I’ve been a tomboy from a young age. My friends have always been guys, and I developed a dislike for being around other girls around age 10-11 because the people who bullied me were all girls.
When I was a teenager, I kept hearing that girls and women supposedly have a strong “fishy” smell. I know it’s a meme, but I’d seen and read enough firsthand stories that it stuck with me. I even came across accounts from gay men who said that every woman they knew smelled that way, and that it influenced their attraction to men.
In my case, I seem to be an exception. There’s no fishy smell on myself, just normal skin or sweat when I’m active, or at night when I’m due to shower. But that actually made me even more uncomfortable around groups of girls and women, because I really hate the smell of fish or seafood in general, and if there’s a lot of women in a room, that smell lingers even after they’ve left.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed, because people see me, see that I’m female, and I worry they automatically assume I’ve got a rotting crab factory somewhere.
It all comes down to personal higiene.
I’ve been married a couple of times and typically I would always smell when someone was on their period. I regularly smell it at work as well.
My current wife? Not a single smell, ever. No idea what she would smell like of it’s a bad smell.m, she always smells awesome like herself.
Then again, she’s latina and as such really good at that sort of thing.
Just was yourself regularly, not too much, use mild soaps, and figure out what works for your body. Soaps (and even perfumes) work differently on different bodies, so even a perfume may work well on someone but not on you. You gotta trial and error a bit there. Don’t use too much perfumes either.
My wife rarely uses perfumes, she doesn’t need it