Foreword
A Girl’s Guide to Personal Hygiene began when I overheard two girls talking about a friend of theirs. When this friend had been on tour with the rugby team at her university, she’d drunkenly “done a shit in the sink.” “Ew, gross,” said one of the girls to the other. “She’s not a girl if she did that. She may have a vagina, but she’s not a girl.” I thought that was pretty funny. I wondered how many things I had done that would make me not a girl in their eyes. And what about my girlfriends? I set up a Facebook group to find out what disgusting things everyone had done, intending to make a small book out of the stories. It wasn’t just nosiness. I’d realized that most of the pressure to behave in a certain feminine way comes from other women. If we could admit that we are pretty gross—though not all of us have gone as far as that rugby player—maybe we could relax a little.
But the seeds of the project were sown earlier, with Wetlands by Charlotte Roche. “Read this,” said a friend. “It’ll make you feel like a prude.” I did; it did. In the novel, the protagonist, Helen, is stuck in the hospital following some anal pube–trimming gone wrong, and if that makes you squirm, just you wait. Helen unabashedly revels in all her crevices and odors. I’d rarely even heard anyone say “discharge,” and here was Helen joyfully wiping hers in public places for the pleasure of knowing it would get on someone’s hands. It was a revelation. It didn’t make me want to go smearing my bodily fluids out in the world, but I became aware of things I do that I keep secret for fear of being improper. I’d been indoctrinated into being uncomfortable with my own body. We’re told to take care of our “lady gardens” with a delicate “intimate wash,” destroying all our lovely self-cleaning systems in the process, and—as Helen would say—getting rid of the attractive personal wafts that tingle the nostrils of admirers. Girls who think we should smell floral, I decided, aren’t having much fun.
The response to the Facebook group was amazing. At first we were tentative, but soon it turned into this huge repulsive outpouring. I almost wished I could close the lid again. There were stories that made defecating in a sink seem like a pretty polite thing to do. Where’s your modesty, girls? went a voice in my head, probably the voice of the teacher who told my date at the school disco to take his hands off my bum. Sure, the voice went, we’re all human, but do we need to shout about it? And while I admired people’s honesty, it was another thing for it to be my own project. I’d meet friends of friends who knew of the group, and they’d start going into detail about the last time they shat themselves in public. Nice to meet you, too, I’d think, but we’re at the pub. Can I drink my beer and not talk about poo for a minute? Just because I started this damn thing doesn’t mean I’m hungry for poo stories. I’m not making this book to fill a gap in my bookshelf, because nobody was writing about my favorite topic, personal hygiene.
I have a tendency to birth ideas and then abandon them. Like the goat farm I was going to set up with my sister. We made a list of appropriate goat names, from Abigail to Priscilla, and that was where it ended. No doubt the Girl’s Guide would have gone the same way if it weren’t for the collective enthusiasm of the other girls who were taking part. They gave me confidence, and I didn’t want to let them down. I’d been made uncomfortable in my new position as a receptacle for other people’s dirty stories, but it was exactly that sense of shame I wanted to combat. I began to like the new conversations we were having in the pub about what made women feminine and what an equivalent book would be for men. And the group evolved on its own, becoming something more than just an outlet for long-buried atrocities. We started asking questions—“PLEASE, IS IT JUST ME?!!!”—and offering helpful hints about things like those new period pants I’ve yet to try.
The responsibility I felt toward the other girls was also a burden. What had begun as a tiny idea was becoming unwieldy and public and a little bit scary. I enlisted the help of my friend James, a graphic designer. We’d wanted to make a book together for a while, but due to the aforementioned habit of carelessly ditching ideas, I’d never managed to give him any material. Now I needed him to relieve some of the pressure on me and provide another perspective. James is a very clean person, as many designers tend to be, and his enthusiasm reassured me I wasn’t making something so obscene I’d be hounded from society. We chose which stories to publish together, gravitating toward habits and private routines over anecdotes. Accidents happen to us all; no surprises there. I wanted to hear the things girls do but usually hide from everyone, even in our climate of public sharing. It was interesting to see which stories we each found unendurable. James was made faint by the one about freely bleeding into your pants, which didn’t bother me at all. I was more disturbed by people eating their own toenails. James made sure we chose stories of varying length and tone, while I looked out for ones that would make good illustrations.
Starting the drawings was a whole new kettle of fish. Originally I’d envisioned little cartoons, drawn over the course of one afternoon. But now that people were paying attention, that didn’t feel appropriate. Women had taken time to write their confessions in funny and interesting ways; I wanted my drawings to live up to the stories. After the usual procrastination period of several months, I started laboring over sticky pen-and-ink drawings and meticulous collages, trying to be “professional.” The Girl’s Guide was never meant to be professional, though, and it was when I returned to what I love best—drawing quickly and easily with my fountain pen, no drafts or second thoughts—that it came together. It’s funny how long it takes to learn that what comes naturally is the good stuff.
The first incarnation of the project was a small zine with twenty illustrated stories, risograph-printed by Hato Press in London. We launched it with an exhibition at a youth center in Bristol in the U.K. I hoped teenagers would read the stories and learn early on that girls can be gross, and that’s all right. Get ’em while they’re young. It’s probably too late for my grandmother; she came to the launch, beautifully dressed for the occasion, but I’m sadly never going to hear the word “discharge” pass her lips. My favorite response to the show was from an eighteen-year-old boy: “It’s such a relief. I’m moving in with three girls next year, and now I know they’re human, too.”
Now the book is much longer and fuller than the original zine, and I’m interested to see how the Girl’s Guide fares with a new audience. It’s one thing to have interest and support from like-minded girls in England, with our history of toilet humor, but will it cross the pond? That remains to be seen. The stories in this book are honest and open reports but from only a tiny subset of women. I wanted us to feel comfortable sharing and talking online, so I kept the group private: No boys allowed! This let the conversation be free and gave a sense of solidarity, as if we belonged to a special club of women. But it also shut the group off to women outside my limited social circle. This edition of the book gained a broader range once we enabled anonymous submissions, but it’s still a much narrower representation than it could be.
We still use the Facebook group, sharing the joys of snot bubbles and the woes of the copper coil, and I’ve been rendered fairly unshockable. I’m hairy all over, and have quite a distant relationship with deodorant, but I feel more feminine than ever, and no longer at odds with my own body. Maybe you’ll feel that too, after reading. Or maybe you’ll just have a laugh. I hope you enjoy the helpful hints enclosed in these pages, and if we meet at a party, feel free to unburden yourself of your most recent poo story.
tallulah pomeroy