By David Futrelle
We’ve met them before, these mysterious and stinky straight men, who refuse to wipe or wash their asses because they’re afraid that doing so is somehow gay.
We don’t know how many of these men there are; indeed, the only reason we know about them is that their girlfriends and wives have taken to Reddit and elsewhere to tell the world about their horrific discoveries with regards to their significant others’ nether regions.
Yes, this means that at least some of these guys have girlfriends (!) and wives (!!), which adds a whole new layer to the horror.
One of these unfortunate women turned to Reddit’s Relationship_Advice subreddit today for help with her boyfriend, who not only refuses to wipe (and presumably also wash) his ass but who also thinks that touching, much less cleaning, his junk would also give him a case of teh gays.
Let’s hear her tale of woe.
“My (23F) boyfriend (24M) of almost a year doesn’t wash his genitals,” she began
Almost a YEAR and you’re just now discovering this?
So basically, he explained that he doesn’t touch himself there, ever, because it’s “gay”. Therefore he can’t clean the area specifically and just lets it get wet in the shower, that’s it.
Ewwwwww.
Other than this his hygiene is fine.
I question this judgement.
I only became aware of the issue when we started getting more intimate.
I guess True Love Waits, and then when it stops waiting it discovers an exceedingly gross dick.
Yes. You read it right: He thinks washing his penis would be gay. What the hell. In fact he thinks any touching of anything between his legs is gay. This was completely ridiculous and I started asking him what about masturbating? What about wiping after he poops??
If you have to ask, the answer isn’t going to be good.
Well it turns out, the reason he uses a bidet is so he won’t have to wipe. Using a bidet is not a problem to me, and I’ve never experienced a problem with his hygiene in that regard, but the fact he installs a bidet not out of cleanliness preference but to avoid “being gay” by wiping his OWN ASS is just…. I can’t believe that’s a real thing. I asked what about public toilets? He said he never poops anywhere besides his home so it’s not a problem. That’s bullshit, he’s pooped at mine. And I don’t have a bidet. So put two and two together.
What about before he had a bidet? What about when he travels? And since he presumably never washes between poopings, is his ass just poopy until he can return to his home base?
Then as for masturbating, he apparently doesn’t do that either! That’s also “gay.” What the hell. He admitted he used to masturbate when he was younger but it “he felt weird” doing it so he stopped. Uh… I’m not saying he’s required to jerk off or something, I don’t care, it’s again the insane reasoning behind it.
Hey, stinky dude, FYI, if you sit on your own hand until it goes numb, you could always just pretend it’s someone else’s hand.
Or maybe you could just use tongs?
Just trying to be helpful.
He says “any contact a guy has with the male ass or pubic areas is in a gay realm.” I said that makes absolutely no sense when it’s your own body. It’s not GAY to tend to your OWN self, gay involves OTHER people!
He’s also, presumably, got his own tongue in his mouth. Does that mean he’s French kissing himself all the time? That seems gay too. Cut out your tongue, stinky dick boy!
This even extends into our sex life. I found out the reason he didn’t want to try “doggy style” is because that’s a “gay position.” I’M NOT A DUDE, HOW IT IS GAY LMAO. Like this is so fucking ridiculous.
Hey fellas, is fucking your girlfriend gay?
This became an argument because I couldn’t help showing how I felt about this bullshit. Like, is every girl a lesbian now because we wipe after peeing?? And girls who use tampons? Where does his logic end? Of course, he thinks “that’s different” but can’t explain how.
I’m sure the idea that all women are secret lesbians is very titillating to him.
Well what about all the other men who do jerk off, are they all gay too? He said, “I’m just saying you’re dealing with a dick, it’s kind of a gay act.”
EVERYONE IS GAY EXCEPT ME
He got more mad at me the more I tried to reason with him. I just gave up eventually and we haven’t spoken much since, this was yesterday. I can’t talk to him if he’s going to be belligerent.
