If people never bathe

Axcess

Experimental Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Posts
1,611
Media
0
Likes
7
Points
123
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Male
Most modern people bathe atleast once a day .How people would get along each other if they never bathe like in the past centuries ? Will they get used of the gross smell ?
 

surferboy

Expert Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2005
Posts
2,976
Media
17
Likes
105
Points
193
Location
Sunrise, Florida
Sexuality
90% Straight, 10% Gay
Gender
Male
it's something they were always used to, i guess. kinda like how i can eat sukiyaki and dip the meat into raw egg, but my step brother can't. it's something i was raised with
 
D

deleted3782

Guest
I have heard that after a week, the bacteria on your skin find a balance and the smell decreases. The smell doesn't go away, but you don't get exponentially smellier.

For years people would take one bath a week, often on Saturday night, so they wouldn't smell in church. Taking a bath, especially in the wintertime, was a huge chore involving heating water in buckets on a stove and pouring it into a basin in the middle of the room. The oldest went first...hence the term "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" ...for the baby was last.

As a result, I imagine sex was less intimate then as it is today in western cultures. Fewer mouth to genital contacts. Perfume could be used to mask bodily oders...but perfume only goes so far.

People did get along, however, and babies were born...but I think most modern people would freak out if they suddenly found themselves projected back to a pre 1950 word without hot showers and modern hygene.
 

surferboy

Expert Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2005
Posts
2,976
Media
17
Likes
105
Points
193
Location
Sunrise, Florida
Sexuality
90% Straight, 10% Gay
Gender
Male
I have heard that after a week, the bacteria on your skin find a balance and the smell decreases. The smell doesn't go away, but you don't get exponentially smellier.

For years people would take one bath a week, often on Saturday night, so they wouldn't smell in church. Taking a bath, especially in the wintertime, was a huge chore involving heating water in buckets on a stove and pouring it into a basin in the middle of the room. The oldest went first...hence the term "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" ...for the baby was last.

As a result, I imagine sex was less intimate then as it is today in western cultures. Fewer mouth to genital contacts. Perfume could be used to mask bodily oders...but perfume only goes so far.

People did get along, however, and babies were born...but I think most modern people would freak out if they suddenly found themselves projected back to a pre 1950 word without hot showers and modern hygene.


wow, yo're like, way knowledgable! also, i didn't know that about the bacterial balance thing
 

killerb

Expert Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Posts
2,090
Media
3
Likes
210
Points
383
Location
USA
Verification
View
Sexuality
99% Straight, 1% Gay
Gender
Male
...but I think most modern people would freak out if they suddenly found themselves projected back to a pre 1950 word without hot showers and modern hygene.


I would be one of the first ones to freak out...I feel absolutely filthy if I don't have at least one shower per day...:bad2:
 

whatireallywant

Sexy Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2007
Posts
3,535
Media
0
Likes
30
Points
183
Sexuality
100% Straight, 0% Gay
Gender
Female
I was going to say something like one of the previous posters said. Back then they were used to not bathing so the smell probably didn't bother them as much. If we suddenly decided not to bathe today, however, the smell of other people WOULD bother us, because we're used to frequent bathing now.
 

Deno

Cherished Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2006
Posts
4,631
Media
1
Likes
407
Points
303
Sexuality
No Response
imagine the resources that could be saved and pollution cut if we just bathed every other day.
 
D

deleted3782

Guest
wow, yo're like, way knowledgable! also, i didn't know that about the bacterial balance thing

Ok...I should explain. Why do I know this stuff? because when I was in college I had a prof who tried it...he didn't take a bath for a month just to see what happened. What I reported was his findings that he shared with the class years later. Just sayin'. :rolleyes: Of course, shortly thereafter he was improsoned for improper sexual conduct with kids...nuff said.
 
D

deleted3782

Guest
Awww Ex..you just have a world of knowledge stored up there in that brain...thats why everyone loves you...attractive, smart and witty--all rolled up into one!!

Thanks Rico...

...wanna take a bath together? I promise not to drop the soap. :rolleyes:
 

StormyB

Legendary Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Mar 5, 2008
Posts
1,458
Media
92
Likes
1,927
Points
443
Location
Texas
Verification
View
Sexuality
99% Gay, 1% Straight
Gender
Male
Ok I know people are going to call me selfish, but I shower almost 3X's a day in the morning, afternoon (when I get in from class and about to go to work) and at night. I just feel so much better and my skin feels so good after showers, however I am going to go green one day and shower only once a day or something cause I do care about our enviornment and resources...

