this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2026
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Nah, I disagree. Most human cultures have practiced regular or semi-regular bathing , to different extents, but this whole idea that we just naturally smell fine in our "state of nature" is largely BS. The whole idea that medieval people only bathed once a year is misinfo, most large medieval towns had bathhouses and we have illustrations of people bathing in rivers and ponds from that period. Even our paleolithic ancestors probably dipped themselves in rivers after a hot day so they don't stink up the longhouse.
Well, it seems obvious to me that the point is not "never showering", but that the human body is likely not properly evolved to shower every single day, especially with soap + shampoo + deodorant. There is an arguable extent of natural body odour which should be normalized, and people likely, for health reasons, shouldn't be applying soap and germicides on their armpits daily as we (myself included) do.
please do not normalize BO
Sure, let's keep normalizing painful rashes instead like the one I'm having for the past 2 months already as a consequence of socially requiring to apply soap and deodorant daily. Continue stigmatizing normal body function. All socialists should also continue to stigmatize those who don't perform such wonderful and healthy traditions as teeth whitening proceduresb or laser body hair removal. /s
It's maddening hearing self-reported socialists/anarchists propagating "continue stigmatizing normal bodily functions!"
unlike the teeth whitening or the body hair, odors are inherently unpleasant to be around. i'm sorry you have to deal with that particular problem. maybe there's a sensible middle ground to be reached here?
Odors aren't inherently unpleasant to be around, and you're being incredibly uncritical by believing that. Humans routinely condition ourselves into not just accepting but loving pungent smells like funky cheese, vinegar in our salad, durian, and we even condition ourselves to associate chemical lung-burning smells such as bleach or chlorine with cleanliness and start to like their smell.
If you can't critically examine smells and the social conditioning around them, I don't have anything else to say to you. I just hope one day you can feel the love I feel for my girlfriend when I smell her faint scent in the morning after waking up before she showers.
i get into internet arguments about showering specifically so i can critically examine my own opinions. but you bring up durian as an example. you would expect that if it were as routine as you say, the people most exposed to it would be happy to marinate in durian smells. i can't find a single airline anywhere in the world that will allow you to eat durian during the flight. yes, there are sociopolitical implications, but unsealed durians are prohibited on singaporean transit. how, then, could it be as simple as "routine conditioning"?
Great job overfocusing on Durians and bringing up private airline policy instead of responding to the idea of social conditioning of smell
ok well that was my response to the idea of social conditioning of smell
A private company's policy during capitalism?
first off, it's not a private company. it's (more or less) every airline and metro, public or private. secondly, so what? capital isn't a black box that takes any input and returns the most evil output. it acts according to laws that can be understood and studied. what particular law of capital produced the result in question?
I feel you. The soap I use or the deodorant I use (I switched both recently), caused the skin to peel under my armpits. It happened once before when I had aluminum-based deodorant, this time I'm not too sure what the problem is but ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
I feel terrible if I don't shower though, if I go even a day without showering I feel disgusted with myself
Well. Except for that period when Europeans believed bathing let "bad airs" into your skin and made you sick.
Yes, and there's some historical evidence that it actually made people MORE sick.
Jewish and Muslim communities weren't nearly hit as hard by the Black Death than Christian ones, and it's theorized it's because Judaism and Islam requires regular ritual bathing. Turns out it's important to wash your penis.
Europeans were also well known for smelling like shit. There's stories about people lighting incense whenever Europeans are around, and the Europeans thought it was some kind of ritual, but actually they were just chasing away their stank.
Yes they were. Eurocentric histories just dont focus on how the black death affected the middle east. It was apocalyptic in north Africa. Centuries old infrastructure could no longer be maintained causing ecological change and desertification that still scar the landscape to this day.