Relationship advice: Gross habit men need to stop immediately

Just when it seemed that it couldn’t get any lower, the bar for men has hit rock bottom in more ways than one, says Nadia Bokody.

If you’re easily queasy or prone to prudishness, it would be in your best interest to stop reading. Because we’re about to explore a topic that’s taken rigorous mental preparation and an empty stomach to even write about.

It’s a question that plagues internet forums with disturbing frequency: “How can I convince my husband to wipe his butt properly?”

Thousands of women have posted variations of this alarming inquiry on Reddit.

In a 2019 post titled, “What’s with men and skid marks?” a female Redditer complains, “Every man I’ve been with, and I’ve been with men in varying states of grooming habits, has skid marks … Is wiping your butt a skill men lose over time?”

In another, a frustrated girlfriend laments, “My boyfriend of six months is quite unhygienic … he constantly leaves skid marks on my sheets after sex … PLEASE HELP!!!!”

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Nadia Bokody was stunned to discover that a corner of the internet where men didn’t know how to wipe their bums. Picture: Instagram/Nadia Bokody

In fact, there’s an entire subgroup of Reddit dedicated to men who don’t know how to (or refuse to?) wipe their own bums.

“I love my husband and am still (somehow) attracted to him, but sometimes this guy can be so gross,” writes another female poster.

“His underwear sometimes has skid marks. He’s 38 years old … Once after some really good sex … when he got up, there was a skid mark on my white slipcover.”

Barf.

While it’s tempting to write these examples off as dramatic outliers, they’re indicative of a wider issue when it comes to personal hygiene among men. Research repeatedly shows guys drop the ball when it comes to habits like hand washing and germ prevention.

A 2018 poll confirmed just 84 per cent of men consider washing their hands after using the toilet to be “very important”, as compared to 91 per cent of women (also, only one in six guys wash their hands at all after using the restroom at work, according to this study).

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Men are more likely to be lax with hygiene, while women are the opposite. Picture: Instagram/Nadia Bokody

Another survey found men are less likely to don face masks in public because they view wearing them as “a sign of weakness”.

“We need to make sure men don’t feel too macho to worry about germs,” Rosie Frasso, program director of public health at Thomas Jefferson University, told the New York Times in an interview about coronavirus spread prevention.

Perhaps we have toxic masculinity all wrong. Maybe “toxic” was actually meant in reference to the hazardous odours emanating from men’s unwashed bodies?

In all seriousness, male hygiene, and the abysmally low standard we set for it, serves as yet another nod to the gendered double standards that dominate heterosexual relationships.

A quick poll of my female friends reveals all the women I know practice intensive grooming regimes to ensure their vulvas look and smell fresh prior to sex.

“I’ve had all the hair lasered off so there’s no complaints about pubes and I wash myself before sex. Even if I don’t have time for a full shower, I’ll use some feminine wipes on myself to make sure I smell good,” one friend tells me.

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The low standard for male hygiene is actually a gendered double standard for heterosexual relationships. Picture: Nadia Bokody

Troublingly, most of the women I spoke to while writing this story, said they’d had a male partner degrade the appearance or smell of their genitals, despite maintaining levels of personal hygiene that would put most of the men I know to shame.

What’s most striking about the thousands of posts on Reddit and Twitter from women sharing horror stories of their male partners’ bathroom habits, is the apologetic tone of the women. The female posters include phrases like, “Perhaps it’s because he was never taught how to use the toilet?”, “Am I being too harsh?” and “Is there a kind way to express my concerns?”.

This language is typical of what I see from women who write to me with questions about their sex lives. While men often ask, “How can I get my wife to do X in bed?” women overwhelmingly take the approach of “What is wrong with me?”, even when describing issues that are clearly the responsibility of their male partners.

Many woman say they have been shamed over the appearance or smell of their genitals. Picture: Instagram

A study published in the journal, BMC Women’s Health, found 20 per cent of women still douche, and up to 53 per cent use feminine cleansing sprays, despite the fact the vagina – unlike the penis – is self-cleansing, and fragranced products and douches have been linked with an increased risk of bacterial vaginosis.

Conversely, in an NHS document designed to educate men on proper genital hygiene, Patrick French, a consultant physician in sexual health states, “It’s really surprising how many men don’t clean underneath their foreskin. Not only do they regularly develop complications from poor hygiene, but it’s also very off-putting for a sexual partner.”

In short, while women are quite literally cleaning ourselves sick, men aren’t wiping their bums or washing their penises. And, I’m sorry to have to be the one to say it ladies, but we’re not doing them any favours by ignoring the skid marks or trying to find ways to subtly convince them to bathe, via Reddit.

If we want men to show up for us, we need to start raising the bar – drastically – because right now, it’s at the bottom (pun intended).

Follow Nadia Bokody on Instagram and YouTube for more sex, relationship and mental health tips.