Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer
Example: Sandalwood is one of my favorite scents. But some insects find it repulsive. Part of the reason the sent was popular, it was a lovely scent that drove off bugs. Picture a parahuman with a broad resistence to toxins based on insect DNA. He can't stand one of the most common scents used in soaps and perfumes throughout the West and Asia.
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It's worth remembering that most highly bioactive molecules produced by plants - spices, flavorings, perfumes, drugs or poisons - are poisonous to *something* that would otherwise eat the plant. Exactly what - bacteria, fungi, insects, herbivorous mammals etc. - varies, but with the exception of a few pollinator attractants, killing a predator is the reason the plant makes it in the first place. Humans finding some concentration of some small fraction of these things pleasant is a potentially unfortunate (or beneficial) side effect from the perspective of the plant these days, but somewhere in the depths of biochemistry there's a process these things poison. Humans just either don't use it in the same critical role, or have some protective chemistry over top of it the things it's intended to kill lack.
Or for weird human reasons enjoy the sensation of being partly disabled by poisons.