Feminist Advice Friday: What can I do about my husband's terrible hygiene?

A reader asks…

I married a feminist, and for the most part, things are pretty equal at home. I’m happy. He’s nice. He’s handsome. But he’s not clean. Showering rarely happens. He won’t wear clean clothes. He’s not depressed or ADHD or any of the other things people blame this on. He’s just committed to being dirty.

I’m over it. Why in the Hell does he think, “Hello, here I am with my bad breath and BO coming onto you” is an enticing offer? Does he not see me getting ready? Does he not notice how much effort I put into my own appearance?

I know I’m not alone in this. I talk to girlfriends whose husbands go days without showering. I can smell the men I’m around in public. Why the hell is this a thing?

Why won’t they fucking clean themselves? Why why whyyyyy? And what can I do to make my husband a little cleaner? Subtle hints don’t work. He showers if I tell him to, but I do not want to mother this man into good hygiene for the rest of my life. Please help me so I don’t have to get a water hose and start spraying him down every morning before work.

I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but this shit is getting old.

My answer

I had to delete a lot of the content of this letter because it was very detailed, and I didn’t want the writer to inadvertently out herself. Let’s just say that the phrase “nose hair blending into neck hair” was uttered. So too with the phrase “can’t tell if it’s ear hair or lint.”

This problem is incredibly common, and I think that fact reveals something about masculinity and manhood.

I can already hear a bunch of whiny men complaining that they have perfect hygiene and how very dare we question it and blah blah blah, so I want to start by talking about why I think this problem is widespread.

I don’t have any scientific data on this, and I doubt I ever will, because who in the world is going to admit to bad hygiene? But if I go by my own experience, my unfortunately sensitive nose, the men I’ve dated, and what my female friends have told me about their own experiences with heterosexual men, I’d estimate that well over half of heterosexual men have serious hygiene issues.

I can find at least some support for this claim in this study, which suggests that 69% of men don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Then there’s the incredibly weird saga of men who don’t wipe their butts because they think doing so will make them gay.

Before I got married, I dated many different men from many different educational and class and cultural backgrounds. There was one thing that united many of them: a reluctance to shower, and an absolute insistence that they were the exception to the rule, that it was fine for them to not groom themselves because they were naturally exceptionally clean.

I’m here to tell you they were not. Neither were the many boyfriends of my many friends who had the same problem.

So yes, this is decidedly A Thing. Men spend their entire lives being told that, whoever and however they are, it’s great and desirable. Social conditioning for them focuses on things like avoiding marriage and commitment, giving them the notion that women are just gunning to be with them. And most men simply do not get the sort of body shaming women do. They don’t grow up with the beauty myth. They don’t grow up being told they’re inadequate. That part is great. What’s not great is that they also do not grow up with any pressure to make themselves more appealing to others, or to listen to women. They learn that women’s feelings don’t matter.

So when a woman tells them to take a shower, they shrug their shoulders. A woman whose partner told her she smelled bad would probably melt into the floor and die, thanks to a lifetime of body shaming and catering to men.

A lot of men will also turn bad grooming into a loyalty test. “If you really loved me, you’d tolerate this,” even as their partner continues to both tolerate it, and to never ever subject them to anything less than exceptional hygiene. I wonder how they would feel if the roles were reversed.

A lot of men also behave as if the problem is a lack of time—even as they buy free time with their partner’s work, fucking around online or with porn while their partners clean. Don’t buy that bullshit. If things are unequal in other areas of your relationship, this is just one more way he’s trying to get out of doing the basic work being a human in a society requires.

Men don’t learn good grooming. They don’t teach it to their sons. And most people can’t smell themselves until things are really bad. The result is a large group of men who think their grooming is fine, their smell is fine, and their wives/girlfriends are just crazy.

Consider the fact that gay men tend to have exceptionally good grooming. I think this is because men generally expect their partners to be attractive and well-groomed, so when those partners are male, that’s what happens. Women accept whatever men dish out (and for good reason; men can be abusive and scary), and so we have a whole generation of foul-smelling heterosexual men.

