Why I Stopped Showering After Sex (And Why You Might Consider it Too)
I like to think of myself as a pioneer of not showering…
A few years ago, I began an initiative of sorts to shower less and enjoy my natural scent more. It was incredibly hard to make this transition because I felt pretty self-conscious walking into work smelling a little ripe at first. As a culture, cleanliness and hygiene are both celebrated and expected, though there are BILLIONS of individuals who cannot shower daily due to lack of water access. We are meticulous in our desire to stay clean. We go so far as to mask our smells by adding perfume, body sprays, and even removing our body hair (the one thing that actually holds in our body odors).
My reason for making the transition was simple: I think there’s a sense of empowerment associated with enjoying your own scent, especially after sex. There’s a beautifully natural feeling associated with leaving your scent alone after an intimate encounter.
Our bodies contain about 100 trillion cells. Just like we’d change flat tires on our cars, we vow to keep our bodies clean and in good condition. Our bodies are our temples, after all. According to science, we should be allowing our bodies to sweat, especially during sex; furthermore, we shouldn’t just allow our bodies to sweat, we should also let our sweat linger to form a protective layer of dead skin cells.
Nathan Wolfe, the microbe guru, stated:
We get our first dose of these microbial co-conspirators as we pass through our mother’s vaginal canal where the bacterial population changes dramatically during pregnancy. For instance, Lactobacillus johnsonii, which normally lives in the gut and helps us digest milk, becomes more abundant in the vagina, exposing the baby to the bacterium, perhaps to help prepare the way for ingesting breast milk.
Why remove the natural organization that gives us LIFE?
Microbes are tiny little organisms that form all over our bodies.
Microbes thrive in habitat-specific environments including those that are natural and free of chemicals. They help extract essential vitamins and nutrients which we need to survive. They help recognize toxic substances in our bodies and ward them off. They’re even responsible for fighting off those nasty colds and bugs we seem to catch each year.
We have a symbiotic relationship with our microbes. We support these little microorganisms during sex because we help keep them in working order. That’s pretty cool, hey? We give life to an organism simply by sweating and being intimate with our lovers.
These microbes are part of our evolution. As far as we can tell, they are very important in human health and probably very important in human disease as well.
said Martin Blaser of New York University. If we can accept our natural scent and let go of our overarching need to shower the moment we feel dirty, we might be able to begin treating our bodies with the restorative care they are meant to have.
If we can accept our natural scent and let go of our overarching need to shower the moment we feel dirty, we might be able to begin treating our bodies with the restorative care they are meant to have.
Keeping our microbes latched to our bodies can help increase Vitamin D and boost endorphins.
During those intimate moments with our partners, we are naturally increasing our endorphin levels. Sit back, relax, enjoy you in your most natural state. Filth ain’t all bad, you can trust me of this one. John Oxford, Professor of Virology at Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, argues that “A vigorous daily shower would disturb the natural bug flora of the skin as well as skin oils.”
Sweat more, shower less. Have lots of sweaty sex, too!
Sources:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/125-microbes/wolfe-text
A Way to Always Smell Good – Simply Put
[…] Showering for nighttime pleasure […]