Toothbrush Intimacy?

This is Master's toothbrush. Mine is the same except that it is pink or red or some shade in between the two.

In the last little while, He seems to have become confused about which is which and, on a pretty regular basis, He grabs mine and uses it. That really does "tweak" me at a very basic level. I have to stop and think about it and talk to myself to find the place where it is really just OK for us to be sharing a toothbrush. I find that interesting and curious. After all, we share a good bit more intimately than the mutual use of a single toothbrush, so why fuss about it?

I'm quite sure that my gut level response is all about years of indoctrination in the "germ theory" of disease. The house in which I grew up was fanatic about toothbrush privacy. We didn't share -- we never even let the various toothbrushes come in contact with one another. It would have been the ultimate "gross out."

As I think about it, and I'll admit this is likely not the sort of thing most people contemplate deeply, I also am aware that within the context of my M/s lifestyle, ownership of something even as simple as a toothbrush is questionable. A point of nit-picking philosophical discourse perhaps...

I was curious about if/how others might view this particular set of intimate boundaries, and so I went back to my old friend, Google. Check out these links:

Intimate Gestures and Habits
Mouth Rules
Answer Bag
The Toothbrush Holder Tells All


So... clearly, others have contemplated the significance of toothbrushes in relationship. I didn't find any specific discussions of toothbrushes as symbols or tokens of power-dynamics. There is plenty of information about electric toothbrushes as scene toys, but no sense of how they might be shared within these dynamics. Anyone care to share?

swan