Hi everyone. Long-time fragrance lover. First time ranter.
The nature of this question is, most likely without intending to be so, a tad bit homophobic, much in the same way the idea of gendering fragrances reinforces sexism. Orientation has nothing to do with olfactive preference. Zip. Zilch. And digging for a connection between the two is a marketer looking for a quick answer to a far more complicated question.
Fragrance probably has more to do with the way in which we engage in social relationships than it does with singular interactions (health and hygiene excluded of course). But once you move away from the holistic side of fragrance, into the more ritualistic, sense-memory side, you start to realize that any particular person's attraction or repulsion to particular notes is in itself a testament to thousands of cultural influencers, compounded in a particular second in time. For example, if you and I as kids had a killer day while selling lemonade, your mom washed the house in lemon scented cleaner, and you later in life started sipping cocktails with a wedge of lemon in it, you're most likely going to find the scent reminiscent of happiness and purity, as well as revelry. When these things become cultural staples, we inadvertently train those unfamiliar with the scent to act or fill in the way we have learned from our own past experiences. Think about the way we pass along language. Though, an individual trauma or negative response can override this. It's that whole notion that scent is connected to our fight/flight mechanism in the brain.
If you are instead asking how to get any of this particular groups to be an advocate for your scent, start by paying attention to their lives. Listen to their stories. See what is affecting them today, and use the power of olfaction and authentic brand messaging to tie it in with past relate-able experiences. Use that earlier idea I had mentioned about language to stitch them back in.
But please, stop encouraging the flattening and oversimplification of fragrance, which has been so solidly tied to all areas of human existence since man grew a nose. It has been there in love and war, sex and death, friendship and love, health and spirituality... if it were ever that simple to understand, would civilization after civilization have adopted it as a key aspects in temples and the description of their ideas of the divine?
I know it gets lost in the constant onslaught of mass-market drivel that is continuously pumped out into the market, but do we really still need to ask the gender and orientation question about fragrance?
But personally I think more men should wear orientals and chypres... enough with the 'sport whatchamacallits'!
LOL!
