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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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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?

What I don't understand is why so many people feel the need to register an opinion about her hygiene habits. If the people around her aren't bothered by it, why would anyone waste a single thought on it, much less participate in discussions about it? This human need to produce conformity at all costs is asinine.

The first answer that popped to my mind is, "because it's fucking gross". Of course, that lines up neatly with your claim that it's about enforcing conformity, but I strongly disagree that this is asinine. Maybe Aella can get railed by 6 guys at a free-use orgy, skip showering, and it's actually totally fine, but I think it actually would be a less pleasant society on the whole if this wasn't treated as fucking gross.

This comment leads me to what I think the real reason for people registering an opinion: Men (and some women) are upset that someone who takes a shower once every six days not only gets laid all the time but gets paid for it.

Maybe Aella can get railed by 6 guys at a free-use orgy

Really, while I have dealt with my fair share of bay-area women who are so arrogant they believe they don't stink when they do, this is more aggressive than you need to be.

The number of pathetic simps on this planet is beyond your comprehension. Belle Delphine is pulling down millions of dollars per month. There's no need to manufacture a scenario where Aella's bathing habits had any consequences (I.E. she had to do a gangbang to make cash). Nothing bad happened. The men who paid her to fuck put up with her smelling a little off, as did the other people in her life, because she's a hot unicorn. That's the beginning and end of the story.

There's no need to manufacture a scenario where Aella's bathing habits had any consequences (I.E. she had to do a gangbang to make cash).

I was referring to this. I'm not manufacturing a scenario, I genuinely think she's gross. I understand that she's physically attractive, appealing to many people, and is a highly compensated hooker. This does not change my view that she's gross and that it's best that most people don't act like she does.

Tweet not found, can you quote it?

From Aella:

got railed by six different ppl at an orgy last night and i have a glow today, my soul is joyous, i am nourished

Separate from any of the parent comments, this seems off to me just looking at the diction alone. This reminds me of those funny fake history quotes people like to shitpost for a quick laugh; "Just like, don't be a dick, lol" - Jesus or "Bitches ain't shit" - Eleanor Roosevelt. The dissonance between the assumed diction and the diction in the quote is the funny part. Here, why would some who seems to be genuinely using language like "my soul is joyous, I am nourished" combine it in the same sentence with "got railed" -- which is a fairly vulgar, slightly violent connotative phrase? I realize I'm way over analyzing a tweet here, but this seems to me to try and play both ends of the spectrum - one the on side is the sort of new-age "sex is a divine experience" aspect and the other side is "whoo ya be a proud slut!" I'm not trying to judge either of those, but I don't think they mix so fluidly? What's the rub? Who's the rube?

It's likely modeled off of the Tumblr meme of "my crops are growing, my skin is clear."

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