Are Armpits Suddenly...Hot?

What are your intentions with my daughter? In an era marked by a Pronatalist Agenda, trad wifery, and the internet's renewed obsession with Traditional Marriage™, you might expect this text overlay to precede a montage of engagement rings, wedding porn, and baby bumps. But in a viral Instagram post from Vaughn Meddings (@wandering_optics), what follows is footage of Meddings burying his nose in his partner’s armpit and taking a big whiff, a goofy smile spreading across his face.It’s neither the first nor the most viral example of what Meddings has dubbed his “pheromonemaxxing” content. “I knew I was onto something when the first video of me smelling my girlfriend’s armpits took flight,” he tells Cosmopolitan. For Meddings, who says that both sex and body positivity have long been part of his online presence, putting his appreciation for his partner’s pits on the grid didn’t feel particularly provocative. “It felt very normal to share that side of me,” he says.Whether you’re thinking, “Ew, armpits” or “😍😍armpits😍😍”, you’re not alone. Meddings gets mixed responses to this content category. “They range from literal death threats to a surprising amount of people that confirm they also enjoy this aspect of their relationship,” he says.The Western World is fixated on disguising the fact that our bodies have, well, a smell. From puberty onward, many of us are taught that the polite thing to do with pit scent is to disguise it enough that we can pretend it isn’t there. Hell, entire odor-masking industries exist to help us sanitize the humble pit. Combine this cultural aversion to B.O. with the fact that our society, by and large, is sex-negative, and Meddings isn’t surprised that some of the feedback has been lukewarm. As he explains, many of us have been conditioned to believe certain body parts and smells are inherently gross.And yet, the pit seems to be going through something like a PR rebrand—one that’s arguably as successful as Abercrombie & Fitch’s at that. Across social media, creators are showing off, sniffing, and salivating over them. In some cases, they’re even building full-blown audiences of people who would very much like to see more. (Meddings is hardly the only creator whose armpit appreciation has found an audience online). Altogether, this sudden influx of pit-positive content raises a question: Have armpits become…hot?The Social Media Influence Between ever-changing but always-sex-negative community guidelines, algorithm-led censorship, and shadowbanning, social media isn’t exactly known for being a haven for sexuality-based trends. Ironically, however, it’s likely this prudish history that has helped armpit content proliferate.“Sex workers have had to find savvy and creative ways to get around the rules [of Instagram] so that they can market their work without their content getting suppressed and accounts suspended altogether,” sex educator Topher Cusumano, co-founder and creative director of queer-owned production company Daddy TV, explains to Cosmopolitan. At present, social media platforms don’t (usually) flag armpit content, which makes pits a perfect way to “hide” sexualized content in plain sight, he says.At the same time, “people are increasingly seeing the internet as a safe space to conduct themselves as they see fit,” says Meddings. For people like him who are armpit fiends, this means that social media has become a public place where they feel comfortable sharing about their love of armpits online. And, because that content isn’t (usually) getting removed by the Algorithm Police, people who weren’t necessarily searching for armpits can wind up with pit after pit on their feeds.“Sniffing armpits is not new, nor is the love for body hair and all things involving the erotic nature of scent,” says Michael Stokes, LMHC, LPC, a sex therapist and men’s sexual health expert with Mister Health. But this visibility creates a positive feedback loop: When people see others enjoying, doing, and embracing parts of themselves that are rarely discussed (like an affinity for armpits and their smell!), it becomes easier to be curious about, try, and enjoy those things, too, he says. As Meddings put it, “They see people like myself and my girlfriend and think, ‘Oh wow, I can also be open about doing this or wanting to try this, too’.”Of course, while the algorithm can help explain why armpits are showing up on our For You Pages, it doesn’t fully explain why so many of us are delighted to find them there.The Scent Appeal Some armpit enthusiasts love their softness, hairiness, or the intimacy of having access to an often-ignored, long-stigmatized body part. Others