In my experience most people lovingly refer to their cats in negative-sounding ways. One of the terms of endearment we used for our most recent cat was "stinky little piss baby". I think most cat owners are well aware that they're unsanitary creatures.
dog person here : they're unsanitary how? they constantly fastidously clean themselves, from what i see. dogs roll in rotting anything for sport.
If your housecat stinks, it's likely unhealthy or you're not providing it with a clean litterbox or you have insufficient litterboxes for the number of cats you have.