“Divine am I inside and out,
-Walt Whitman
and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from;
The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer;”
Definition
Maschalagnia is a sexual attraction to armpits. It is a partialism, which means a sexual attraction to a specific part of the body. This fetish can lead to axilism, which is having sex with an armpit.
Sniff Your Way to Lust
Typically people who have maschalagnia will enjoy kissing, tasting, licking, smelling, and licking their partners armpits. Oftentimes they really enjoy their partners armpit odor and might ask them not to shower or wash or even wear deodorant for many hours before having any sexual contact. The natural body smell is a strong driver in sexual attraction and armpit smell can be a focal point for these attraction odors. To those with an armpit fetish, the armpit seems like a beautiful bouquet and offers a myriad of sexual pleasures.
Armpit Appreciation In Literature
Alex Comfort, the author of The Joy of Sex, thought that women shaving their armpits was “simply ignorant vandalism” because it destroyed a powerful sex tool. He also praised the French for having more sexual awareness than Americans in regard to deodorant culture. Joris-Karl Huysmans, a French novelist, wrote an essay on the smells of a woman’s armpit which he called the “spice box.” A Chinese poet wrote, “your odorous armpit…that embalmed nest.” Folklorist Gersham Legman wrote of a folktale motif of having vaginas in armpits.