I really don’t think I can just get over this. Both how he refuses to properly clean himself and also that the way he thinks about it is so irrational. I know it sounds horrible to say this but I almost feel like I’ve lost some respect for him.
Almost!? Some!!??
Before now I always saw him as a very mature intelligent person. Now I’m questioning that but am not sure if it’s fair of me.
Oh it’s fair of you.
Has anyone else had a boyfriend with this issue before? Are there a lot of dudes who think like this? How do I get him to stop doubling down and understand why calling it gay makes no sense?
Somehow I doubt that someone who is happy to walk around with a poopy ass and stinky junk because it means he’s not gay is going to listen to reason.
TL;DR: My boyfriend won’t wash his genitals, among other things, because he believes touching his body there is “gay”. All he did when I pointed out how that doesn’t make any sense is get defensive. I had no clue he was this neurotic about intentionally neglecting his personal hygiene. Which is a problem for obvious reasons. What do you do when your partner persists in believing something crazy?
If it’s something like this, you RUN.
RUN, GIRL, RUN!
H/T — thanks to @Jennifer_deG, who tweeted about this
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These types of dudes make me grateful for the men I’ve dated, including my fiancé. When you shower with your partner, you get a good idea of their hygiene. Thankfully none of the guys I was with long term subscribed to the “Touching or cleaning your ass makes you gay” bizarreness. I don’t think I could handle that for any length of time, both in terms of cleanliness and terrible mindsets.
@An Autistic Giraffe
I didn’t even think of that. This man must also have terrible aim. Yet another reason not to date him.
@Moggie
Even looking in a mirror would be gay by his definition, because he would be admiring the face and body of a man.
The cis straight man pisseth against the wall. It’s in the Bible.
Some evangelical preachers have interpreted this to mean a man should always stand in front of the toilet to pee, no sitting down. But they’re wrong. It says against the wall. Not into toilets. It’s in the Bible.
(I’m kidding in this post, but the part about the preachers is real.)
Nice post!
Did you hear of the “22 Convention”, by the way?
Leave.
Now.
Imagine having a child with this moron. The fact that he would never change his son’s diaper would be the LEAST harmful thing he did to the child. Propagating that attitude would be far worse.
@happy cat
David RTed some links about it a few weeks ago but didn’t make a post yet. Maybe he will in the future? Or maybe he’s waiting to see what happens there and will address it after the fact.
@Ann K
Plus, the fact that he views changing baby diapers as sexual has some pedophilic overtones.
A wall? Real men piss against the wind. The stronger wind, the stronger man.
There’s a Finnish joke relating to the military, and specifically instances where several men might take a piss in sight of each other, like on a march break:
“According to regulation, the penis will be shaken no more than four times. Going further than that constitutes wanking.”
(For the record, I don’t shake but rather empty my urethra by squeezing, because that feels much more practical.)
My dad works with a guy who won’t drink with a straw, because it’s too much like sucking a dick. Granted, my dad is a homophobe in his own right, but even he thinks that’s weird.
I hope that this guy is circumcised. If he’s not, what’s going on under his foreskin doesn’t bear thinking about.
@Moggie
And even if he is, I fear what could be in his pubic hair. Since he definitely doesn’t shave and probably doesn’t wash it, there’s likely something that isn’t supposed to be there.
@Charlotte
If we’re forbidden to speak ill of possibly mentally ill people, then we can’t call out any behaviour ever. Anyone could be mentally ill. I am mentally ill and neuroatypical in other ways, and I hope some people would nevertheless object to my behaviour if I was being a poopbucket.
As far as harmless, his hygiene choices absolutely do affect his partner, which is why she brought it up with him in the first place. At that point he evidently became belligerent, which doesn’t seem like a great way to treat your girlfriend.
His belief that being gay is the absolute worst thing that could happen to him is deeply homophobic. I don’t believe he could harbour that level of disgust and fear of gay men in specific and very likely the LGBT+ community in general without it coming out in his behaviour and attitudes towards other people, as you apparently do. But even if he somehow manages to treat LGBT+ folks with the illusion of respect despite recoiling in horror internally, his ideas themselves are part of a culture that makes LGBT+ people unsafe.
