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Comment by Darkphibre | Hacker News Reader

This is a rather blanket claim. My step-dad grew up in crazy-rural Oregon. His dad refused to take a bath more than twice a year. Those long-johns with a trap door stayed on a looong time during the winters. They were still using an outhouse.

I kind of feel like there's plenty of modern examples in which regular bathing is not a priority (or even an advantage, given the lack of warm water during the winter).

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>This is a rather blanket claim. My step-dad grew up in crazy-rural Oregon. His dad refused to take a bath more than twice a year.

Did he live there during medieval times? The post is about a specific era, and the prevalent norms, not about absolutely everybody at any era (or even absolutely everybody at the era it concerns, for that matter).

It's about statistics (what most did) not physical laws (what everybody absolutely had to follow).

Does "taking a bath" in English include showering?

I didn't take a bath for at least a year, only showers and quickly washing my armpits with soap in washhand basin

So did the wife just tolerate the smell during sex? Was there no sex? Just seems so unhygienic for intimacy.

There is a running-gag in the gay community "a guy with an unwashed ass" which is used for straight guys.

Also, many women told me that they were in love with guys with bad hygiene, some of them never washing between their cheeks because "nothing goes between my ass cheeks, that's gay shit!"

Some women even going so far as saying "if sexuality was a choice, why in their right mind would anyone choose (unwashed) men?!"

So maybe this isn't that big of a problem in terms of sex and intimacy as you and I would think?

Memes aside... Sex has weird and sometimes offensive smells. This holds true for queer folks, straight folks, and even folks with good hygiene. I feel like most sexually active adults already know this.

You aren't always going to get a shower and a toothbrush just prior to bumping uglies.

Body odors are one thing. Not having showered for weeks is another.

Maybe, when everyone stinks you'd get used to it and think nothing of it?

I once spent a summer working in the equivalent of a knacker's yard. The first day or two there the smell was appalling but it got to the stage where I no longer noticed it. People away from work noticed me though!

> Sex has weird and sometimes offensive smells.

Check the condom brand/type. Sex has no smell most of the time. I found the condom to be the culprit.

> Sex has no smell most of the time.

Your bodily fluids have a smell. Maybe you can't smell them, but other people can.

There's a huge difference between washed-in-the-last-day-or-two genital odor and MONTHS of unwashed genitals!!

Straight guy here. Anyone who doesn’t wash their ass is fucking disgusting.

Many people in the modern world don't. It was a surprise/culture-shock to find that France and the USA don't have any kind of bidet on their toilets.

Yeah, I’m a Yank and I think it’s kind of gross that we don’t wash after every bowel movement. But taking that a step further and not even washing your ass while showering is just foul.

I have to wonder if body odour ramps up exponentially for the first few days of not bathing, but then fades into a less nauseating background musk after powering through the initial spike. Maybe skin flora eventually stabilize toward a less offensive culture?

There's theories out there that bacteria that oxidizes ammonia would have been pretty common. Before treated water and daily soaping.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-sh...

Anecdotal, but I worked with a guy who didn't bathe due to religious reasons. The body odor from him did _not_ fade.

What religion would that be?

Bumism, orthodox.

The Google Image Search results for "Bumism" are pretty hilarious. https://www.google.com/search?q=Bumism&tbm=isch

I suspect at those times everyone reeked relative to today, but they just didn't have anything better to compare to.

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