Can you please not screw about with the font in the future? Thanks.
I don’t know how often they bathe there, but people from many Asian nations don’t stink when they sweat, and I’ve known Japanese international students who were completely befuddled by the notion of deodorant–it wasn’t available in their hometown because it wasn’t necessary (assuming there weren’t many gaijin in their hometown, that is). Take a ride through Arizona, though, and you’ll find plenty of people who shower 2-3 times a day because they work up that much of a sweat.
If you think Europeans don’t bathe much now, you shoulda seen 'em back when the plague hit.
Native Americans were using soap regularly to wash their bodies and their clothes before anyone else really caught on to the idea majorly, IIUC. That alone could have influenced American culture enough to make a lasting difference.
Your plague theory seems to rest on a specific chain of events:
a. Plague hits. People who don’t shower die. People who shower live.
b. Europeans keep showering for years and years and years, because the fear of the plague is so ingrained into their culture.
c. European settlers come to America and keep showering, and sometime after the colonization of the Americas, the folks back home become disinterested once again in daily bathing.
Sounds dubious. Why would showering pick up during the devastation of the bubonic plague, and then last significantly longer, but arbitrarily stop sometime after the colonization of the Americas? Then again, AFAIK the last place in the world where the bubonic plague is even remotely active is New Mexico. But if you live in New Mexico you’ve got lots of other reasons to shower a couple of times a day.
Some people may feel nasty after not showering for a couple of days, but I am nasty after not showering for a couple of days, especially when I live in hot climates; I sweat a lot. I had to shower at least twice a day when I lived in Arizona, and I absolutely must shower daily here (east of San Diego) in the hot months or else I’m sticky and nasty and nobody wants to be around me (although I could’ve pulled it off when I lived in the city proper, which is on the water and has a more moderate clime).
Capitalism. In the 60s and 70s everyone I knew showered every other day at most. Now almost everyone I know showers every day. We use a huge number of shower/bathing/“hygiene”-related products that we did not use until the mid-80’s. Men did not formerly put “product” on their hair or skin. There was no such thing as “hair gel,” just pomade, which was not a female product.
Well it’s not necessarily a topic of conversation, but since the 50’s everyone in England I know of bathes or showers daily.
If I have friends over, there’s an amicable discussion whose turn it is next.
In the old days, you might have to wait for the boiler to heat the water, but it was still standard.
So where did the OP get the idea about European habits?
Don’t know what your definition of “product” or “pomade” is, but American and British men have been regularly putting stuff in their hair since at least the 1890s. Example: Cary Grant.
The dry look didn’t become popular among men until the 1960s and early 1970s.
I had this conversation with a Chinese friend, as many Chinese only bathe in the evening: “You must feel dirty during the day,” I said. “Yes,” he replied, “but you must have a dirty bed.”
Where have you been living, dearie? Not my mainland Europe… I’ll admit to seeing hairy female armpits when the weather’s crazy (we’ve been known to have heatwaves with temperatures over 30C in December) but not when we’ve had time to wax, nosiree.
Or maybe Spain’s still Africa and the guv’mint’s been lying to us.
Didn’t mean to be snippy about the font, jtnewsom. To expound on this, don’t think you did anything against the rules or “wrong” per se–but many Dopers frown upon the use of non-default fonts, colors, sizes, etc. and find it annoying because it breaks from the clean, organized appearance that sets us apart from most other message boards. Again, I apologize for being a bit of a prick about it.
