What Ancient Romans Used Instead of Toilet Paper

http://nautil.us/blog/what-ancient-romans-used-instead-of-toilet-paper

by dnetesn • 7 years ago

181 202 7 years ago

speakeron• 7 years ago

Speaking of which, it’s high time that we consider changing how we clean ourselves after we use the toilet. Tersorium, anyone?

Rather than the Tersorium (basically a shitty sponge), the answer is the bidet or the bidet shower[1] which is common in the Middle East and Asia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower

bangonkeyboard2• 7 years ago

Just two degrees of click separation to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_stick

whenchamenia2• 7 years ago

That was way more enlightening than a wiki page on excement wands ought to be. A gem hidden in the muck so to speak.

rayiner6• 7 years ago

When we moved from Bangladesh to the US in the late 1980s, there were a couple of things that made us go “WTF?” One was the taste of chicken. In Bangladesh, you go buy a scrawny live chicken from the market and butcher it. It took me the better part of a year to be able to stomach American chicken, which tastes like wet cardboard in comparison. The other “WTF” thing was toilet paper. In Bangladesh, you rinse with water and soap after doing your business. The idea of just dry wiping was...

(To this day, whenever I go to Japan and sit on a bidet, I can’t help but think “ahh, civilization.”)

nerdponx• 7 years ago

American chicken taste like that because it's raised in a cage, fed nutritionless corn, and bred for sheer size. It's not worth eating.

yial2• 7 years ago

Having just recently returned from Kolkata, India ... I agree the chicken tastes so much different, and better.

The bananas too ! No comparison to the bananas in the US.

selimthegrim2• 7 years ago

What else suffers in comparison? The fruit?

buf• 7 years ago

I imported a Toto Washlet from Japan for this very reason. When you get literal shit on your hands, do you wipe it, or wash it? Why is your ass different?

cortic2• 7 years ago

I'll tell you the difference since you asked; If you wanted to eat a hamburger, and i handed it to you with my hand.. you would eat it...

I really hope i don't need to finish that thought for you.

I swear this is where the saying 'Don't know your arse from your elbow' comes from.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

Why is your ass different?

I don't go around touching people with it, or eating food; it's enclosed in fabric. That same fabric also makes it harder to fully air dry, which can be uncomfortable.

AngryData2• 7 years ago

If I got shit on my hands I would do significantly more than spray it with a bidet.

FabHK3• 7 years ago

True.

Many things are becoming more and more homogenous globally - but I found that weddings, funerals, and indeed toilets appear to be somewhat resistant to that creeping homogenisation.

Many regions don't really use toilet paper, such as Iran, parts of Indonesia, etc. Personally, I like to have it handy, though in case of emergency pages from a Lufthansa flight plan work (try that with an iPad... (and yes, flight plans were printed and freely distributed decades ago)).

More importantly though, many many regions provide an opportunity to wash with water, either via a separate bidet, or built into the toilet ("washlet", as famously in Japan), or with a hose (bidet shower) next to the toilet. A revelation.

If you think about it, using only dry toilet paper is really rather primitive and disgusting. When I build a house, it'll have a German washing machine and dryer (maybe Korean), and a Japanese toilet.

jayalpha2• 7 years ago

Does a bidet really clean you?

Did you buy one in the states?

rayiner6• 7 years ago

Yes, it’s a nice high pressure jet of warm water. At least in Tokyo, toilet paper is also provided, and you can double check by wiping after. They’re definitely going in when we redo the bathrooms in our house.

lostmsu2• 7 years ago

I started using integrated bidet after the last move within US last year. The previous owners had that installed. It is great! Don't think you need to use wipes after.

F00Fbug• 7 years ago

Absolutely... cleaner than TP will ever get you! Usually, a 30-second blast is all it takes.

$35 on Amazon. Worth every penny!

astazangasta2• 7 years ago

Seriously. Especially camping, where the choices are: carry around TP and then some used TP, or, just use water.

blub3• 7 years ago

According to the book "How to shit in the woods", the most environmentally friendly thing to do when camping is to collect your poop and take it with you. So you can take your TP with you also.

seattle_spring2• 7 years ago

I sure hope you're not suggesting that you wash your poop into a river or other natural body of water.

throwmex• 7 years ago

As an Indian, I too had this WTF moment. It makes me wonder why paper is still used in the western world. Makes one wonder if there is a TP lobby out there ? We used to make jokes what if a TP user have diarrhea, how many trees will that be ?

