aaskew42

warlocksexalways:

There isn’t much I can say about what might or might not be true in Asia for disabled and homeless people, since you’re a resident there and I’m not.

But in America, people have been physically assaulted for their body odor. And a person should not have to disclose their disability status in order to be given a “free pass” for what condition their body is in. If anything, disclosure would make things far worse. If the default assumption is that someone CAN bathe, and simply chooses not to, that’s ableism and classism because it ignores the reasons why some people can’t. Assuming that someone is part of the norm without evidence is pretty typical of -isms. And even outside of those reasons, people can still smell regardless of how often they bathe, sometimes because of hormones, or other bodily things.

I think hygiene taboos in general are very ableist because they reflect a horror and disgust of the body and illness that feels very manufactured and inauthentic to me. I think it arises from people trying to sell us cleaning products, and I think it arises from fear of disease. The idea that if you simply wash something enough, you won’t ever get sick, is a false idea that  promotes false feelings of safety. It goes hand in hand with the idea that if you simply eat enough fruits and vegetables, you’ll never get sick.

I also suspect that you might still be generalizing, because there are a lot of things “decent people” would not do, but time and again mostly “decent people” do them anyway.

I’d also like to apologize for how grumpy I started off this conversation. It was after 200 or so notes of people talking about how much they’d like to punch me or accusing me of being crust punk. (I didn’t even know what crust punk was when I wrote it.)

apology accepted, thanks.

1. physical assault for anything, let alone something as unworthy of it as body odour, is way out of line. I have never known anyone to get assaulted for that alone; perhaps I have too much faith in humanity, but I’d think that there had to be something else going on in order for that to happen, like the assaulter being drunk or with other issues of their own. :/

2. I can’t speak for others, but in my case I have asthma, am hypersensitive to smell (I can’t even be around a strongly-perfumed person without finding it hard to breathe), and strong smells can literally make me sick. Those reasons are what lead to my aversion of people who smell bad - I will move away because the alternative is respiratory problems, which are not fun. Regarding hygiene, I have a poor immune system and get sick easily, which makes me reflexively avoid anyone who is either being visibly ill or look that they have poor hygiene. Yes, this sometimes ends up disproportionately targetting those who are poor and/or disabled, but it’s a necessary evil in this case. I suffered through tuberculosis a few years ago, after catching it from someone in public, and it’s since made me automatically wary of anyone who’s coughing, for example. I’d love to be polite and not move away, but if being polite means potentially ending up in hospital for a few months, then probably not.

I think that’s one of the things that got people riled up in the comments - the fact that putting blame on people who for health or other reasons are averse to bad body odour is in itself ableist, and something that is much less likely to be the result of choice. But I’d have the basic decency to not be rude about it to them, and definitely never assault them. But that’s for a stranger. If it were a friend, I might comment, and expect them to say something if it were indeed something they can’t help, because I’d expect them to do the same with me.

(also, smells are stronger in humid tropical climates like where I live; I find that in temperate countries, they don’t bother me as much nor seem as suffocating.)

I wish I could do more without causing further emotional harm to myself, because every time I venture into the fray it leaves me exhausted and with a greatly diminished self-esteem that takes ages to recover from, and my therapist and others have suggested that I don’t place that obligation on myself to be an activist. And I was doing okay with that for a while, but then this issue cropped up again and now it’s all over the place, and it’s had for me to maintain the illusion that the majority of people in my country aren’t disgusted (or worse) by people like me, because people are being really vocal about that, at least online. And it’s hard to just sit here and do nothing.

I wish that there could be less miscommunication and misunderstanding in the world.

I wish that people would be nicer to each other.

I wish we could have peace.

warlocksexalways:

That isn’t what I meant to say, and I apologize if that’s how I worded it. I was trying to list some reasons why it CAN be hard, it wasn’t supposed to be like “this thing ALWAYS makes it hard.” The example I used was a specific one that an autistic person listed elsewhere. And… I’m not really sure what to say about ‘the vast majority of people who don’t bathe’. Because everyone I’ve met in public who seemed like they don’t bathe has been homeless, and that’s my experience. And it’s also my experience with my own life, and a good portion of my mentally ill friends. It’s common enough among mentally ill people that it shows up in diagnostic criteria.

I just don’t find it very useful to say ‘well not ALL disabled people are smelly and gross’ when it would be better if people would be less judgmental and shitty about the hygiene issues. I mean, the former statement is obviously true! But it comes off more like someone is trying to peel off a bullseye target and throw it on someone else, when we should be disarming our opponents. Or in other words, trying to sound like a more acceptable disabled person, when we should be trying to broaden people’s views of what’s acceptable. Does that make sense?

Issues with hygiene are not a universal problem for disabled people, but it’s enough of one for enough of us that it’d be nice if people acknowledged that instead of harping about their right to not smell you or whatever. No one says you can’t be bothered by it, just don’t treat people like shit.

thanks, that’s a bit clearer. I’m going to go off cultural/geographic differences here - I’m in Asia, where personal hygiene is a pretty big thing, and that plus the climate means that I don’t know anyone personally who doesn’t bathe at least once a day, unless they’re being lazy or trying to make some kind of statement. People stink fairly often because of the climate, and these are usually regular people with no difficulty taking a shower. (and even when you are depressed, the amount of stink that would be otherwise generated is usually enough to drive even the most depressed person into the shower.) When others point it out, it’s very often meant as helpful advice rather than insult, and said advice is often taken. If someone told me I stink I’d just go shower a second time, and wouldn’t think of it as body-shaming in any way. The main reason why I don’t regularly shower twice a day is partly laziness and partly not wanting to waste water.

We have close to no homeless people (there’s subsidised government housing available), and while I’m aware that many of them probably don’t get to bathe often, I doubt any decent person would think of insulting them about it because that would be evidently mean. The same would go if they are aware that the person might have some kind of disability, but even then, it would still be meant as helpful advice, and I think that - among people who get criticised for it - the cases of people not showering because of laziness far outnumber those who don’t shower because of invisible disabilities and limitations. I mean, homeless/very poor people usually look that way, and maybe it’s just where I live, but I’ve never seen anyone shout, “hey, you smell!” at a homeless person, and if I did I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t think too well of them.

and if you can’t shower or have problems doing so because of solid reasons, then if you just said so, most people would accept that and stop criticising you for it. If they don’t, then they’re jerks. But the vast majority of such criticism is given out with the assumption that the target is fully capable of taking a shower, and if someone doesn’t meet that assumption, they’d be excluded. Such that I don’t see how the solution is to stop people from ever criticising someone else’s body odour, because in most cases something can be done about it, and other people’s comfort is important too. I know I wouldn’t want people keeping silent if I smell really bad and am disrupting their peace; I’d much rather they said something, and I think the same is true for most others.