Jezebel: dirty talk

Sarah Haskins: Cleaning Is Not A Substitute For Sex

Dodai — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:20:00 EDT

The latest hilarious Target: Women video from Sarah Haskins features cleaning products. Specifically: The way advertisers create a "romance" between women and mops, sponges and Swiffers. "Cleaning products will always be your special friend," Haskins explains, as she shows snippets from commercials in which ladies give tabletops rubdowns and bathtub faucets get handjobs. Oh, and ever notice how all of the women clean while wearing the same "business casual" outfit? Clip above.

Target Women: Cleaning [Current]

Getting Gorgeous Used To Be A Lot Less Complicated

Dodai — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Over on the blog called The Smart Set, Paula Marantz Cohen writes a requiem for the beauty parlor. Cohen recalls an age when you went out just to get your hair did, not mani-pedi massage with full-body deforestation: "When I was growing up, my mother used to go twice a month to the beauty parlor. That was what it was called then — not the hair stylist or even the hair salon, all latter-day terms. She would have her hair cut, colored, or coiffed, and sometimes she would get a manicure. But hair and nails were the extent of it. The body that lay in between was off limits. Caring for that — whatever it might entail — happened in the privacy of the home." These days, "maintenance" often involves so much more. But why?

At first Cohen suspected the modern phenomenon of having your entire body tended to was a result of the hairy, free-wheeling '60s.

But a friend pointed out that the exposed body nowadays is a far cry from the exposed body of the 1960s. That was the era of hairy underarms and legs, frizzy unkempt hair, and bra-less breasts that sagged under macramé T-shirts. Compare this to the perfect orbs that protrude like hothouse melons from the tank tops of 70-year-olds. "Let it all hang out" has been replaced by "let it all be nicely exhibited." Walt Whitman (and his hippie successors) sang the "body electric;" we sing the "body electrolysis" — also, siliconed and liposuctioned.

How did we get here? Do we blame porn? Celebrities? Magazines? Shows like Extreme Makeover? The hairless, polished, rounded-breast way we present ourselves now is surely a trend like any other, but the upkeep is troublesome. Our grandmothers got their hair done once or twice a month; foot binding was a one time thing; in the 17th century, water was considered dangerous to one's health and Louis XIV only bathed twice in his life. But, as Cohen writes, "Tending the aesthetic needs of the body can become a full-time occupation, growing more elaborate and extensive as the body ages, since it takes more effort and ingenuity to resist time's sickle. It's easy to spend $300 for about three hours worth of service, which then has to be repeated in 10 days' time." The real question: Is it worth it?

Body Service [The Smart Set]

Earlier: Is There Such A Thing As Too Clean?

Is There Such A Thing As Too Clean?

dodai — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:20:00 EST

Are you one of those people with a little bottle of hand sanitizer on your desk? Did you know that most people didn't use soap to bathe themselves until the late 19th century? Katherine Ashenburg's new book, The Dirt On Clean: An Unsanitized History, is a history of cleanliness. Salon has an interview with Ashenburg, and if you're a germaphobe, prepare to be grossed out. In Ancient Rome, a man would oil his body, rub in with dust, and then go out in the playing field and work up a sweat. Then he'd pay someone to scrape off the sweat and dirt, and soak... in the public bath. In the early days of Christianity, Ashenburg says, "Cleanliness was kind of a luxury, like food, drink and sex, because cleanliness was comfortable and attractive. The holier you were — and this really applied to monks and hermits and saints — the less you would wash. And the more you smelled, the closer to God people thought you were." Buddhists and Muslims thought Christians were filthy, "and they were right."

When the great plagues came, the Black Death, in the 14th century, the king of France asked the medical faculty at the Sorbonne in Paris, "What is causing this hideous plague that is killing one out of every three Europeans, and what can we do to prevent it?" And the doctor said the people who were at risk for getting the plague had opened their pores in warm or hot water, in the baths, and they were much more susceptible. So in France and England and most European countries, for about five centuries, people really believed that it was very, very dangerous to get in water.

These days, from teeth-whitening strips to hand sanitizer, Americans are obsessed with cleanliness. Ashenburg explains that this development started with the Civil War — patient deaths were limited just by washing them and their linen, preventing infections. The idea of keeping clean caught on. "Cleanliness is democratic because it doesn't cost much money. It's progressive. It's forward-looking. It has wonderful results," Ashenburg explains.

Of course, many doctors and scientists believe we've gone too far — that we're not giving our immune systems enough dirt and germs, and therefore allergies and asthma take over. In fact, Ashenburg spoke to doctors who believe washing your hands is important, but claim there's no health benefit in bathing every day. "We've never needed to wash less in the developed Western countries, and we've never had more pressure to wash more. If your job is in front of your computer, and if you have a house full of labor-saving devices, you're not scrubbing floors too often, and if you have access to a car or public transit where you live, you're just not sweating the way that people did 50 years ago. But I think the daily bath is almost becoming the minimum. I'm hearing about more and more people who take two showers a day."

Why do we feel the need to be so clean? And isn't it crazy that our germophobia can actually be making us sicker? Save special conditions (camping, Burning Man, traveling in a foreign country), would you be able to start being dirtier in your everyday life? Could you take fewer showers? Ditch the hand sanitizer? Or do you just feel better when you're clean?

The Filthy, Stinking Truth [Salon]

Earlier: How Long Could You Go Without Showering?

Erica Jong Would Rather Be A Lesbian Than A Cougar

Tracie — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Feminist author/sex enthusiast Erica Jong (Fear of Flying) let it all hang out during an episode of the highly addictive and educational podcast series In Bed With Susie Bright this past summer. She was way too TMI (which we love in a gal), talking about how her husband likes getting her pubes stuck in his teeth, how she tried being gay for a little bit, and about how being a cougar isn't really all that.

...one is too wise, by then, to think of it as anything but a zipless fuck. Or a zipless fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck... because you don't want to be their nurse, and you don't want to be their purse.

Their whole conversation is pretty fascinating, as both women have been pretty influential in changing the way we think about women's sexuality. First, Erica, 65, dropped the bomb that she tried being a lesbian when she got older:

Affairs with women seem to proliferate after 50. [And] for a while I thought it would be wonderful to be really gay, and I had some experimental flings with women that I really loved. But then I decided that I was kidding myself — that I wasn't really gay — although I loved these women very much.

She then used the opportunity to hit on Susie, complimenting her on her nice tits and saying, "I've always been tremendously attracted to you." Love. Her. In Bed With Susie Bright 299: Aging Fearlessly With Erica Jong [Susie Bright via 10 Zen Monkeys]