If a bird shits on your hand will you use paper or water to clean it ? Its just that simple to comprehend. Just use water damn it. Cheap, hygienic, no left overs and green too !

grosswait• 7 years ago

Water is not universally abundant though and much more costly to transport than paper or wood.

icebraining3• 7 years ago

green

Well, increased water consumption has a lot of ecological problems as well. Plus most of us westerners would probably balk at using cold water, so we'd waste a lot of energy heating it up too.

taivare• 7 years ago

Here's my WTF moment. My grandmother told me, she was born in 1901 as a kid on a rural PA farm. They used pages from a Sears wish book or dried corn cobs,out at the old out house!

u801e2• 7 years ago

If a bird shits on your hand will you use paper or water to clean it ? Its just that simple to comprehend. Just use water

I would use both soap and water. Do people just use water without soap?

AngryData2• 7 years ago

I wouldn't consider anything clean just by spraying water on it either. It takes soap and some mechanical action. With that in mind I don't view wiping versus spraying as being much different than each other, im not trying to sterilize my ass so someone can eat a meal on it. In certain situations, water might be preferable or not, but 95% of the time I don't find one to be more or less sanitary, neither is truly "clean" from the start.

phonypc2• 7 years ago

If a bird shits on your hand will you use paper or water to clean it ?

If I didn't also have soap, I'd use paper over water. Water might leave you visibly cleaner, but you'll spread microscopic poop particles and microbes over a much larger area.

frosted-flakes2• 7 years ago

We used to make jokes what if a TP user have diarrhea, how many trees will that be ?

Diarrhoea is pretty much water, so it cleans up with paper very well.

If a bird shits on your hand will you use paper or water to clean it ?

That's a misleading analogy. Do you eat off your butt? If I got bird poo on my bare foot, I'd wipe it off in the dirt and move on. Most people shower every few days anyway. I don't care how clean my butt is, just as long as it doesn't smell and it doesn't itch.

(FYI, in English, a space is only used after end-of-sentence punctuation, not before. I've never understood why Indians consistently get this wrong.)

u801e2• 7 years ago

In Bangladesh, you rinse with water and soap after doing your business.

The only use of toilet paper in that case would be to dry yourself off after.

dxbydt• 7 years ago

Sometimes I wish there was a website where immigrants could list things that are far superior in their country of origin than the one they immigrated to. It’d be very useful for other immigrants so they can temper expectations before committing to such drastic change. Other than toilet practices & the taste of chicken, there’s so many areas where the third world is light years ahead of america. Often I have to fight the urge to lecture my pampered american kid on how much better it was back in india even though i was dirt poor when growing up there.

selimthegrim2• 7 years ago

What else do you miss?

blub3• 7 years ago

A stand-alone bidet which can be used to wash with soap and water is indeed much better than toiler paper when it comes to hygiene and to be honest also comfort. But it has to be liquid soap and running water, otherwise you're just growing E. coli, especially if it's some sort of shared bathroom.

Nevertheless, bidets are unavailable in (I would say) most households and definitely unavailable when not using the toilet at home. Furthermore, it's rather inconvenient to use it every time after going to the bathroom because one has to pretty much take off their pants and underwear in order to have proper access. Their only advantage is that they are still more convenient than showering.

The Japanese water toilets don't seem like such a great idea to me, for the same reason that properly washing ones hands after using the bathroom requires thoroughly rubbing them together for some time with soap, not just rinsing them with water: using just water doesn't work. Spraying pressured water will help with cleaning, but also spread fine particles of crap everywhere.

