Upon entering his home, Kirk was struck by an unpleasant smell. He sniffed, and identified it as the smell of people. People smelled, just like all other animals. People usually did their best to disguise their smell. Everyone tried hard to erase the fact that they were just another animal species, subject to the standard process of decay ending with death. And so, people washed much more often than was good for their skin or even general health, and used scents to disguise their real smell.
This wasn't just because they smelled bad. Where the sense of smell was concerned, good and bad scents were a matter of taste, or even of circumstances. An odor universally accepted as revolting could be also regarded as beautiful in another set of circumstances.
