Survey Shocker: Dirty Underwear Habit Persists

Only two years ago, DW-WORLD.DE reported on a survey about hygiene habits that revealed that over 30 percent of men were letting their shorts do double duty.

Can we trust that a national awakening to the importance of clean undies has really led to this massive improvement? In which case, we say: Keep it up, fellas. After all, 18 percent of you are still walking around in dirty dessous.

Or is there some other explanation behind these wildly varying survey results? Granted, the surveys were carried out by two different organizations. Perhaps the most recent survey by Germany's pharmacy trade publication Apotheken Umschau happened upon a more fastidious cross-section of German males.

Or, more disturbingly, perhaps respondents in the 2004 survey conducted by market research institute Marplan were simply more honest -- which would suggest that German men are just as slovenly as they always were.

In any case, Bild is campaigning for change -- or at least more frequent underwear changes. Rather than simply print the latest survey results and leave readers to wrinkle their noses in disgust, the paper decided that scare tactics are the way to go.

It quoted a reputable urologist who warned that multiple wearings of dirty underpants can lead to chronic infections, abscesses or parasites -- and in the worst case scenario, even cancer of the penis.

If that doesn't bring the percentage of repeat briefs-wearers down to 0.01 percent of German men by the time the next such survey surfaces in two years' time, then we don't know what will.