Sharing those ideas (which he has done with his girlfriend and presumably others) is a way of perpetuating that culture. Monday Middlemarch and Ann K. both bring up how he could pass both his unsafe hygiene practices to his kids as well as his toxic attitudes.
Anyways, seems like a reasonable target to me. Wash your junk, human beings, for your own sake if no one else’s.
I’m ready to admit that my hygiene down there wasn’t very good when I was in my teens. I’m guessing this was because all the instruction I ever remember getting was “clean thoroughly” without actually specifying what that meant. So I was like, “Thoroughly? Got it.”
I guess just settled into a routine and didn’t think about it, and I’m [i]not[/i] ready to admit how old I was when I realised that I had not got it and things were… sub-optimal?
So I can kind of understand how one could end up being gross in this regard. I don’t think it would have made me feel better about myself to know that some do it intentionally.
If true, these are highly deviant behaviors that reflect severe mental illness, not a social/sexual movement.
Besides, it seems sensationalistic. These types of mentally ill men would have been “sniffed” out by those close to them quite early in the process.
This OP is good for hits, but the writer may be getting played by a satirist.
@Charlottes : of course his behavior is homophobic given his excuse to not do basic hygiene. While I can give a pass to people saying “it’s so gay” pejoratively, I can’t give it to people that feat “being gay”.
Also, maybe he is mentally ill, but mentally ill or not, he is also an asshole, which isn’t exclusive with illnesses and isn’t connected either.
One never knows, but I’m with Charlotte on this one: this sounds to me like someone with a seriously major phobia or obsession or similar. He’s lining himself up for some potentially really serious health problems because he’s not functioning rationally, and he needs professional medical help more than anything else. By the looks of it this is a serious psychological problem to sympathise with rather than a weird manosphere thing to poke fun at.
Everybody’s probably right that the girlfriend can’t continue with the relationship with him like this, because he’s a health hazard to her as well as him, but this seems to be a “Get help or I’m leaving you” sort of situation rather than “You need to get out now”, as it sounds to be like he is toxic in only the strictly literal, physical sense.
That anyone is failing to see the extreme homophobia on display here is incredible. Like, being deathly afraid of catching The Gay… is bad. I don’t feel that’s particularly controversial in this community.
Absolutely it is possible to have a mental illness or other disability which interferes with one’s ability to keep clean. Absolutely people in that position deserve compassion. Absolutely it is possible that in addition to the brain-meltingly homophobic reasoning that the OP’s boyfriend has provided for his actions he also, consciously or unconsiously, has something else going on. There’s no reason to believe that that I can see, but the possibility does exist.
But also, he’s a homophobe. We know that because of the homophobic things he said. His lack of hygiene is at least partially a result of his homophobia.
This is bad. Being a homophobe is bad for the world. Homophobia, despite the suffix, is not a mental illness.
OP’s BF: “I won’t do anything woth my junk or wipe my butt becausenthat is what GAY PEOPLE DO, play with men’s junk and butts. I’d rather not wipe my own ass, if i poop somewhere without a bidet, than be at all gay.”
Some WHTM commenters: “holy shit, why is he so afraid of catching ‘teh gay’ that he will sacrifice his own basic hygiene??? That’s some straight up homophobia!”
Other WHTM commenters: “allow me to armchair diagnose, something explicitly against the commenting policy. Clearly homophobia has NOTHING TO DO with this.”
Asshole isn’t a mental illness. No matter what is going on, he’s being homophobic.
@Charlotte, @Not Edward, @Capitalism_Really_Sucks, no arm chair diagnosing. Please see the comments policy.
Umm…are people forgetting the section of the comments policy that says this:
Trying to blame toxic masculinity and homophobia on a mental illness without any evidence of such an illness is not only unhelpful, it’s ableist and hurtful to those with mental illnesses. As Viscaria said, it’s possible the man is mentally ill, but we shouldn’t t try to diagnose mental illness without evidence.
