His therapist then asked him to touch his face, to confront his anxiety about the germs from the washcloth. When she asked him what was on his face, he answered, "Vaginal secretions, vaginal blood, endometriosis, fibroid juice…" (I love "fibroid juice" because it sounds like a supplement my mother would drink to make her poop.)

The guy in the clip is gay, and I'm curious to know if that contributes to how totally freaked out he his by the "tampon residue," or if this is something that would affect a woman or a straight man with OCD. I say this only because I know a few gay guys without OCD who wouldn't want to sit in the bathroom with me and talk about my used tampon.

Russ, an aspiring musical theater actor, developed an attachment to objects after the death of his mother left him without any family, and very few friends. An antiques enthusiast, he compulsively buys memorabilia and pieces of furniture that he can't even access because so much stuff is piled on them. He seems closeted (his clothes, shoes, and other clutter are anything but), and, even though he refers to Rich as his "friend" it's obvious that they actually used to date.

Russ' dream is to get his apartment and life in order, and buy a comfortable chair for Rich to sit on. He thinks this is a way to get Rich back in his life. After Russ completed 12 weeks of therapy for his condition, Rich came over for a visit, and although there was a huge improvement, Rich wasn't all that impressed... in fact, he didn't seem to care for the comfortable chair that Russ purchased.

This seemingly weird behavior originally had a rational basis (a horrible incident involving hot pepper residue), but at this point it's just become a weird tic. Every time I'm about to pee I ask myself, have I touched my feet recently? Have I touched the floor? Have I touched the mail ? (For some reason the mail has always seemed exceptionally filthy to me. An ex of mine once said his hands were probably dirtier than the mail, and I had to immediately put it out of my mind. I could never date a mail carrier.) I wouldn't rub a Wal-Mart circular on my vagina, my thinking goes, so I'd better wash all trace of that circular off my hands before they touch toilet paper that then touches my vagina.

I'm aware that makes me sound kind of insane, and maybe I am, but I'm not an obsessive hand-washer at other times. True, I might be a little more prone to hygiene preoccupations than the average person (which maybe explains why I found Wetlands more liberating and interesting than others did). But I do occasionally eat things off the floor, I will sit on a public toilet without a seat cover, and I certainly never do that thing of opening the restroom door with a paper towel. My theory is that most of us, even if we don't suffer from full-blown OCD, have some weird little cleanliness behaviors we are not totally proud of.

One of my roommates in college wouldn't get into her own bed unless she had thoroughly showered first. Hortense always buys new toilet seats for the bathroom every time she moves, and Katy is "so incredibly paranoid about poison ivy that I wash my legs, feet and hands with dishsoap like every day in the summer." Megan generally doesn't obsess about hygiene, figuring that "daily exposure to a minimal amount of germs keeps my immune system happy," but she does have a system for particularly gross bathrooms: "I kick the seat up with my shoe, pee while squatting, and kick it back down with my shoe." Dodai says, "if a bar bathroom is sketch I try not to touch ANYTHING — don't even wash hands, feeling as though my own urine is sterile but the flush handles/faucet/doorknobs are decidedly not." Sadie is "actually fairly vile" and doesn't worry about any of this shit.

Most of these weird behaviors don't really have a huge impact on our lives. However, I do wonder if living in a culture that pretends perfect hygiene is possible — toilet seat covers, the near-ubiquity of antibacterial soap — leads us to expect a level of cleanliness that's kind of unhealthy. Megan's right — routine exposure to a certain amount of germs is good for (most people's) immune systems, and some people think we might get sick less if we ingested more fecal matter. So whereas it might take me a while to break myself of the double-hand-washing habit (the hot pepper thing really was horrible), it might be smart if we all took a page from Sadie's book and let ourselves get a little more "vile."

• A 31-year-old Iranian, blind from an acid attack by a spurned suitor, is demanding that the judge follow the ancient tradition of "eye for an eye" punishment and blind her attacker. • Bollywood-style dance classes, which mix traditional Indian folk dances with hip-hop moves, are a growing trend in fitness. • Virgin has instituted a "kissing ban" at one of their U.K. train stations because they believe that kissing couples were delaying trains. The introduction of a "kissing zone" outside the station really saps all the romance out of a goodbye kiss. • European medicine watchdogs have concluded that the HPV vaccine Gardasil did not cause seizures and loss of consciousness in two Spanish girls who had just been vaccinated. • New research indicates that physical activity improves the quality of life in postmenopausal women. The study found that women reported better mental health even if they did not lose weight. • This month's E-Poll indicates that women are most likely to make an effort to watch daytime dramas, but they would really miss Judge Judy if her show were to be canceled. • A Valentine's Day Craigslist ad in Texas has been revealed as a prank. The ad, which offered sexual favors to men, showed a photo of a woman named "Jennifer" and promised that she would "moan like Shamu." • UMen, a Middle Eastern men's magazine, recently ran a feature titled "Reasons Why Women Can't Drive." The list of "reasons" included: women have dogs in the front seat (??), and women "lack the driving gene." • Paula Oliveira, the Brazilian woman who was allegedly attacked by Swiss skinheads, has confessed that the entire story was an elaborate lie, complete with self-mutilation. • Doctors hope that a new device, implanted under the skin near the collar bone, will help sufferers of chronic obsessive compulsive disorder by sending pulses of electricity to the brain. • A 20-year-old Kansas City woman was explaining that she no longer loved her ex-boyfriend, only to be interrupted by gunshots. She was unharmed, but police later found the bullet, shot by her ex-boyfriend, tangled in her weave. • China's economic slump has lead many professional Chinese women to seek jobs as maids and nannies. • This Friday will mark the first time women are allowed to compete in ski jumping in the Nordic skiing World Championship. Athletes hope that the Olympic committee will also open the sport to women. •