Who Says Middle Age Stinks?

I felt awkward telling the spokeswoman for the Air Pollution Control District exactly what was on my mind.

But I plunged in anyway. After all, the district has confronted all kinds of noxious odors. As entire cities gag and heave, the brave individuals of the enforcement division track the rankness in the air to mountains of manure, torrents of sewage, heaps of rotting carcasses. So I held my nose, metaphorically, and asked Barbara Page:

“Have you ever had a problem with middle-aged men?”

During the pause that followed, I filled her in. Japanese researchers have discovered that middle-aged men produce great quantities of nonenal, a chemical whose distinctive smell cannot be mistaken for green tea. All of Japan has turned up its nose at the middle-aged man, as ojisan scrambles for specially designed perfumes and even specially engineered underwear to mask his unfortunate condition.

Every day, more people come to Ventura County. Every day, the population grows older. Yesterday’s fresh sprout is today’s fetid middle-aged man. We’ve kept the farmers from selling out to developers, so we must live closer to one another, shoulder to shoulder, cheek by jowl, a middle-aged man for every rosebush. If the Japanese research is on the nose, guess which will be cut down first.

Page was diplomatic. On a personal note, she said she dates middle-aged men and hasn’t noticed any particular aroma. She also said she wasn’t aware of district inspectors--who I picture clad in moon suits and toting tubs of baking soda--converging on problematic middle-aged men.

And who are your inspectors? I asked.

“Well, mostly middle-aged men,” she said.

My heart sank slowly, like a bloated cow easing itself into a bright green pond.

This was a clear conflict of interest, and it screamed cover-up--which, the Japanese researchers insist, might not be such a bad idea. By the way, did I mention that they work for a perfume company?

A long time before I was a middle-aged man, the public forum was kinder about personal shortcomings. Sensitive issues, such as smelling like bad meat, were raised gingerly. Deodorant commercials featured Greek statuary and were narrated in the kind of tweedy male voice we now associate with PBS.

“In the mature male and in the mature female . . . “ one began, suggesting body odor stemmed from the asset of maturity, rather than the deficit of being older than dirt.

Such diffidence is rare now. In Japan, a commercial for no-smell underwear shows a young woman on the subway so revolted by the stink of middle-aged men that she jams her Walkman’s earplugs up her nostrils. If history is a guide, we’ll soon be awash in anti-middle-aged-man sentiment on this side of the Pacific. It will follow in the footsteps of Mr. Honda--as well as Mr. Sushi and Mr. Pokemon--and cause America’s women and children to see dear old dad as sludge-in-a-suit.

I asked my wife about it, which I thought was a very open thing to do.

“How do I smell?” I asked.

“Let me count the ways,” she said.

Since she clearly didn’t appreciate the sociological complexities of the problem, I conferred with others.

At Macy’s men’s fragrance counter in Thousand Oaks, Joya Perry assured me that as a woman and as a professional, she has never encountered middle-aged-man-smell or knew of anyone identifying--no less objecting--to it.

“That’s weird,” she said. “I’ve never heard that before.”

Then she recommended Acqua di Gio, by Armani. “It’s a very clean fragrance,” she said.

In Ojai, where the fragrance of orange blossoms at sunset can bludgeon you into bliss, a certified aroma therapist named Julia Meadows made short work of middle-aged-man-smell.

“I’ve smelled some pretty rank teenagers and some charmingly aromatic senior citizens,” said Meadows, owner of Essential Aromatics. “I’m not sure I’d put it down to age.”

Of course, she’s right--but that won’t stop the madness. One day soon, we’ll turn on the TV and there will be Bob Dole, talking about how courageous we guys have to be to admit we have a nonenal problem. We’ll be offered prescription drugs, expensive diets, hundred-dollar deodorants, hormone-laced shaving creams and breakfast gruel that lowers cholesterol, reduces nonenal and helps us remember where we left the car keys.

And the people doing the offering--most of them middle-aged men--will come out of it smelling like a rose.

*

Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.