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I think everything smelled bad then. Sewage, animal dung, household and manufacturing refuse, butcher's hazmat ,etc. all dumped onto the streets.
But the civilizations you mentioned used Roman-invented aqueduct systems to transport fresh water to their communities, and a popular past time was going to the "Baths", and "soap" was a rub mixture of aromatic herbs.Communal latrine sewage went into pits that were emptied out regularly by slaves and carted out of the city.
I don't think the poor had such privileges but they did bathe in rivers and lakes etc. I'd hazard a guess most cities were located next to bodies of water.
They nevertheless had lots of children. An average household had 10 members (googled).
I am not trying to generalize but I think we can all agree that people back then had worse hygiene than today. Today we have sanitizers, soap, shampoos and etc. I’m sure these things were available back then as well, but I think getting access to these products was a little more difficult today. Due to poverty and lack of technology.
My question is: How did people have sex back then with such terrible hygiene? Did their body odors of pubes, sweat, etc not turn each other off? Honestly, I can’t stand being around a smelly person for more than 30 seconds. I bet not a lot of people shaved their pubic hair either. The weird thing is that people back then seem more perverted than today. If you look at Ancient Greek, Indian, etc art, it seems pretty sexual.
I heard in ancient Pompeii, people were so sex-obsessed that they had penis-shaped everything. From a random statue on the street, to a painting in the house. Everything has a picture of an erect penis. Is it just me or did people seem more perverted back then? I think the spread of Christianity and Islam has tamed people a little bit ?
There were sex cults. There was an era in which the major religions all had an esoteric side, which involved using sexual energy to to achieve a spiritual bliss state. Buddhism, Hindu traditions, Judaism via the Kaballah (so I'm told), and Islam through Sufism all had that. Some Hindu traditions still do; that was the big secret behind the Yoga movements of the Maharishi, Paramahansa Yogananda, the Hare Krishna movement, and many others. Westerners getting involved in those didn't know, until suddenly abuses started to occur, and anyone complaining was accused of sabotaging the spiritual vibe, and would get kicked out. There were branches of early Christianity that had it in the Gnostic traditions, and later the Moravians practiced "tantric sex". Some of the mystical poets of American literature in the 1800's and later were in on it.
It''s not necessarily a "perverted" thing, if used to catalyze mystical experiences, a way of accessing Divine insight. But of course, it was prone to corruption and could lead to abuses.
What are you -12? Do you not realize there are people that still don't have access to modern hygiene? Yet they still keep having sex.
How do people live with pets in their houses? Some even let them on their furniture. Hair every where. And what about all those unseen germs floating around. And the dust mites that live in your bedding.
And how can people stand to be around babies? They smell of burps and poop. Clean them up and here it comes again. They drool and slobber and snot comes out their nose.
People adjust to their living conditions. Live on a dairy or pig farm - it reeks. Life is messy. Get over yourself.
And none of those situations are considered "intimate" so that is a difference. It is a major turn-off if you want to get intimate with someone and you get a whiff of a stinky armpit or stinky "down there".
Well, James Brown invented first Sex Machine in 1970, it was barefoot and put out 2 buckets of sweat per day, I'm sure it smelled pretty bad. A new and improved Love Machine came along in 1976, and became a top seller. With the addition of Farrah Fawcett that year, we had reached peak sex in America, which lasted thru Brooke Shields, Madonna and Cindy Crawford. With the introduction of nose rings, tattoos, short hair and Dennis Rodman in the 90's, the Golden Era Of American Sex, had come to an end. We lost our #1 position and have never recovered.
I've also wondered, where did they find the place to do it? After all, a lot of people had large families that lived in one room shacks...
I think I know the answer, and I shiver just thinking about it...
Yep, sex in common areas for all to see.
Remember that people used to want kids. 10 kids. 20 kids. Half of all kids died from childhood diseases, so if you had 12 kids, you got 6 teenagers who were slave labor to work the farm. Today we think of kids as a drain on our wealth. Back then, the more kids you had the more wealthy you got, because you had a ready and growing source of slave labor for the farm or shop.
I used the term "slave labor" loosely but it was still free labor costing nothing but food and clothing. The more kids, the more output, the more money you collected.
Nobody didn't want healthy kids and pumped out as many as possible as fast as they could. Crippled kids? That is different. They were left to the wolves and such, being considered devil possessed and whatnot.
And none of those situations are considered "intimate" so that is a difference. It is a major turn-off if you want to get intimate with someone and you get a whiff of a stinky armpit or stinky "down there".
The "ancients" didn't have the dislike for body odors that you have.
And none of those situations are considered "intimate" so that is a difference. It is a major turn-off if you want to get intimate with someone and you get a whiff of a stinky armpit or stinky "down there".
Uh it's pretty normal, a lot of sweat and body fluids get generated and it's just normal not a turn-off unless someone has a really excessive amount of bacteria or issues, but as long as everyone is clean, natural smells should not a turnoff. Part of the glands function was/is actually to attract mates but we got used to artifical tastes and smells and told what was supposed to be good/bad, clean/unclean. In the 50s women were told to douche with Clorox, it was marketed to women and advertised as one of it's purposes.
We need to get away from this idea that natural bodies and scents are gross. No not unbathed smell, but trying to shame and rid ourselves of normal smells is kind of silly, especially if we are engaged in close contact that makes us heat up and sweat, yes sweat smells like sweat and the places there are more sweat glands release more odors. No wonder people can't date anymore.
Uh it's pretty normal, a lot of sweat and body fluids get generated and it's just normal not a turn-off unless someone has a really excessive amount of bacteria or issues, but as long as everyone is clean, natural smells should not a turnoff. Part of the glands function was/is actually to attract mates but we got used to artifical tastes and smells and told what was supposed to be good/bad, clean/unclean. In the 50s women were told to douche with Clorox, it was marketed to women and advertised as one of it's purposes.
We need to get away from this idea that natural bodies and scents are gross. No not unbathed smell, but trying to shame and rid ourselves of normal smells is kind of silly, especially if we are engaged in close contact that makes us heat up and sweat, yes sweat smells like sweat and the places there are more sweat glands release more odors. No wonder people can't date anymore.
You and Dr. Oz can believe that if you want! Just because something seems “normal”, doesn’t mean it will be widely “acceptable”. And that goes for everything in this world! Let’s just agree to say “to each his own”.
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