get revved by how easily they can facilitate other kinks, including power dynamics, body worship, and knismolagnia (tickle kink).But others, too, are drawn to them specifically for the scent they produce. And online, there’s a subsection of creators whose armpit content feels less FetishTok and more RomanceTok.Megan Mora, for example, went viral for talking about her husband's scent. Despite having just over 1,000 followers, her post, which reads, “Send this to a man whose armpits somehow smell like peace, safety, and emotional support,” has 2.5 million views and counting. “It was the biggest post I have. It just exploded,” she tells Cosmopolitan.And Meddings’ videos arguably belong to this romantic subgenre, too. After all, the joke at the center of his “pheromonemaxxing” content isn’t simply that armpits smell good—it’s that his girlfriend’s do.Taken all together, these posts suggest that the internet isn’t merely horny for armpits. Rather, it’s also elevating armpits—and the stink they produce—into a sign of compatibility. Scroll through enough of these posts, and their comments, and you’ll start to think enjoying someone’s particular musk means you’ve found The One.Turns out, there may actually be something to all this: “I would call it a green flag if you like your partner’s scent,” Stokes says. “Enjoying your partner’s natural scent can connect to attraction, comfort, and emotional safety.Relationship therapist and dating coach Kiandra King, LPC, host of the Sincerely Love podcast, agrees, nodding at the sheer number of people jumping on the armpit bandwagon. “As we can see online, millions of people smell their partners for comfort, peace, and sexual arousal,” she says. “There is a ton of currently relevant scientific research that significantly proves it's real, too,” she adds.Indeed, a 2019 study in Physiology & Behavior found that women who smelled their partner's body odor during a stressful situation experienced reduced stress, leading researchers to dub the human aroma of one’s beloved a “scent of security.” And a second study found that people slept more soundly when exposed to a partner’s smell.Importantly, much of the research concerns a partner’s scent more broadly, not their armpit odor specifically, notes Stokes. So science may be giving you the green light to keep stealing your partner’s T-shirt for a sniff, but it hasn’t exactly declared that before you deem someone your happily ever after, you better make sure your nose has given its stamp of approval.So…Are Armpits Hot? Heck yeah. Armpits, like any other body part, tush to toe, can be a source of sexual arousal and attraction. And despite their newfound internet fame, they’ve had erotic appeal throughout history: “Armpits being part of sexual play and armpit kinks more broadly is nothing new,” says Stokes. (FYI: the official term for armpit kinks is maschalagnia).“This has been around for a long time, but I really am excited that we’re talking about it now,” he says. “I believe the more we can talk about, normalize, and open these conversations about pleasure, intimacy, connection, and sex, the less shame and guilt we have on these topics.”But let's not allow pits’ newfound Viral Sensation status to turn them into yet another litmus test for whether or not your blooming or long-term relationship(s) are destined for greatness.If seeing all this armpit appreciation on your feed has you newly inclined to sniff, lick, nuzzle, or otherwise appreciate your partner’s pits, go ape. But “not liking how your partner smells does not necessarily mean you aren’t compatible,” says King. Nor does it mean you have zero interest in them, period. So, if you would prefer their armpits remain firmly beneath their arms and away from your nose, that's perfectly fine, too.“Love and relationships are so risky we’ve developed this fixation to pinpoint what is a green flag and what is a red flag,” says King. The problem, she says, is that we often take traits deemed desirable—or undesirable—according to someone else’s preferences and experiences and apply them indiscriminately to our own relationships. “Then, we wonder why we’re unhappy in our relationships,” she says.A much more useful green flag than whether or not you have an armpit preoccupation is “understanding what you like in a partner, what you’re sexually attracted to, what turns you on, and what your sexual proclivities are,” says King.The bottom line: Armpits can be both hot and romantic. But if your partner’s underarms or their aroma doesn't get you going, no big. There are approximately 13 million other body parts, smells, sounds, tastes, and related qualities to get horny about.