¿Por qué te estás lavando las manos? -Las tengo sucias.

[laepelba]

The answer to that question was: Me estoy lavando las manos porque las tengo sucias.

I am rather confused about the use of the first person for the verb "tener". It would have made more sense to me as: "Me estoy lavando las manos porque las tiene sucias."

I mean, obviously, "tengo" refers to the speaker who is washing his/her hands. But I don't understand why the hands "tengo" the dirtiness.

Also, would it be the same in the following examples??
- Me no estoy lavando las manos porque las tengo limpias.
- (Speaker looking at his/her own hands): "Las manos tengo sucias."

Please explain to me why first person is used here ... and some other examples would help! THANK YOU!!

[Rusty]

tenerlo sucio = to have something dirty

Tengo la cara sucia. = I have a dirty face.
If we know you're talking about a face,
La tengo sucia means the same thing (using a direct object pronoun instead).
In your example, we know that hands is the object, so
Las tengo sucias = I have dirty hands.

No me estoy lavando las manos porque las tengo limpias.
- (Speaker looking at his/her own hands): "Las manos tengo sucias."

[laepelba]

Rusty - I almost changed the "me no" to "no me". Glad you pointed that out. And thanks for that concise explanation. Makes a lot of sense to me now. :)

[lee ying]

Maybe, you can use these examples:
Yo me estoy lavando las manos por que estan sucias: I´m washing me the hands because they are dirties.
Me estoy lavando las manos por que estan sucias. I´m cleaning my hands because they are dirties.
or la que tu dices:
Me estoy lavando las manos por que las tengo sucias:Im wasing my hand because I have hand dirties. AM I RIGHT? *_*

[Tomisimo]

Maybe, you can use these examples:
Yo me estoy lavando las manos por que estan sucias: I´m washing me the hands because they are dirties.
Me estoy lavando las manos por que estan sucias. I'm cleaning my hands because they are dirty.
or la que tu dices:
Me estoy lavando las manos por que las tengo sucias:I'm washing my hands because I have dirty hands. AM I RIGHT? *_*
.....