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 By nearly all standards, except French ones, my personal hygiene is not real hot. Here in Brazil, I bathe more than I did in the United States because this is the tropics. But I hardly treat the outside of my body as though it were my temple. Why? I rebel against common hygienic practices, which I find either superfluous or excessive.
I don't use deodorant because my Brazilian wife swears that I don't smell. And she should know. I don't always use soap in the shower either. Sometimes I just run hot water over my body to relax and massage it. My wife calls my opting not to use soap in the only situation where I can a missed opportunity.
For hygienic reasons, I wash my hands with soap before eating and cooking. By this logic, I should also wash them before urinating. A Rio de Janeiro friend told me that husbands who wash their hands both before and after urinating show a more profound love for their wives than those who just wash them afterwards.
But such Michael Jackson hygiene would require my washing my hands twice in a two-minute period numerous times each day, something my wife knows is too much to expect. As it is, I wash them after peeing more out of habit than hygiene. Why? Peeing doesn't get my hands dirty. This hand-wash habit originates from the archaic, but still widespread belief that, because sex is dirty, so is your penis. So touching "it" gets your hands dirty.
Money also gets your hands dirty. But Brazilians feel that money is a lot dirtier than, say, Americans do. When dining out, they don't pay a bill in cash until they've finished eating.
When once I broke this rule - while devouring a sandwich without a napkin (I'm American) - my wife nearly fainted. Brazilian essayist Millôr has defined money as being dirty and ugly, giving it much in common with how many, if not most, people still regard their genitals.
This "dirty" connection between "moolah" and genitalia helped me understand why a PT aide implicated in the "mensalão," the PT vote-buying scandal and detained at an airport, had stashed $100,000 in his stretch underwear. For me, that improvised money pouch was not a hygienic misstep.
After all, if both your money and your penis are dirty, why can't they keep each other company? Putting dirty things together in one compact space is a universal practice. It's why we have hampers (for dirty clothes), sinks (for dirty dishes) and cans (for garbage).
My personal hygiene fits my not overly septic home. When I walk in the door, I don't have to take off my shoes, Japanese style, or take off my street clothes before lying on my bed, if it has a bedspread, or brush the dust off the soles of my feet before going to bed. But home life isn't paradise. When my wife asks me to take off my clothes it's usually to put them in the washing machine.
She doesn't complain, however, when I come home with soft, white, tufts of down from my parrot that clings to both sides my neck. She sheds them during her days spent switching from one shoulder to the other as I sit at my computer.
This feathery female lives in my office because its rivalry with my wife - both of whom have monogamous ties to me - is so fierce that they must be kept at least two blocks apart. My wife puts up with the parrot's down - which reminds her of another woman's lipstick on my collar - provided I take a bath as soon as I come home.
Some of my wife's friends chide her for being too tolerant of my lax hygienic habits. And while she knows I could be cleaner, to the naked eye - a thankfully imprecise instrument - I don't look dirty. So she leaves me in peace. It's part of her policy to pick her fights with me carefully - a sensible one in any war, including that between the sexes.
Michael Kepp is an American journalist who has lived in Brazil for the last 21 years and who has written for Time, Newsweek and many other U.S. publications. He is the author of the book of crônicas Sonhando com Sotaque – Confissões e Desabafos de um Gringo Brasileiro. For more information on the author and book consult www.michaelkepp.com.br.
This article was originally published by daily newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
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