minotaurheadcheese
Velociraptor
Joined: Apr 21, 2012
Posts: 412
Location: the lone lands
|
 Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:55 pm Post subject: Hygiene issues-- Am I really that disgusting? |
 |
|
I've never thought of myself as a "dirty" person but over the last several years I've been surprised to realize that apparently by the standards of society at large, my personal hygiene is severely substandard. Is this really such a big deal? Is it me who is deficient or, as I tend to feel, might everyone else just be a little bit silly about it?
First off I don't see why everyone is so intent that you have to shower every single day. Frankly my standard for body and clothes alike is: if it doesn't look or smell dirty, it's not dirty, so don't clean it because it's a waste of time. I shower about twice a week if it's sweaty weather and more like once a week if it's not, and I can't imagine doing it more often-- it seems to boring and unimportant. I mean, I wear deodorant, and it's not like I'm running marathons or having hot sweaty sex every night  I brush my teeth every day or two as well. As for clothes, I only do laundry about once a month. I have three or four "running" outfits at a time, and alternate between them so it won't be obvious, but don't actually wash any of them until, again, they start to look or smell bad. I just don't see the point in washing something just because I've worn it if it's not actually dirty.
What exactly is the deal with hygiene? A couple of hundred years ago people bathed a lot less regularly, so why is it apparently compulsory that I waste twenty minutes of every day washing off nonexistent dirt? Is it really a disability to refuse to do so? |
|
| Back to top |
|
MountainLaurel
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 18, 2011
Age: 60
Posts: 997
Location: New England
|
| Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| There are those of us who will smell bad without daily showers and others who won't. Also, some of us are neat and honestly can wear clothes more than once between washes. I think it depends on the individual. One of my daughters needs a daily shower and her clothes can only be worn once before washing. My other daughter; not so much; she could get away with less washing and no one would know. |
|
| Back to top |
|
BuyerBeware
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 29, 2011
Age: 35
Posts: 1038
Location: PA, USA
|
| Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Well, suffice it to say I've seen worse.
You've got about the same natural standard I do (other than the laundry, anyway-- I can only wear something two or three times before I want it to be clean).
My answer would be, honestly, both.
Yes, the standards of modern Western society really are ridiculous. It's not just you and me that think so. Conservationists and environmentalists and such carp about this all the time. Living in spotless, scentless (or artificially scented) splendor is something that was fabricated by advertising agencies to sell appliances and products (half a dozen different washes-- and don't even get me started on douche and "feminine deodorant spray").
And people are such insecure, paranoid, stupid herd animals that it's worked. Very well. All that product just absolutely flies off the shelves.
And, therefore...
...Yes, if you want to be accepted (or really more than grudgingly, judgingly, and barely tolerated), you really do have to do it.
You don't have to buy all the products, and spend hordes of time and money on hairstyles and such. I shave my armpits, but not my legs (I'm female, btw). Haven't done it in over a decade, 'cause it takes half an hour and makes me itch like mad. I used to wear long pants or long skirts at all times. I wear whatever I want now. People make fun, but that's really all they can do.
Bad news: You do have to wash your focal points and personal bits-- face, armpits, butt crack, and gentials-- every stupid stinking day (or at least every stupid stinking day that you go out in public).
Good news: All you have to use is soap and water. And it takes five minutes.
Bad news: You really do have to shower three or four times a week (more if you do dirty or sweaty stuff).
Good news: You can take a perfectly acceptable shower in five to ten minutes. Get in, get wet, wash your hair, wash your personal bits, rinse, turn off the water, get out. With multiple kids and time consuming special interests, I've got this down to an art.
Bad news: You really do have to brush your teeth twice a day, pretty much every day. And flossing really would be a good idea. I was too depressed to care for a few years, and I hate flossing, and I'm 34 with a mouthful of shitty teeth to prove it. I'll be wearing dentures by the time I'm 50. Suckage.
Good news: The brushing thing takes five minutes. Total. Two in the morning, two at night, and a minute spent wetting and rinsing the toothbrush, getting it out and putting it away, applying toothpaste and wiping the spots off of the mirror.
You're up to fifteen minutes a day. You waste more time than that thinking about what you want to eat-- which you can do while you're washing.
Bad news: I think twice is about the limit for getting away with wearing street clothes. Whatever you lay around in-- hey, that's up to you. What you wear out in public, you can probably wear twice or at the most three times if you're just going out for little things (trips to the store or appointments, as opposed to hikes or runs or a job). And you have to change your underwear every day. Our current culture finds sweat and crotch smell to be inordinately offensive.
Worse news: Unless you have a lot of clothes, this means doing laundry about once a week (for one person).