Edit: Ninja’ed by Rhuu.
@Rhuu, @Viscaria, @Nagflar
I’m not diagnosing any mental illness. I have no idea what’s going on in this guy’s head. What I am saying, however, is that whatever is going on in this guy’s head has gone way beyond rationality and is interfering with his ability to take care of his own basic health and hygiene. Once you’ve hit that point, this, whatever it is, is qualitatively different from your standard manosphere political and social arseholery. He may or may not be an arsehole as well, but it is quite plain that this is not all there is to it.
To say to someone whose irrational behaviour is harming themselves or others “you need to get help to sort yourself out” is common humanity, not ableism.
I may be giving this guy too much of the benefit of the doubt, but a lot of the comments mentioned possible molestation/abuse in his background. My knee jerk reaction is to laugh and scream LEAVE, but those comments actually make a lot of sense to me. Hope everyone gets the help they need.
A conversation about whether or not homophobic beliefs really harm someone. Haven’t we done this before?
Not Edward, I think you’ve got this entirely backwards. He is necessarily an arsehole because of the homophobia he freely expressed to his girlfriend. He is not necessarily insert a bunch of weasel words here that mean mentally ill without straight-out saying the words “mentally ill” even though people can scroll up to your previous comment where you mention specific mental illnesses/mental illness symptoms. Your belief that he must be is based on assumptions and stereotypes.
You didn’t say anything to the man that was the subject of this post. Your comments were directed to David and to the other commenters here, and what you said to all of us was that it’s not okay to make fun of this man because you assume he has see above. That’s not common humanity. That’s just being incorrect.
Umm even if the guy does have OCD he still has to be homophobic for the fear to make sense, and moreover is an utter entitled fuck for acting like he has a right to any sex at all when refusing to do the basics to take care of his own body. And for creating an increased infection risk for his partner, and not giving a fuck about that either. So yeah fuck that guy.
Also like… Uh, possible TMI follows re personal experiences:
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Just from my own experience with partners who don’t pay enough attention to cleanliness/BO/etc., just no, this is really not okay. When you have to deal with a partner legit stinking, and don’t always feel comfortable refusing them sex until they wash or whatever, it can get traumatizing pretty fast IME even if they’re a very gentle and understanding person. Smells associate very strongly with memory for most people; after breaking up with a partner with this issue at one point, I wound up basically avoiding sex for like 6 months because the associations were that strong and upsetting. Sex that otherwise would have been fun wound up being exhausting, boring work, and that actually did take a toll on my emotional health.
It’s not necessarily, like, direct sexual abuse trauma, but it still really sucks and is more harmful than a lot of people (especially dudes) seem to think.
So, yeah. Please keep your dicks and asses clean. It really is that big a deal for the people you have sex with. Really.
I think those of us who run in leftist circles and go through life with some hetero privilege tend to forget how deeply homophobia is engrained in some people’s way of thinking. So it’s all too easy for us to say “I can’t fathom hating gayness so much that it would interfere with my basic life processes; therefore that hate must be a mental illness.” I know I default to that sometimes, and I need reminders to the contrary. It’s not mental illness, as others have said. It’s just a very extreme manifestation of homophobia.
And if we’re speaking in hypotheticals, I care more about the hypothetical gay teenager who stumbles on this post and is reminded, once again, that there are people in this world who would go to such extremes to avoid being anything like him. Imagine how much that would hurt. He’d need to see pushback from us saying no, homophobia isn’t normal and isn’t excusable even if it might be occurring along with mental illness.
@Charlotte,
No. No, nope, not this please. Mental illness DOES NOT cause homophobia.
This sort of comment somehow strikes me as both offensive to those with mental illnesses as well as a defense of homophobia, and it really doesn’t sit well with me. On top of it being an attempt at armchair diagnosis, which as others point out, is also a big problem.
Please endeavor to change your viewpoint on mental illness, please.