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Extremely frivolous stuff, but there's a fun debate going down over on Aella's twitter about personal hygiene. In short, as a true empiricist, she measures lots of stuff about her daily routine (iirc, using an app called Daylio), and recently revealed her stats for 2023. What is causing a kerfuffle is not the number of days she had sex (63), took Adderall (126), or escorted (6), but the number of times she showered, namely 37 [sic].
Aella insists she doesn't smell (and says she's consulted with others to confirm this), but I think that's a very relative statement; some people seem to have a high baseline tolerance for stank of various kinds, to the point that even strong odours don't register to them as stank, while others like myself are very smell sensitive; at the risk of TMI, my wife was amused that I could tell when our kids in their diaper days had done a pee, because I could always smell it almost immediately even when she had no idea. Back in my online dating days, there were several dates I simply couldn't follow up on because the person I was with had bad personal hygiene. I'm not talking about a mild healthy body odour here, but when you're having sex doggy-style and get hit by bad ass-stench it's an instant boner kill. And I'll be honest, I've had a crush on Aella for ages; she's a very attractive nerdy woman, and as a sexually confident and charismatic female Rationalist, she is a very horny unicorn among horses. But I've got to say, learning that specific factoid about her life had a similar effect on my idle long-distance lust as an F150's tires do on a small rodent (not that she should care, of course - just putting it out there).
That said, I am a bit of ablutomaniac - I shower and/or bathe 2-3 times a day. I don't think it's a hygiene thing per se. I shower when I get up because it helps me feel awake and ready for the day; I often have a shower or bath in the late afternoon/early evening after a workout because it feels great to soak sore muscles; and I sometimes shower just before bed, because I find it really nice to get into a bed with clean, fresh-smelling sheets having just come out of the shower smelling clean and fresh myself. I also routinely use (carefully chosen, subtle) cologne on my body as well as both fabric conditioner and scent booster when washing my clothes.
Anyway, Aella's feed is pretty funny right now, to the point that she's holding polls about showering, and I was curious what folks here think about it. Obviously me and Aella are at different ends of the ablutic spectrum, but what's a healthy normal number of times to shower/bathe per day? How much of it is down to personal preference?
I think it depends a lot both on the person (how active is their sweat glands, what bacteria they host, etc. - this is all very individual) and on the lifestyle they lead. If I work out, I always take a shower after, because otherwise I stink. If I am practicing martial arts (read: close bodily contact with other people), it's a shower before and after, first because you don't want to be that guy, and second the same reason as the workout. Otherwise, I usually shower before going to sleep, but if I am super tired I could skip it once in a while. If I wake up especially sweaty or tired, I may take shower in the morning but often I don't. Overall, it could be anytime from once per 2-3 days (if I am doing something particularly mentally exhausting but not requiring me any physical effort, and for some reason I do not work out all that time), to 2-3 times a day. If I go for a couple of days without and don't do much physical effort, I don't smell any particularly bad (I asked) but unless there are very unusual circumstances (like extended camping) I prefer to not take too long breaks. That said, in my student days, where I lived in the same quarters with other people, I knew people that could go much longer and didn't see any effects that offended my sense of smell (of course, I didn't have close bodily contact with them so who knows).
One thing that is weird for me is "had sex" >> "showered". I can't remember or imagine a case where I had sex and didn't take a shower/bath soon after. I'd feel very bad. But I guess it's individual too.
Yeah. I'm similar. I'm very physically active which tends to just regulate my showering tempo according to the 'got immensely sweaty, shower' principle which generally works. But I tend to see showering more as a reactive activity to dirtiness as opposed to a 'must be done at X interval else unclean automatically'
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