Because of “big toilet paper”. They even tried to assassinate a spokesperson for japanes toilets.
Holy shit? Do you have a source for that because damn. It’s something I would expect though.
Honestly I wouldn’t even be surprised if Procter and Gamble did that shit lol
Today you have the bidets you can install on your toilet, but traditionally they were a thing on its own, that required about as much space as a toilet and all the extra pipework associated with it.
In some European/ Mediterranean countries (I suspect France may have started the trend) this caught on well, and bidets were a must have in most houses that had toilets as part of their main architectural structure. Most people in South America had bidets this way, it’s rare to see a house without at least one bidet, and this comes from the culture inherited from colonial times .
Now, things are different in othe parts of the world. England seems to traditionally have the toilet separate from the house and for some reason the bidet trend never caught on. This is in turn reflected both in USA and Australia. I don’t know about bidet popularity across all of Europe, but this is definitely a cultural thing and I suspect distance and language may have kept UK without bidets until relatively recently. And as you know, old habits die hard, so… Yeah in Australia I use the shower.
in Italy, there is literally a law obligating houses to have a bidet. the separated from the toilet kind.
the separated from the toilet kind.
I don’t understand how those work at all…seems like that would be a recipe for poop tracks from the toilet.
well… it is time to explain to an internet stranger how we clean our bum.
- you shit on the toilet
- you wipe with tp one or two times
- get up, sit on the bidet
- water, soap on the hand, and you scrub your ass with your hand, no this is not gay
- go again with water and soap until you feel your ass is clean
- dry with a small towel
the towel is generally personal, and we change it every couple of days.
That would never fly in the US. They complain about water usage so much that they regulate shower heads so that they barely drip water, and toilets so that they don’t have enough water to flush solid waste. The bidet would just blow the regulators’ heads with all the water usage.
Which would be short sightedness on their part, since bidets actually save water in the long run by reducing TP usage
not surprised that Italy (who has a history of fascism and from what I heard currently has a fascist leader) has an authoritarian law requiring that people do things in their own homes (kinda like some HOAs in the US. Although, I have to admit, we must have lucked out with a HOA that’s not one of the shitty ones you always hear about)
Yeah! Fucking fascists and their safety and building codes. Don’t even get me started on smoke detector and fire codes. Goddamn government always trying to keep slumlords down.
“Hey you need to build the house with these features in order for it to be approved”
“Wuh what??? This is literally fascism”
brit here.
can confirm. i sit on the side of the bath and wash my arse with the shower. The only house i have seen in the UK with a bidet was essentially a mansion
England seems to traditionally have the toilet separate from the house and for some reason the bidet trend never caught on
Uh… wut?
The UK has lots of old housing stock, built before the concept of indoor plumbing, so there was nowhere to put a toilet in lots of properties when they started to become a thing, hence you’d put it seperate from the house in an outhouse style set-up. We also lost less of the country to warfare during the two wars so didn’t have to rebuild whole cities, so the conversion to move those toilets inside was still going on as we moved to the later half of the 20th century. My old man didn’t have an indoor toilet in his childhood home until he was a teenager, he was born in the late 50s.
You still go to pubs these days that are old enough that the loos are disconnected from the main building as they’ve been there for so many years.
I live in the UK and nothing you’ve said here is congruent with my experience. I don’t recall ever being in any building whatsoever that had no indoor toilet, including pubs.
there was
In the past. A long way in the past.
as we moved to the later half of the 20th century
The move to the later half of the 20th century was 70 years ago.
This must specifically be like, row homes, right? Where it’s too tightly packed to fit a new room.
It’s not like houses here in sweden are brand spanking new and yet they all have toilets nowadays even if some of them are ancient.
This what I’ve been told- I’ve never been to England, my understanding is that back in the day this was the way especially for suburban and farmland, and that that’s why many old Australian houses still have the toilet separate. Obviously this doesn’t apply to dense or modern areas.
Lol. Out of ALL the European countries to pick as example, you chose the worst.
France definitely does not like bidets and French will even ask you why even bother having one, assuming they even know what it’s for.
Try again with Italy. Basically every household has one.
The utopian city of Atlantis sunk due to bidet overuse.
