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Sensory Speed Dating: Or That Time Someone Sniffed My Armpit And Maybe I Liked It

Rethink your romantic attractions and let your senses roam free with Sensory Speed Dating.

By Natasha SydorPublished 7 years ago 5 min read
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Instant gratification. A term we have all come to demand through life’s daily trivialities. Fueled in part by technology’s content expansion, we have become creatures of consumption; where, thanks to our personal pocket A.I.s, knowledge isn’t a privilege, it’s an expectation.

However satisfying instant gratification may be, it should not be applied to every aspect of our lives – especially our dating lives. My advice to you: get off of Tinder, Grindr, and overpriced dating sites, and tune into Guerrilla Science’s alternative – which uses only your senses.

Enter: Sensory Speed Dating, where each sense has the ability to be attracted to a complete stranger.

And maybe armpit sniffing was involved. Maybe.

Consent Is Sexy

At sensory speed dating, consent is sexy. This mantra was persistently repeated throughout the night because, let’s face it, not everyone is going to consent to having their armpits sniffed. Jokes aside, it’s a mantra that should be ingrained into everyone’s personal dating lives.

I was greeted by a woman wearing an eyeball for a face that neither frightened nor scared me upon entering House of Yes. To my surprise, she wasn’t the only one with a large eyeball for a head – there were multiple, reminding me that this was the last time my sight had the ability to be seen. Or even, I had the ability to be seen. I quickly reached for the fortune cookies (hunger waits for no woman) and a mustache pin, indicating that I was into men. The two other pins on the table were a pair of lips (into women) and one that combined the two (into anyone).

Satiating my trembling stomach, I quickly unwrapped my fortune cookies and read what was inside...

Male bedbugs use hypodermic penises to forcibly inseminate females through the abdomen.
Queen ants can store a male’s sperm for up to thirty years in special internal compartments.

Am I supposed to be turned on, confused, or intrigued after reading these?

Isolate Your Senses

Sensory speed dating removes face to face interaction and replaces it with sense to sense interaction. As creatures who rely so heavily on sight (and I will admit that I totally scoped out the room upon entering) sight could lead us to our dating downfall. Why should touch, smell, and taste come to play later in our dating lives, instead of earlier?

Cell phones were removed, blindfolds were instituted, and at the end of each round, the sound of tortoises mating brought as back to reality. Initially, the sound of tortoises having sex made everyone in the room laugh, but as the night went on, we were desensitized to the sound as our other senses were heightened, and a general acceptance for the now normalized tortoise petite mort fell upon us.

The evening was organized into six rounds and hosted by an evolutionary biologist and a comedian. Remember the text on the fortune cookies? That theme – of how other creatures on our planet express attraction and sexuality – was intertwined within our education of the night. We were reminded that yes, other creatures experience desires, and yes, we do too. When society is stripped away from our conscious, instinct remains; and this night became purely instinctual, whether the participants were aware of it or not.

The six rounds were as follows:

Sound – Blindfolds, nervousness, and activating your “sexy voice”. We were instructed to tell an embarrassing story to our partner across the table, but it had to be done “sexually.” At the end of the sound round, the evolutionary biologist informed us that most people lowered their voices to a deeper tone, and women especially did it huskily and softly. These are subtle tactics used to woo that most people are not aware of.

Taste – Perhaps the most technical round, your new partner across the table was instructed to feed you food while blindfolded. This produced many laughs and a cherry tomato accidentally being shoved against my nose. All foods fed to us were included in the aphrodisiac category, including nutmeg.

Touch – In the touch round, consent was especially sexy, and we were instructed to allow our partners to touch us wherever we desired, with our hands guiding the way. Arm, neck, lips, chest. Guiding a stranger around your body, blindfolded.

Smell – Remember the term pheromones? That term dominated this round. When our sight is removed, how does our sense of smell take over? You were allowed to smell your partner wherever they desired to be smelled: on the wrist, next to your cheek, your hair, and yes – your armpits. Subtle hints of perfume or soap seemed to surface, as well as the natural smells our bodies give off. Being smelled was odd, but also oddly fascinating. Our evolutionary biologist friend even alerted us that men are attracted to sweeter smells in women than women are in men.

Sight – By far my favorite round, but not my partner's. This was the first round without blindfolds, and all we had to do was sit in silence and stare into the eyes of our partner. Maybe it's because I acted for so many years, but I love staring into people's eyes. Even for a minute. My partner – not at all. He hated it so much that he verbally expressed his disdain for the sight round at its completion.

Movement – We ditched the chairs, jumped on our feet, and danced cheek to cheek with a stranger, blindfolded again. The evolutionary biologist made us aware of our heart rate in this round, and how we chose to dance when no-one was watching.

Slave to our Senses

At the end of the night it was apparent that our senses govern our sexual attraction. What we're consciously aware of when dating someone may not be the real and only reason we're attracted to them. There are unconscious processes that govern our feelings and decisions, more than we are aware of and more than we'd like to admit. Because if we're not governed by ourselves, like we think we are, are we really in control?

We're all aware that our senses come to play roles in our lives intuitively, but it was fascinating to see what the senses have the capability to do when isolated on their own. Without sight, taste and touch roam free. Perhaps we should always unleash our senses and let them run wild.

My question for you is: what would digital sensory speed dating look like?

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About the Creator

Natasha Sydor

brand strategy @ prime video

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