Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

"A typical day for me begins with reading a book in my bathtub. That's right, Gunny reads in the bath---got a problem with that, moron?" -- R. Lee Ermey

There's an unjust stereotype out there that taking a bath is a woman's activity. The popular image of the bath-taker is of a female, partially submerged under a fluffy layer of white bubbles, half-smiling, eyes closed, aromatherapy candles burning, Enya on the CD player, and perhaps a little showerhead-to-crotch action down below. But this is not the only reality. Some of the manliest men in the world enjoy baths, including former Marine drill instructor, R. Lee Ermey, better known as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the movie Full Metal Jacket. And my grandfather never stepped foot into a shower after 30 years in the Navy. If he was going to get clean, he wasn't going to do it on his feet, dammit. That's for Navy life---a bath is the only way to go for the civilian man.

The image of the bathtub being womanly is further evidence of the grip that femininity has on our culture. Most marketing of domestic products is meant to satisfy a woman. And a typical woman uses a whole array of frou-frou products when she bathes. But when a man takes a bath these products aren't used, so no market-driven manly image of the bath-taking experience exists in the modern imagination.

The bathtub is ours, brothers. It's the regular man's jacuzzi. The drudgery of every day life is erased for 30 minutes and your manly-ass self is made whole again. It's time to take the bathtub back from the pussies who took it from us.