But yeah, if people didn't shower everyday atleast once, I would think everyone would be full of bacterias and germs thus sickness would flourish just like it did in the old earlier years.
 

jason_els

<img border="0" src="/images/badges/gold_member.gi
Joined
Dec 16, 2004
Posts
10,228
Media
0
Likes
162
Points
193
Location
Warwick, NY, USA
Sexuality
90% Gay, 10% Straight
Gender
Male
Much depends on the culture in question. Western Europeans were not avid bathers following the fall of Rome. The Catholic church thought frequent bathing immodest and vain and so discouraged it.

Before that, however, things were quite different. The Romans were big on bathing and today you can go throughout Europe and see the ruins of public baths all throughout the former empire including, of course, the city of Bath itself which still has functioning Roman baths. Romans of all classes would go to the baths to bathe daily but also to socialize. Building baths was one of the best ways for emperors to get in good with the local populations and so many were very elaborate places with hot and cold running water, central heating, shops, prostitutes, personal trainers, and masseurs. The sexes used to bathe separately but right around Nero that ceased and the sexes bathed together. The Romans had few inhibitions on sex or nudity compared to even the most liberal modern European countries.

The ancient Egyptians loved bathing as well but given the scarcity of water in many places, instead shaved their bodies and used oils. When you see representations of most Egyptians, those are wigs they're wearing. A person would be covered in oil and then would have the oil gently scraped off. This worked surprisingly well and, if you could afford high-quality perfumed oil, left you smelling quite pleasant for the day.

The Vikings and other Scandinavians used the sauna to bathe and that too worked well enough. Alternating between the heat of the sauna and then jumping into cold pools of water or snow caused the body to sweat prodigiously and essentially clean itself. That's not to say they were entirely clean as the story of how Harold Fairhair got his name illustrates, but compared to their southern neighbors, Vikings were pretty damn clean.

Elsewhere bathing was seen as essential. Japan and Iceland, gifted with many natural hot springs, developed rich bathing cultures that continue to this day. Other Asians and American aboriginals tend to have a less offensive body odor than Caucasians, but many still bathed when possible. Some used the Egyptian method of oiling, others used water whan possible, and some desert peoples used sand as a bathing medium and the mild abrasive qualities of sand works nearly as well as water. Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism has ritual bathing incorporated into their religious obligations and so too their followers managed to stay relatively clean compared to their European counterparts.

Naturally Oceanic and African peoples do not have the problem of enduring freezing cold water or risk freezing to death and coastal and islanders always had the sea nearby to provide plenty of bathing opportunities.

Nope, it's really only western Europe that rejected bathing for such a long time and one of the reasons why the plague caused such enormous casualties on the continent with some exceptions. The Greeks, never quite forgetting their classical past, continued to bathe as did the Magyars of Hungary who were also blessed with many hot springs, and so suffered fewer casualties to the plague. It was really only after the plague that people began bathing more frequently no matter what the church had to say about it and it is worth noting that bathing was never entirely discarded by the European upper classes who had servants and resources to provide them with the intense labor required to prepare baths. There were exceptions, including one notorious French king who boasted about bathing only once a year, though again, many of them used the alternate method of using expensive and rare perfumed oils so when they say they weren't bathing, it didn't mean they were entirely unclean.
 

Scrufuss

Experimental Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Posts
538
Media
0
Likes
4
Points
103
Location
Here
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
Much depends on the culture in question. Western Europeans were not avid bathers following the fall of Rome. The Catholic church thought frequent bathing immodest and vain and so discouraged it.

Before that, however, things were quite different. The Romans.... [rest deleted to save space.]

WOW. That was more info that I ever wanted to know about sand scrubbing and oil scraping and bacterial growth in ones armpits. BUT it was interesting. I knew the part about the Romans and the western Europeans.. But I would never have guessed about sanding my armpits as a way to stay clean... I do the evening shower routine myself. Occasionally mid afternoon as well if I did allot of work in the yard or wherever...
Thanks for all that, jason_els
 

Viking_UK

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Posts
1,226
Media
0
Likes
148
Points
283
Location
Scotland
Sexuality
90% Gay, 10% Straight
Gender
Male
Nope, it's really only western Europe that rejected bathing for such a long time and one of the reasons why the plague caused such enormous casualties on the continent with some exceptions. The Greeks, never quite forgetting their classical past, continued to bathe as did the Magyars of Hungary who were also blessed with many hot springs, and so suffered fewer casualties to the plague. It was really only after the plague that people began bathing more frequently no matter what the church had to say about it and it is worth noting that bathing was never entirely discarded by the European upper classes who had servants and resources to provide them with the intense labor required to prepare baths. There were exceptions, including one notorious French king who boasted about bathing only once a year, though again, many of them used the alternate method of using expensive and rare perfumed oils so when they say they weren't bathing, it didn't mean they were entirely unclean.


Then of course, you get kings like Henry VIII whose favourite perfume was civet - or rather civet musk, which is extracted from the anal glands of civets. It was all the rage with men in those days as it was considered to be a masculine odour.