fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6382 ]

[ SECRET POST #6382 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6382 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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From the women in their lives, usually. Like it's REALLY common - men who piss on toilet seats and dribble on the floor, men who don't wipe their asses properly and leave nasty skidmarks on their underwear and even the bedsheets*, men who don't shower regularly, don't wash their genitalia properly, don't brush their teeth, etc. What gives? Has this been your experience?

IME, my dad can be a little gross and will totally do stuff like pick his nose or reach into his pants for a vigorous ball scratch and then continue preparing food WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS (we loudly call him out and he just laughs like it's funny), or he'll "forget" to flush after using the toilet. But my brother doesn't do any of these things and has pretty tidy habits. I'd say he's actually tidier than I am, though neither of us are obsessive neat freaks. But I've dated guys or had guy friends who were... yeesh. Not full-on shit-stains bad, but definitely "haven't washed these jeans for two months and haven't showered for a week and still went out in public to socialize in groups" bad.

* This one is so common I find it truly distressing. Some of the weird explanations given was that they don't believe in using soap and washing their own buttholes because it's gay, or they think that leaving poop streaks everywhere is normal and one of those unavoidable guy things. Needless to say, these Poop Streak Bandits are not the ones doing the laundry, either. Like... what the fuckety fuck, you guys?

I can understand getting a little sloppy here or there, or skipping a shower day because you didn't sweat or touch waste, but... I just can't imagine NOT wiping or washing one's ass properly. Nobody wants to see your dingleberries, bro.

I imagine most guys do maintain a decent standard of hygiene, and the ones who don't have partners who complain about it loudly (as they should). Personally, I couldn't stay with someone who doesn't respect themselves or their partner enough to not pass shitty germs to me and give me an infection or something (and I'm not a germophobe! I very rarely use disinfectant or antibacterial anything, but goddamnit, I do know to use soap all over!).

It comes up in the Am I The Asshole reddit regularly, and the overwhelming response to the woman who's posting is no, you're not the asshole, he's not going to change, the bar for men is so low it's in hell, dump him and find someone else or stay single.

I was thinking of that subreddit! It comes up sometimes on r/TwoXChromosomes, too. I remember a post where this poor woman's husband had nasty skidmarks on his boxers AND was leaving stains on the sheets and insisted this was normal because he was kind of hairy down there. Like no dude, hairy people can wash, too.

Most people on TwoXChromosomes these days are not women.

How do you know?

If you pay attention to their profiles and to what people are and are not allowed to say, it quickly becomes clear.

It's a common relationship complaint online.

I think this is an important distinction to make. Yes, there are many men who are gross; but there are also many men who are very clean, and many women who are gross. On the internet, the tendency is for people to complain about gross men, and less so about gross women. Since negativity is rewarded more than positivity, you're also more likely to see kvetching than praise.

Personally, the man in my life has some issues with tidiness -- but that's largely due to him having ADHD, not due to his gender. He definitely brushes his teeth, showers regularly, and washes his bits and ass.

Some factors that I wonder about…

- the increasing ability for women to freely complain about hygiene standards in their male partners
- the rise in men specifically embracing a higher level of basic physical care and polished presentation as a masculine pursuit (rather than being dismissed as “sissy” or “gay”)
- the backlash against this form of “performing masculinity”, specifically rejecting cleanliness as a way of being “a real man”

[Note: I don’t know what I’m talking about in any kind of systemic way. I’m just trying to articulate trends I think I’ve anecdotally witnessed over the last few decades.]

I think those are all significant factors, yeah. What I see a lot from the women is that they wouldn't necessarily complain about this IRL because it's embarrassing as hell to tell your friends that your husband refuses to wipe his own butt. But with a cloak of relative anonymity the dirty laundry (haha!) comes out.

Yeah, I think you’re definitely right about that. It’s a complaint that can be aired much more easily in the internet age of relative anonymity.

As a man I'm aware I can be gross-- I sweat a lot, and I've been known to be impressed by a good belch, if I'm leaving the house in a hurry and I'm going to be masking maybe I don't brush my teeth etc-- but oh my GOD the number of women who complain about poop is MIND BOGGLING to me. That's the one place where I can't imagine not being super committed to personal cleanliness, like the idea makes my skin crawl.

(also oh my god it's NOT hard to check and then wipe up any stray drops of pee off the toilet seat??)

Women are heavily socially penalized for not being completely clean at all times where any other person could possibly see them. I just recently read about a woman who was not hired for a job, and when she asked her recruiter what she could have done better she was told that they said she was slovenly. Her hair was professionally done, she had on a tailored suit, her nails were manicured. It's because she wasn't wearing make up. That was "slovenly" for a woman.

See also all the jokes in tv shows and movies about a man seeing a woman in private in her own home doing the her beauty routine and him being horrified about how bad she looks in face cream or without makeup. Compared with men being gross for a joke, and if a woman is horrified she's treated in the show/movie as a prude with no sense of humor.

It definitely leads to being clean, and put together, and well manicured being associated with femininity (see the metrosexual).

I think in general, society's standards for appearance and cleanliness are higher for women. It's not that they don't exist for men, but IMO, standards are a bit more relaxed about slovenly dress, dirt, body odor, etc. because it's perceived as manly and therefore less stigma.

I think people are more willing to excuse a man, say, at McDonald's on his lunch break who's dirty/smelly if he's wearing work clothes that indicate he's a manual laborer (same for a woman with no makeup in a ponytail covered in paint stains) or a person who obviously just did a run and is wearing running clothes.