It’s the same old misogyny we see with everything else. It’s just another manifestation of the idea that women’s feelings don’t matter and that men don’t have to put forth any effort.

I don’t know what to do about that.

Here’s what I do know: If you have already asked your husband to practice better grooming, then subtlety is not working. He’s either not getting the message or he doesn’t care. Either way, it’s time to stop worrying about hurting his feelings, since clearly he doesn’t have strong feelings about not smelling bad.

It’s time to tell him exactly what he needs to do. I realize this is incredibly off-putting, since you don’t want to mother your husband, and staying on top of his grooming is just more emotional labor.

But I can be the unfriendly stranger who tells your husband what sort of grooming he needs to do to, at the minimum, not smell horrible. I’ve contemplated telling men how to groom themselves for a while now, and this is the chance I’ve been seeking. I’m going to make this a separate post on my blog in case your partner is disinclined to read through everything I’ve written above. Otherwise, please encourage him to read on.

Dear Man Person:

You might smell bad.

A lot of men do. Smelling bad specifically and bad grooming in particular make women less attracted to you. I know what you’re thinking: “But women love sweaty, dirty manly men.”

Sweating from a workout is sexy. Sweating from a protest for reproductive justice is sexy. Coming in from mowing the lawn is sexy.

Spending days marinating in your own sweat because you can’t be bothered to groom yourself is not sexy.

Putting on full display that you never learned basic hygiene makes your partner feel like your mother. Not sexy.

Would you rather your partner choke down a quick blowjob, hating every second and doing the most cursory job possible? Or would you prefer a fully dedicated partner eager to do whatever you want? Do you want your partner to want to kiss you? Do you want more sex?

Then you need to clean your fucking body. Have some self-respect, bro.

Good hygiene can help you get ahead at work. It makes you seem more competent and confident. There is no area of life in which it disadvantages you and it takes just a few minutes a day. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, commit a few minutes to a cleaner, more attractive self.

I’m going to do you a favor and tell you exactly what you need to do to keep yourself clean and attractive. I need you to know that these things are the very basics. So if you are not doing them, you likely smell or produce other off-putting substances like visible dead skin that will make people not want to be around you.

Ready to become more attractive? Ok, here goes.

How to shower

Most people need to shower every day. If you’re a man, this is even more likely to be true. One study found that young and middle aged men smell worse than other groups. Please don’t assume you naturally smell great and need to shower less. Aim for better than average, not worse.

Showering, though, is not enough. Just rinsing off is not going to do you much good.

Next time you take a shower, try this trick: towel off your entire body, then hang your towel up (neatly, so it doesn’t get mildew-y). Go back and smell it an hour later. If it smells bad, then so do you.

When you’re in the shower, you need to wash each part of your body. Please do not use shower gel or soap on your face unless you want it to start peeling off. Please remember to wash behind your ears and your neck, just like your long-suffering mother told you to. Consider washing your butt, balls, and feet twice.

You might not need to wash your hair daily. It depends on your hair type and climate and how much you sweat. Hair care goes beyond the scope of this post. This blog might help though.

If you have dandruff, consider alternating dandruff shampoo with regular shampoo because dandruff shampoo tends to both smell awful and damage your hair.

If you notice that your ears are crusty or peely, you have seborrheic dermatitis or malassezia fungi. These are common and there’s no need for shame. Use a shampoo like Nizoral in your ears. If dandruff shampoo doesn’t work on your head, use Nizoral on your hair, too. Neutrogena T-Gel shampoo will cover all your bases, managing dandruff and a bunch of other flaky grossness in your ears and hair. Try it.

Dab-dry your body after showering. If you’re wet when you get in your clothes, your clothes might begin to smell bad.

What if I can’t shower?

We all have days when we can’t shower. If you overslept or just can’t bring yourself to shower for some reason, these things will help you get through the day smelling good:

• Wear deodorant.

