“So a whore’s bath, it sounds funny but it means I don’t have time to take a shower but I’ll just douse myself in perfume, maybe some deodorant. Ya you put on ALOT of perfume and it’s funny because people think you smell really great but you haven’t even showered! So back in the olden day I guess it just meant, I don’ think people could really shower that often and they just had oils and aromas so that’s probaly where it came from historyically. But i learned it from my cousin Neghan. She’s Megan with an ‘H’. I don’t know if this really adds to the story but she’s the one who was my fake ID when I was younger so she was like my cool cousin. I was fake 24 for a real long time. She was my older cousin and older is therefore cool. She always said whore’s bath but I never knew what it was. Some of my other cousins said it too and my Aunt Yaya too. Aunt Yaya smoked alot of grass. *laughs*. I heard this term growing up but now as a 22 year old who is far less ashamed to ask a question, we were in Vegas, cuz we were driving across the country. And in Vegas you don’t have alot of time for showering and so she suggested that I take a ‘whore’s bath’ and I said ‘Well i don’t really know what that means.’ I may have also been a little intoxicated. She said ‘Just throw on a bunch of perfume and some deodorant and go!’ So that’s how I learned about it and I do it all the time *laughs*.”

I personally had never heard of this term. I did some research but I didn’t find anything concrete. It means different things to different people. For some it is similar to a sponge bath. For others it is to only clean the ‘critical’ areas, especially after sexual intercourse. There are several other variations on the definition.

I thought that the inclusion of perfume in my participants definition was interesting. Perfume is often used to heighten physical attraction and to attract a mate. Due to the sexual nature of the use of perfume or even more so the pronounced use of it can be associated with prostitutes.

Also, I found it notable that her use of “whore’s bath” was light and playful in nature. I would assume that even a few decades ago if someone had used the word ‘whore’ towards a women in any way it would be considered an insult. I think this points to the overtly sexual nature of American culture, where women call each other whore’s jokingly and do not use the word in a literal sense and maybe even in a complimentary way.