Good news: Our culture has washers and dryers. If you have them at home, be really really thankful. If you have an on-site coin-op laundry, be thankful. If you have to travel to the laundromat, get a couple of good clothes baskets or a really sturdy cloth sack and a portable activity you enjoy. At least you're not doing it on a washboard, right???
Yeah-- the standards suck. I think they're frivolous and stupid. You think they're frivolous and stupid. A lot of people agree with us. When we don't have the luxuries of indoor plumbing and labor-saving appliances (or water's so severely rationed that you're not allowed to do it or it's prohibitively expensive), the vast majority of people will agree with us and the standards will change.
But right now they are what they are. We can either live with them (and within them) or pay the price.
_________________
I'm tired. I do not have sufficient strength remaining to persevere in the face of adversity. I accept myself as broken and conformity/compliance as the only acceptable existence. I give up.
What's on TV tonight?? |
|
| Back to top |
|
EstherJ
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 05, 2012
Posts: 1036
Location: The long-lost library at Alexandria
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 12:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
| BuyerBeware wrote: | Well, suffice it to say I've seen worse.
You've got about the same natural standard I do (other than the laundry, anyway-- I can only wear something two or three times before I want it to be clean).
My answer would be, honestly, both.
Yes, the standards of modern Western society really are ridiculous. It's not just you and me that think so. Conservationists and environmentalists and such carp about this all the time. Living in spotless, scentless (or artificially scented) splendor is something that was fabricated by advertising agencies to sell appliances and products (half a dozen different washes-- and don't even get me started on douche and "feminine deodorant spray").
And people are such insecure, paranoid, stupid herd animals that it's worked. Very well. All that product just absolutely flies off the shelves.
And, therefore...
...Yes, if you want to be accepted (or really more than grudgingly, judgingly, and barely tolerated), you really do have to do it.
You don't have to buy all the products, and spend hordes of time and money on hairstyles and such. I shave my armpits, but not my legs (I'm female, btw). Haven't done it in over a decade, 'cause it takes half an hour and makes me itch like mad. I used to wear long pants or long skirts at all times. I wear whatever I want now. People make fun, but that's really all they can do.
Bad news: You do have to wash your focal points and personal bits-- face, armpits, butt crack, and gentials-- every stupid stinking day (or at least every stupid stinking day that you go out in public).
Good news: All you have to use is soap and water. And it takes five minutes.
Bad news: You really do have to shower three or four times a week (more if you do dirty or sweaty stuff).
Good news: You can take a perfectly acceptable shower in five to ten minutes. Get in, get wet, wash your hair, wash your personal bits, rinse, turn off the water, get out. With multiple kids and time consuming special interests, I've got this down to an art.
Bad news: You really do have to brush your teeth twice a day, pretty much every day. And flossing really would be a good idea. I was too depressed to care for a few years, and I hate flossing, and I'm 34 with a mouthful of shitty teeth to prove it. I'll be wearing dentures by the time I'm 50. Suckage.
Good news: The brushing thing takes five minutes. Total. Two in the morning, two at night, and a minute spent wetting and rinsing the toothbrush, getting it out and putting it away, applying toothpaste and wiping the spots off of the mirror.
You're up to fifteen minutes a day. You waste more time than that thinking about what you want to eat-- which you can do while you're washing.
Bad news: I think twice is about the limit for getting away with wearing street clothes. Whatever you lay around in-- hey, that's up to you. What you wear out in public, you can probably wear twice or at the most three times if you're just going out for little things (trips to the store or appointments, as opposed to hikes or runs or a job). And you have to change your underwear every day. Our current culture finds sweat and crotch smell to be inordinately offensive.
Worse news: Unless you have a lot of clothes, this means doing laundry about once a week (for one person).
Good news: Our culture has washers and dryers. If you have them at home, be really really thankful. If you have an on-site coin-op laundry, be thankful. If you have to travel to the laundromat, get a couple of good clothes baskets or a really sturdy cloth sack and a portable activity you enjoy. At least you're not doing it on a washboard, right???
Yeah-- the standards suck. I think they're frivolous and stupid. You think they're frivolous and stupid. A lot of people agree with us. When we don't have the luxuries of indoor plumbing and labor-saving appliances (or water's so severely rationed that you're not allowed to do it or it's prohibitively expensive), the vast majority of people will agree with us and the standards will change.
But right now they are what they are. We can either live with them (and within them) or pay the price. |
I should follow your guide. It would make my life easier.