• Wash your neck. It will smell bad if you don’t.

• Wash your face. You will look dirty if you don’t.

• Wipe your butt and genitals.

• Wear clean clothes.

This is not that hard.

How to take care of your skin

The things you do to your skin now are going to affect how it looks next week, next month, and next year. They could also affect your life expectancy. Skin cancer is the most common cancer, it can kill you, scar you, and fuck up your life. Don’t feed me any bullshit about not trusting sunscreen. Sunscreen is safe. Constant exposure to ultraviolet radiation is not.

Please wear sunscreen. Finding the right one can be tough. I really like this one a lot for your face if you have oily skin. If you have dry skin, you have to worry less about sunscreen making your skin look oily. Try going to a local beauty store, getting some samples, and testing them out. That’s what we women do. You can manage doing it, too.

Skincare is uniquely personal, and depends on the issues you have, but rest assured: a strong routine will make your skin look better. Some basic stuff you should know:

• Exfoliating your skin will make it look better and get rid of dead, flaky skin. Everyone needs to do this. Use a chemical exfoliant, not a physical one. This is a decent one.

• If you never put lotion on your body, your skin will look gross and flaky. The frequency with which you moisturize varies from person to person, but pay attention to how your skin looks.

• You need to wash your face with a face wash. Use an acne wash if you have acne, a dry skin wash if you have dry skin, etc.

• A good emollient lotion and hydrocortisone will get rid of eczema patches.

• Your lips are going to look dry and peely during the winter months if you do not ever use chapstick. The peeling skin traps bacteria and food, so your lips may also begin to smell. For the love of God, use some fucking chapstick. Exfoliate your lips if you have to. No one wants to kiss sandpaper that smells bad.

• Retinol helps with many skin problems, and will slow skin aging. Use it, but make sure to wear sunscreen, too.

• If you have a skin problem, go to the dermatologist. They really can help.

How to take care of your body hair

• If you expect your partner to remove any of their body hair, be prepared to ask them what they want you to do with yours.

• You’re going to start growing ear hair. If you do not trim it, it’s going to get really out of control. Get an ear hair trimmer. Use it weekly.

• If you produce a lot of earwax, it is going to be visible in your ears. It’s going to be a disaster if you don’t remove your ear hair. Please, wash your ears.

• Your eyebrow hair is going to eventually start doing a weird thing where it grows fast, and you wake up some days and have like three really long eyebrow hairs. Look in the mirror occasionally. Trim them.

• You have to wash and condition your beard. If you don’t, it’s going to smell bad and look bad.

• Invest in beard oil, beard balm, and a beard brush or beard comb. Learn how to use them. You will look a lot better. And your beard will itch less.

General tips and tricks

• You have to wear clean clothes every day. You will smell awful if you don’t, no matter how clean your body is. If you don’t have any clean clothes to wear, ask yourself why you’re not doing the laundry.

• If your penis is not dry when you put it in your boxers after peeing, it is going to smell like pee. In fact, your legs and everything near your penis are going to smell like pee, too. I am sorry to have to tell you this, and to make you confront the fact that your dick is not a no-maintenance organ. But isn’t confronting that reality better than permanently smelling like urine?

• Look at yourself in the mirror. This seems to be something many men think they do not have to do. Do you look dirty? Did you miss a spot shaving? Is there food in your beard? Simply look at yourself.

• When you brush your teeth, you have to brush all of your teeth, and you have to make sure you brush the area under your gums and your tongue. Otherwise, your teeth will look visibly dirty and your breath will likely smell.

• Brush your teeth before trying to kiss your partner. Please. Don’t turn “kiss me with bad breath” into some sort of weird relationship loyalty test. Kissing should be pleasant. Make it so.

• Wash your hands. Clean under your nails. No woman wants you to touch her if your nails are visibly dirty. Are you trying to give her an infection? Jesus dudes.