I heard a joke once where a biology professor was talking about how much sugar was in semen and some girl in the back of the class says it never tasted sweet to her and the professor replied that the taste buds for sweetness aren’t at the back of your throat. Everyone has a smell and a taste to their body fluids. Some men describe the taste of a woman’s vaginal fluid as fishy or cheesy, while men’s semen has been described as salty or tasting like bleach. But these flavors aren’t constant and can change over time.

What is Male Ejaculatory Fluid Made Of?

The first component of semen is sperm (unless the man who produced the fluid has had a vasectomy). To provide the sperm with nutrients, so that they can continue swimming, and protection from the acidic vaginal environment, semen also contains seminal plasma. This plasma contains amino acids (the building blocks of proteins); citrate (weak acid that helps turn food into energy); enzymes (substances in the body that speed up chemical reactions); vitamins; minerals; fructose and galactose (sugar that gives the sperm energy); fatty compounds that prevent substances from sticking together and keep the vagina from reacting to the semen as a foreign substance; proteins; and, mucus. Semen is a slightly basic solution.

What is Vaginal Fluid Made Of?

The main component of vaginal fluid is water and the main purpose of this fluid is to provide lubrication to the vagina. The fluid also contains vitamins; organic compounds that help make steroids; urea (a waste product of urine); acetic and lactic acids (weak acids used in biochemical reactions); alcohols (as waste products of intestinal bacteria’s respiration); ketones (produced when fat is broken down by the body); and, aldehydes (helps form alcohols). This fluid is usually slightly acidic.

What Affects the Smell and Taste of Body Fluids?

There are many factors that can affect the smell and taste of body fluids. Pyridine, which is part of the vitamins in vaginal fluid, gives it that fishy smell. Acetic acid gives the fluid the vinegar flavor and strong smell. Alcohols in the fluid can also add mild fermented sugar smell. The flavor of vaginal fluid changes depending on the level of sexual arousal, what phase of the menstrual cycle a woman is in, what she has been eating, if she is sick, what drugs and medications she’s taking, and heredity. The same is true for the smell and taste of semen; it depends on how the man is feelings and what he has recently consumed. Semen is sometimes described as tasting bleachy.

How Can Diet Affect Taste and Smell?

When we eat food and other consumable products, they get broken down in our bodies into their component compounds and those that aren’t used are excreted from the body. Each of these compounds has their own flavor. And as the saying goes, “You are what you eat!” The food you eat stays in your body for anywhere between 12 and 24 hours. This means that the flavors from the food can be expressed in your body fluids for that entire timeframe. Body fluid flavor can also be affected by illness. If you are sick or have an infection, your fluid flavor will be negatively affected.

What Can We Do to Improve the Taste and Smell?

Consuming toxins like nicotine, alcohol, and drugs will negatively affect the flavor of your body fluids. The same holds true for red meats, fish and dairy. It’s been said that vegetarians taste best. However, some vegetables are not so flavor-friendly when it comes to semen and vaginal fluid. Foods like onions and garlic contain a lot of sulfur and will make body fluids taste sulfur-y (think rotten egg smell). Asparagus also leaves a funny taste, as does cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale and collard greens.

Good flavors can come from pineapple, both the fruit and the juice, as well as fruits with citric acid like oranges and also cranberry juice. Eating the fruit or drinking the juice will have the same effect. Additional fruits and other foods that have been reported to increase the sugar in the semen are mangoes, apples, grapes and melons, along with celery, wheatgrass, and parsley. It is also recommended to drink water. Water will flush toxins from your body and improve the texture of your semen to make it consistent.

A variety of supplements are sold that claim they can affect the taste of your body fluids. While some of these may work if you use them according to the directions, do not expect perfection!

Why Do You Taste and Smell Different When Aroused?

While food, beverages and intake of other substances will affect how your fluids smell and taste, sexual arousal can also change the flavor of the semen and vaginal fluid as well as affect how the opposite sex responds to you at an unconscious level. Recent research has shown that women process men’s sexual arousal sweat differently in their brains than non-sexually aroused sweat. While only a couple of the research participants reported actually smelling anything, the brains of the women studied showed increased response to the male sexual sweat than anything else. Interestingly, the area of the brain that responded to the sexual sweat was the right orbitofrontal complex (believed to be involved in the integration of the responses to senses) and the right fusiform region (also involved in processing a variety of sensory information).

Normally, the hypothalamus (controls hormones and circadian rhythms) is the area that is expected to respond to sexual stimulation and it showed no response. This surprise response to sexual sweat in the brain led researchers to understand that body odors are used to communicate among humans. The researchers did add the caveat that this study by no means indicates male sexual sweat is an aphrodisiac, just that women recognize the aroused man—nothing more.

How Can You Make the Most of your Flavor?

While semen is made up of nutrients, like proteins and sugar, to nourish the sperm on their journey, vaginal fluid is made up of water, acids, and components of alcohols. The taste and smell of both fluids is based not only on their natural components but also on the breakdown of the substances that you consume—both food, drinks and additional substances. To keep the flavor pleasing to your partner, eat fruit and drink plenty of fruit juice like pineapple, apples, melons, and grapes. Most vegetables are also good for fluid taste.

In addition, it is important to drink plenty of water to continually flush toxins out of your body and prevent them from ruining the flavor of your fluids. Avoid consuming toxins like alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and try to minimize your consumption of red meat, fish and dairy if you want your smell to remain pleasing to your partner. The bottom line: If you treat your body right, you will smell and taste better, which should result in an improved sex life!