I HATE the hygiene ritual. It's like, why should anyone give a flip? |
|
| Back to top |
|
auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
Joined: Feb 13, 2010
Posts: 18116
Location: the island of loveable toy humans
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 12:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
a century ago or so [before central heating and plumbing] it was a stinky time, because most people would generally bathe only once per week, sufficient to not stink up the church pews. but thankfully with progress came cleanliness as well. put yourself into the olfactory of the person who is crowded in by another person's stench. imagine being trapped in a room with a person who bathed in eau de chanel or some other sweetstink stuff, and not being able to exit that room all day. now on the other side of the coin, imagine somebody with cat breath [they have really stanky breath] and unwashed pit/crack/crotch odor in that same room you are stuck inside, they both would be intolerable after just a few minutes' exposure. i can't go a day without reeking, it is my basic body chemistry. so out of courtesy to my fellow humans, whenever i have to be around them, i will be washed and faintly sweet-smelling and presentable. but by myself, i tend to bath once per week  because i can stand only about a week of grime on my body before the accumulation of griminess becomes too much for me, it makes me smell like a sewer and feel slimy after about a week of that and so i have to shower. even if i had no sense of smell i'd still feel slimy if i was grimy. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Seventh
Snowy Owl
Joined: Sep 05, 2011
Posts: 169
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 12:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
I understand where you're coming from, but keep in mind that you can actually become desensitized to your own smell. If you can shower every three days without smelling bad, good for you; but perhaps it might be worth getting a second opinion. That is, if you care how others react to you. (If you don't care about that, good for you too!)
When someone sits next to me on the bus or train and they smell bad, I feel really, really uncomfortable. |
|
| Back to top |
|
League_Girl
Proud mamma
Joined: Feb 05, 2010
Posts: 13483
Location: My house
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 4:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
Just as long as you don't smell bad nor your clothes, you are fine. I don't wash my clothes often either. I shower ever day and sometimes I don't.
Also you may not realize it, but it's possible you do smell because it's your own smell and most people can't even smell themselves and other people can. Just like how smokers can't smell the smoke on themselves or in their own home and everyone else can.
I had a neighbor who never showered nor got his clothes washed. He was ten and he would come over and his smell would get into the furniture and mom had to wash the sheets she had over the wool furniture in the basement because it all smelled like his body odor. His smell would waft around in our home my mother told me he could not be in our home unless he took a shower and he has to wear clean clothes, not cologne to hide the smell. So I started to tell him that and I would snuff him every time he would come over before I would let him inside.
But if you have poor hygiene, people wouldn't want to be around you and would be fanning their noses or be spraying scent in the air. Worst of all they may not want you in their home. I am also not afraid to move to another seat if someone next to me smells bad. |
|
| Back to top |
|
foxfield
Raven
Joined: Sep 11, 2011
Age: 25
Posts: 107
Location: UK
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I really don't think it matters if someone smells a bit.
At the very worst I would find irritating, but people irritate me a lot all the damn time in all sorts of ways. What is so special about smell that is such a social taboo? As another person mentioned it is probably the advertising industry that has created this fear of smell.
for this reason I am rather lax about my personal hygiene. But i have no interest whatsoever In what normal people think about me so I can get away with it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
OliveOilMom
Queen of cans and jars
Joined: Nov 12, 2011
Posts: 6775
Location: Living in Faulkner's nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 8:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I can't stand it when people aren't clean. I think a shower at least every other day is enough, and I hate to shower but I do anyway. Right now our gas is off so we have no hot water, and my kids shower at my mothers. I wash in the sink very well, all over, every day or almost every day. I wash my hair a few times a week in the kitchen sink.
My husband doesn't bathe often and he hasn't brushed his teeth in years. Needless to say he hasn't been kissed in years either. He used to brush them sometimes when we first got married but he stopped. He also used to shower more but now he's at the point where I won't sleep in the bed with him he smells so bad. Right now it's been three weeks. He does construction work. I'm not touching him.
When I was a kid I grew up with nasty people. My grandfather showered once every five years or so and my mother, grandmother and me took a bath about twice a month. I didnt know that wasnt enough until I went to school. To this day my mother is nasty with her personal hygeine, and it really grosses me out.
Also, like someone pointed out, you really can't smell yourself most of the time unless it's really bad. I've been depressed and gone a week or two without a shower and I couldnt smell it till it got really bad. So, it's a big thing to me, but it's not to some people.
_________________
Frances
What if Jessie's girl was Stacy's mom and her number was 867-5309? |
|
| Back to top |
|
2wheels4ever
Just Another Weirdo From L.A.
