Is Cleanliness the Most Powerful Taboo?

Nadia Idle, Jem Gilbert and Keir Milburn confront a sensitive topic in this Trip episode about cleanliness, dirt, and the shame and rituals surrounding them, from bathing to bleaching. In the socialist utopia of our dreams, who exactly is doing the cleaning?

With music from X-Ray Spex, The B-52s and more, the gang offer their weird-left perspective on everything from dirty dishes and bodily secretions to circumcision, pollution and the caste system.

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Music: The B-52s – Housework / The Stooges – Dirt / Joshua Idehen – Mum Does the Washing / Bill Anderson – Get A Little Dirt On Your Hands / X-Ray Spec – Germ-Free Adolescence / Scissor Sisters – Filthy Gorgeous / Queen – I Want to Break Free / Vivien Goldman – Launderette /

Books and articles: Mary Douglas – Purity and Danger/ Mariarosa Dalla Costa & Selma James – The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community/ Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek – After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time / Françoise Vergès – Making the World Clean: Wasted Lives, Wasted Environment, and Racial Capitalism / Emma Casey & Jo Littler – How social media cleanfluencers are refashioning the domestic narrative