But more than that, for any body.  I mean it.

Inflammation is a killer.  Consider this.  Of all the daily practices to help with longevity, daily flossing as part of your oral health regimen is the single thing that most lengthens average lifespan.  Six years!  Compare that to daily orgasms: 1 year.  Eating tons of garlic: 1 year.  Why?  If you don’t floss, you can end up with low grade infections in your mouth, a kind of inflammatory trigger that keys your body into a response mechanism.  Not good.  Floss.

And eat pineapple.

I was asked by a lady friend over dinner the other day…and FYI, she is a friend from professional circles, is a boss baddie, and an uber successful power woman.  Sometimes we talk about (my) slave self as her partner is submissive.  But mostly our conversations are very corporate.  Only she asked me what was the most profound difference I felt post-op.

“My smell,” I said, then added, “my relationship to smell.  My ability to smell.  The smell of ‘me’, conscious for the first time, and how that makes me feel, how it changes my relationship to my body, who and what I am, and how I feel in life.”

“Tell me more.”

“It’s a bit intimate,” I said, “so if this is TMI, let me know.”  She nodded.

“I mean, as a guy, I just didn’t smell like this.  And I don’t mean body odour.  Sweat.  I mean my smell.  And I am really confronted by it when I dilate, or when I go to the bathroom.  Open my legs, as in.  And I guess, dilating, at least for now, is the closest thing I have to having sex…but I can’t help but feel that I smell like sex.  All the time.  And not in a funky or off way, but in a fresh and delicious way.  My body smells sweet, mildly of pineapple, a bit of maple syrup.  Yes, it is my diet, which is another topic, but it’s like all the good olfactory parts of what I am eating are being channelled to my vagina, and it is just emanating from me, but also like my pores are more open, and smelling good in the same way, only just less.”  I smelled my arm, and sighed.

She took my arm and smelled it.  Smelled it again.  “Yes, I see what you mean.  You have to tell me what you’re eating!” and she laughed.

I can’t underline enough how important this change is.  As a woman, my sense of smell has become much more acute.  This is an evolutionary advantage that women have.  Biologists speculate that this is a survival skill that comes from the mother’s role as baby incubator and source of early life nourishment.  Her sense of smell was an important tool in the safety of feeding herself and her baby. 

Whether that is a case of patriarchal determinism in the sciences is beyond the scope of today’s post, only to note that for the first time, the number of women pursuing PhD’s in biology has surpassed that of men, ditto for women in med school, and all I can say is ‘Thank God’.  Let’s go ladies…change the facts on the ground!

I’ve been listening to the song Pussy is God by King Princess.  Great song, great lyrics.

And you know what?  Every time I sit to pee, every time I spread my legs, I can smell me, and can smell how delicious I am.  If only my body was flexible enough!

I wonder if someone were to just eat me out, whether there would be enough bromelain in my cosmic juices to feed you the anti-flammatory magic that I am living. In case you are wondering, here is how to eat pussy like a champ.