Joined: May 04, 2012
Age: 41
Posts: 1336
Location: Losing status at the high school
|
| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 11:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I actually don't mind showers but I'd rather take baths, people still find a reason to complain, I usually see others with that ungodly funk that gets left behind on the couch that you can see. I have had foot issues that I can't seem to shake without a scrub brush and pumice stone and even then I have to use fresh socks, which makes my feet feel like they are in an oven.
I've found that shoes made out of that Crocs material give me extreme comfort, my wide feet make common available shoes squeeze hard on the sides, as well as protection (mine are more like slipons and don't have holes in the top) and I can just hose them off every couple of days, but 1 day my young cousin said I was wearing his mom's shoes! |
|
| Back to top |
|
auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
Joined: Feb 13, 2010
Posts: 18116
Location: the island of loveable toy humans
|
| Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 5:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
it feels good to be nice and clean and sweet-smelling. when i climb into bed at night, i like that sweet smell, especially when i cower under the covers to hide from the monster at the foot of the bed.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
chessimprov
Toucan
Joined: Jun 12, 2010
Posts: 291
Location: Philly
|
| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 1:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| In France, they generally don't shower more than once a week (unless they sweat profusely, then I hope they do). I think that is okay. Some people get disgusted to find that out. |
|
| Back to top |
|
mike_br
Sea Gull
Joined: Apr 23, 2012
Posts: 202
|
| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 6:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
There are strong cultural values on personal hygiene.
I live in Brazil, and take 2 showers a day, plus I brush at least 2 times as well.
I'd be absolutely disgusted to live with someone who would climb to bed smelling, and drag her by the hair to the shower if needed be (figure of speech, of course). If I smell anything bad on someone, I won't stand near, I don't care how rude I seem to be,
But then that's me and the culture where I came from. Also, I love hot showers, so it's not an ordeal to me.
I suppose you must live like what's comfortable to you and within health limits. Less than a shower per week is unthinkable to me, but culturally acceptable on some places. |
|
| Back to top |
|
edgewaters
hibernating
Joined: Aug 17, 2006
Age: 40
Posts: 2426
Location: Ontario
|
| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 6:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If I'm unemployed I shower about twice a week, plus before going out to do anything.
When I'm working I shower before and after work. I have to. I need the extra energy and alertness to get me through the day, which is why I shower beforehand. I shower after because I feel contaminated by the people and being outside of my house. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Longshanks
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 03, 2012
Posts: 513
Location: At an undisclosed airbase at Shangri-la
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 1:55 am Post subject: Re: Hygiene issues-- Am I really that disgusting? |
|
|
| minotaurheadcheese wrote: | I've never thought of myself as a "dirty" person but over the last several years I've been surprised to realize that apparently by the standards of society at large, my personal hygiene is severely substandard. Is this really such a big deal? Is it me who is deficient or, as I tend to feel, might everyone else just be a little bit silly about it?
First off I don't see why everyone is so intent that you have to shower every single day. Frankly my standard for body and clothes alike is: if it doesn't look or smell dirty, it's not dirty, so don't clean it because it's a waste of time. I shower about twice a week if it's sweaty weather and more like once a week if it's not, and I can't imagine doing it more often-- it seems to boring and unimportant. I mean, I wear deodorant, and it's not like I'm running marathons or having hot sweaty sex every night I brush my teeth every day or two as well. As for clothes, I only do laundry about once a month. I have three or four "running" outfits at a time, and alternate between them so it won't be obvious, but don't actually wash any of them until, again, they start to look or smell bad. I just don't see the point in washing something just because I've worn it if it's not actually dirty.
What exactly is the deal with hygiene? A couple of hundred years ago people bathed a lot less regularly, so why is it apparently compulsory that I waste twenty minutes of every day washing off nonexistent dirt? Is it really a disability to refuse to do so? |
If you're out in the battlefield, (both my wife and I have been there more than we cared to be) your hygiene would be considered to be adequate. However, we live in a civilized, cultured society and yes, not showering everyday and doing your laundry on a regular basis is perceived by many to be mildly disgusting and a bit lazy. I have AS. I also shower every day - sometimes twice, and my wife and I regularly do our laundry and brush our teeth twice a day because most people don't want to share our bad breath and/or body odors. It's called consideration for other people and yes, good hygiene limits your chances of getting sick and infecting others. Thus, your argument about lax hygiene is, in my view, inconsiderate, unhealthy, lazy, and thus illogical. If you really want to be that lax about hygiene, perhaps you could consider moving to a third-world country.
Longshanks
_________________
Supporter of the Brian Terry Foundation @ www.honorbrianterry.com. Special Agent Brian Terry (1970-2010) was murdered as a direct result of Operation Fast & Furious - which Barry O won't discuss - wonder why? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
