My girlfriend's grossing me out

              She bathed today! Must be your birthday.

"Sticking It to Courtney Bee"

Your sex and relationship questions answered...cheekily 

 Today's Stinging Question:

Dear Courtney,

I love my girlfriend, so it seemed a natural step to ask her to move in with me after six months of dating. The problem is, once she moved in a certain—and very desirable—level of mystique disappeared. She’ll leave the door open when she goes to the bathroom and try to engage me in long conversations while she takes a deuce. She’s started to burp and even pass gas in front of me (not sexy!). And she’s perfectly content with wearing old, stained t-shirts to bed and shaving her legs for special occasions only. I’m not entirely sure she brushes her teeth anymore! I’m wondering what happened to the feminine, sexy creature I used to date, because right now it feels like I’m shacking up with an old frat buddy. Should I say something, or is it wrong of me to have certain expectations?

—Grossed Out by Girlfriend, Philadelphia, PA

Courtney Bee Takes It:

Dear Grossed Out by Girlfriend,

You poor, poor bastard. It looks like you’re a victim of the bait and switch, where a woman appears one way during the initial dating period, then promptly abandons her feminine efforts, morphs into a henpecker, or gains 200 pounds the moment she realizes you’re not going anywhere. Men are guilty of this, too, and if Lifetime movies have taught me anything, it’s that Rob Lowe might initially appear to be a warm and charming guy at first, but eventually he will beat, rape, or kill you. I repeat: Rob Lowe will beat, rape, or kill you. With your situation, I can practically hear a collective sigh from thousands of female readers, followed by a “Welcome to my world, pal.” Women have complained about slovenly mates since the dawn of time (even cavewomen had their breaking points), and now that you’re living with a bona fide slob, you feel their pain. The first thing to keep in mind is that your partner deserves a reasonable amount of slack when it comes to things like forgoing leg shaving on occasion or wearing slob gear on a PMS day. But throwing hygiene completely out the window and serenading you with bodily noises is a good place to draw the line. And the earlier you draw that line, the better. For all she knows, when she snuggles up next to you at night, her leg hair rustling in the breeze and the night’s dinner still on her breath, you’re loving every minute of it. In your absence of objection, she might have even created a nifty inner dialogue for you that goes something like this: “Man, my girlfriend’s so awesome. She’s like a sexy woodland nymph, all dirt-covered and unkempt. Not many girls have the option of braiding their leg hair, but my gal’s fun and kooky like that. And belching the alphabet right before we make out? Truly there’s no greater turn on.”

Many girls aspire to be the cool “one of the guys” chick that’s perceived as low maintenance and easygoing, so she may simply have gotten carried away in her efforts to get the thumbs up. So how do you point her in the direction of the classy, aromatically pleasing girl you fell in love with? First try positive reinforcement. If she feels like a caressable, silken sex goddess when she shaves her legs for you, she might reach for the razor more often. If she always goes straight to the stained sweatshirts, try telling her that you’ve been fantasizing about how hot she’d look in lacy lingerie. If, however, your encouragement falls upon deaf ears, you’ll need to have a frank heart to heart and tell her the crudity and lack of personal hygiene is making your penis sad. You’ll only have a few chances to make your point before it becomes a dead cause, so be honest, straightforward, and sensitive (no calling her sasquatch or chasing her with deodorant). If she truly cares about the relationship she’ll pony up like the rest of us and do the small daily things that have partner-pleasing effects. And the thunderous belching and farting? If she keeps at it, you can always videotape her and upload it to YouTube. I’m getting tired of Afro Ninja, anyway.

—Courtney Bee