#stopthesmell

Why do our bodily smells smell good to us but bad to other people? I know it’s not just me because I have asked friends and they say the same thing. Please don’t tell me you don’t smell your dirty socks after you take them off. If you did, I’d know you were lying. Our smells smelling bad to others just promotes distance between human beings. If our sweat, farts, feet, shit, and coffee breath just smelled good to everyone, it would be one less thing to worry about. One less thing to feel insecure about. One less thing to keep us from standing close, embracing, or just saying hello. It would be one less thing to aid in the prejudices people feel about people different than them.

"The sewage doesn't even come from our neighborhood," Ariss explains. It's sent there by the adjacent city of Alamo. "As Hispanic, low-income people, we have to deal with their stuff. When we found that out, we wanted to do something. —by Daniel Blue Tyx (September/October 2016) in Sierra