No one understands what a bidet really is.
In the old days, they were a separate free-standing device. Not a lot of people have space or money to add one of these types of bidets to their bathrooms
Now they make them as toilet seat attachments that don’t require extra space and really aren’t that expensive.
But people don’t know. Older people will be like, “Oh a bidet? No I don’t want another toilet like device in my bathroom”
So that gets rid of all those people.
Next you have the people that know about the new style bidets that’s just a fancy toilet seat.
Their biggest deterrent is probably cold water. Spraying cold water on their butt doesn’t appeal to most people.
You can get bidets that heat the water, but you have to have power behind your toilet, which not everyone has.
Then you have older people that just can’t work them or don’t feel like they can. Like my grandfather, I installed one with all the bells and whistles for him. Yet hitting a button and doing all that was too complicated. He was 90+ and could barely use a cell phone for basic functions. But he’d rather wipe his butt like he knew than mess with the “complicated” bidet.
Eventually everyone is going to own a bidet, it really is the way to go.
We just aren’t there yet.
For me it’s because I have had to suffer from UTI’s before and I don’t want to risk some stream of water blowing bacteria into my vagina and then I gotta pee every five seconds and wait for a damn doctor visit because for some fucking reason UTI meds aren’t over the counter where I live.
I can buy the UTI “pain reliever” over the counter but it just temporarily fixes the pain, and the UTI of course continues. Pretty fucking pointless.
Well, for starters, you don’t pee from your vagina. You could get a yeast infection, yes, but that’s a different issue.
That said, if your bidet is angled so it’s hitting your vagina or, especially, your urethra, it’s likely not installed correctly or you’re sitting way far back on your toilet.*
- There are bidets you can get with the option to angle for washing period blood away, but they tell you in the instructions to wash your butt first so that you don’t get bacteria into your vagina, and you also don’t need to use that function either. I never found it super useful myself, so I’d recommend the cheaper version without that function these days.
Well, for starters, you don’t pee from your vagina.
why are you explaining that to me, a woman with a vagina.
I’m aware of that.
Weird, in my current country bidet is in widespread usage and I haven’t known anyone getting a UTI from bidet usage.
You could just find one with low pressure. You don’t need a high power jet.
Simply soaking your crack with water and wiping is a big help.
I’ve never heard of your problem, though, so it’s an interesting point. I know some bidets even have intended settings to wash your front as a woman.
I have a seat one that only does cold water and it hits different in the summer honestly. Sometimes you just need a splash of cold water in your asshole to keep going.
Cold water, yeah in winter in Canada your cold water is something like 1°C (33°F), not a pleasant thing
If the water in your pipes is that cold, you’re likely looking at a burst pipe issue anyway
Water doesn’t have to be 0°C (32°F) to freeze.
Depending on your elevation, it can change.
If the water in your pipes is even close to 1°C you have a serious problem.
You can also hook a bidet to your hot water line
The first bit of water will be wall temperature water and it will take a bit to fully warm up because you have to clear out the lines (some bidets will drain the first bit of water before squirting you)
There are a large number of Americans that think:
- Anything touching them there makes them gay - still not sure how your hand and TP is any different
- It will hurt - yeah… IDK
- It’s gross, or it doesn’t get you clean - uh…wiping some paper on it does? how???
Some american men refuse to touch their own penis while washing, due to a fear of it making them gay. I’d tell them they need therapy, but they’d tell me that therapy is for the weak.
I only have anecdotes, but as an American, it’s #1. It was my initial off the cuff thought. Buttholes are verboten here. Full stop.
There are valid concerns with regard to bidet use. They do result in aerosolized particulates in greater number than results from wiping, which means you are literally breathing more feces.
Is it enough to be problematic? Probably not, but that may also depend on how aggressively/frequently you use them.
See also:
- Ali, Wajid, et al. “Comparing bioaerosol emission after flushing in squat and bidet toilets: Quantitative microbial risk assessment for defecation and hand washing postures.” Building and Environment 221 (2022): 109284.
- Abney, S. E., et al. “Toilet hygiene—review and research needs.” Journal of Applied Microbiology 131.6 (2021): 2705-2714.