But in an office setting? Dirty clothes and body odor are absolutely a stigma for both sexes. A coder can get away with being a slob if he works in a coder cave with a couple of other dudes, but he's NOT getting promoted into management if he's pigpen.

Yeah, I've known many women who were gross in most of the ways described above* but the relevant difference is none of them were women who were making any attempt to date men. All women know that if they want to attract men they can't be actively gross, and a great many men will happily remind them of this if they forget. Many men don't seem to ever learn the reverse, and women seem to let them get away with it

Also women - generally in my experience the most outwardly tidy ones - are way more likely to spray urine all over the toilet and not clean it up, but the ones who do that only do it in public restrooms where their men never have to deal with it, whereas men are most likely to do it at home.

*not so much the skidmarks, but women are way more likely to get UTIs if they don't clean back there well so I suspect that one gets learned the hard way for anatomical reasons.

I don't buy stories like that at all. Perhaps it happens at certain companies or in particularly appearance-focused fields, but my experience in the professional world doesn't line up with that at all. I don't get my nails done; I don't wear makeup (apart from the occasional eye shadow); my hair is almost always in a bun. I've never had a problem getting a position I wanted, and I've worked with plenty of women who are similarly "low key" with their appearance.

"the occasional eyeshadow" isn't "no makeup".

I only wear makeup to job interviews, and only minimal amount around the eyes and some concealer... But I've never gotten the job when I didn't.

It's really depends on the field.
Also people do look at you. I had much less trouble finding jobs when I was thinner and younger and had some mascara on.

This. It depends entirely on the field. I never wore makeup in my daily life (or on the job ever again past the interview) but I always used to wear makeup to job interviews because I'd heard women who didn't were less likely to get hired. Then I forgot my makeup to one, decided fuck it I'll try anyway, and I got the job. Later I learned that if I had worn makeup I might not have - the job required a degree of security/enforcement, and they were leery about hiring a woman, until they saw my "stern" look (which was my boss's very polite way of saying butch).

I never wore makeup to a job interview again and have been hired for everything I applied to. But my current work is also dangerous/industrial. I think if anything management would look askance at you if you showed up dressed to the nines.

And honestly yeaaaaah they kinda should. It has been an actual problem with a previous hire who is my subordinate that I've had to deal with, where it has started interfering with her job because while she'll wear the bare minimum safety equipment (hard hat, vest, steel toes), she will wear it with clothing she can't kneel/crawl/climb a ladder in (frilly skirts, tights, "cute" floppy boots that are technically steel toed but clearly not meant for our industry, dangling jewelry, loose long hair, a face full of makeup that's going to start running the second she sweats), and nails that make it so that she can't firmly grip a tool. It's all under the auspices of "it's just a meeting/inspection, I don't have to do that, if I did I'd just change" but everyone knows that's not what's going to happen. What's actually going to happen is that she's going to get someone else to do that part of her job. There's a lot of overlap in our work and I have to climb up shit and get down on my hands and knees and use equipment all the time, I know she does - or she should - too. But she wrings her hands and asks one of the workers to do it or wastes everyone's time by going all the way back to the office. She's complained to me about the workers not taking her seriously and that it's clearly sexism but I've had exactly zero problems working with the same crews and neither have any of the other women in our section.

I'm in the process of correcting this behaviour as delicately as I can (it's not like the outfits belie an otherwise tough and gritty personality, she bursts into tears over everything and we are unionized/I don't want to take shit for "harassing" a subordinate), but now that I am senior enough to be involved in hiring myself... honestly, if she'd worn what she wears to work to our interview, she'd have been a no from me. I know some women have been told - like I was! - that they won't get hired if they aren't dressed/made up prissily, so I wouldn't punish them for that, wearing it to an office interview is fine: what I'd do is hold one of the interviews at a work site, after having accurately described the conditions and expectations of their work, then see what they showed up in, just to see if they have an iota of common sense.

Honestly I don’t get it. I couldn’t imagine being with a guy like that. The man in my life is terrible at housekeeping. But that’s because he was raised to fix things, not clean the house. We split the common tasks and he’s learned how to do his share. His hygiene is impeccable and I stopped getting upset about him not cleaning the counters or missing obvious dust bunnies when vacuuming a long time ago.

100% socialization

My dad commonly leaves the toilet seat up with pee in the bowl still (and he lives with two women ie me and mum). He sometimes doesn't wash his hands, he uses a handkerchief instead of tissues, dribbles when he eats because of his false teeth, etc. He's sometimes misogynistic and lives in the past when he could use the n word freely and uses 'queer' as a term for weird.

...I wonder if this had any impact on me being a lesbian...

I mean, people don't complain about a spouse who is neat and considerate enough. So that leaves the outliers.

But also, and I say this as an untidy person, my man is messy and he doesn't clean up after himself very well. This is also an issue I have with my roommates (and part of the reason I've asked them to move on) and I think my solution is going to be a monthly cleaning service. We can keep up with dishes and laundry but vacuuming and dusting sure isn't happening with any regularity.

Also, there's some degree of socialization about men being gross. I hope younger generations are on top of it. My beloved is bad about brushing his teeth and has had many dental issues. Part of the reason we're still together is he'll brush his teeth before trying to kiss me because I have no issue giving him a little shove and telling him his breath is awful.

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[ SECRET POST #6382 ]

It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

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Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.

Re: It's weird, but I've noticed that Men Being Super Gross is a common relationship complaint.