Toilet paper may not be as efficient as a bidet, maybe less efficient than using just water, but it still works and using those Japanse toilets or a bidet is really not the mind-blowing revolution that it's made to look like. As long as one cleans up after using the toilet, washes their hands properly and showers reasonably often, I don't see any advantage to all these contraptions. It's more of a squeamishness or comfort thing. And there's always wet wipes.

chiph• 7 years ago

Importantly, if you're a world traveler, is to know if the culture uses toilet paper at all, and if they do, is it safe to flush or do you put it in a nearby trash bin?

https://wheredoiputthepaper.com/

Memorable advice:

Loving your work, not many people go to Myanmar (Burma), and if you happen to find a toilet (and these days they tend to be Western-style sitters rather than squatting over hole sorts), put the paper in the basket or bin provided. It's worth noting here, that if you're caught short on the road, it's best not to go too far off track to find a bush as there are an awful lot of landmines littered about.

cheerlessbog• 7 years ago

A can for TP next to the toilet seems the default all over the developing world, assuming TP is used. I guess the plumbing is fragile.

SECProto• 7 years ago

That article links at the bottom to the original source, https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/ancient-roman-bat...

adminu• 7 years ago

I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content? This one has a mile-long introduction. The headlines question could have been answered in rather few words. I feel a short answer had satisfied me. To make it even more frustrating to me the article teases different but-wiping techniques used today without telling me which ones. Thanks for that...

I said I wonder why, I guess that was a lie. It's about having marketable content, "making the reader feel related to the situation", etc. It does strike me as bad practice though, especially when it comes to actual news. Sometimes I read an investigative piece and think to myself that it might be over soon, after all what could the author possibly have left out at this point, only to take a look at the scrollbar and realize I am at 50%. I wished for a bit more brevity, not the brevity of leaving out facts for the short clickbaity stuff but leaving out all the unnecessary filler material.

mhb2• 7 years ago

I enjoyed your comment, but would have appreciated it even more if some of the words had said what the Romans used instead of making me look at the TFA.

mhb2• 7 years ago

OK here: But instead of reaching for a roll of toilet paper, an ancient Roman would often grab a tersorium (or, in my technical terms, a “toilet brush for your butt”). A tersorium is an ingenious little device made by attaching a natural sponge (from the Mediterranean Sea, of course) to the end of a stick. Our ancient Roman would simply wipe him- or herself, rinse the tersorium in whatever was available (running water and/or a bucket of vinegar or salt water), and leave it for the next person to use. That’s right, it was a shared butt cleaner. (And of course, there were other means of wiping as well, such as the use of abrasive ceramic discs called pessoi.)

stoppergoo2• 7 years ago

Oh you made a meta comment on his comment. Inception

slim• 7 years ago

here's the picture that should have been in the lead

http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1b...

ubittibu• 7 years ago

For real, I can’t stand this kind of longform. They take three simple facts and write an article that is more a short essay. And when the write starts with an accurate description of weather, place or person, “It was a foggy winter day in …”, “we reached a hidden part of the shore”, “is a tall woman with bright expressive eyes" you know you’ll be stuck in a fifteen minutes reading without learning anything.

madez• 7 years ago

Do you actually keep reading? If the first sentence is that way, I immediately close the tab.

From the articles about occurrences and domains I have personal knowledge of I learnt not to trust in the factual correctness of media articles. If they on top of that start with a story, I'm off.

tomc1985• 7 years ago

That's Nautilus for you. Pages of fluff for a few lines of facts...

Once upon a time their articles had more substance.

eevilspock5• 7 years ago

Not all writing is utilitarian.

People in tech, on average, prefer the utilitarian. They also, as a whole, on average, are considered to have below average social skills and below average art skills. Their coincidence is not a coincidence.

To make it even more frustrating to me the article teases different but-wiping techniques used today without telling me which ones. Thanks for that...

For an introduction to South Asian "toilet technology", both very accurate and very humorous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ

[EDIT: also quite humorous is how this is getting down-voted into the toilet. Is it defensiveness? Angry denial?]

jyriand• 7 years ago

I might be wrong but this longform is called "feature article". It's not meant to be for quick consumption. I'm not sure what is happening with our brains, but I find it increasingly difficult to concentrate and appreciate longer writings. Nowadays everything is about getting info in small chunks. No time for meandering flow of thoughts.

huffmsa• 7 years ago

You prefer 10 Ways Roman toilet practices were weird! Number 2 will shock you!?

No thanks, I like a conversational story. This Wis written like how the author would tell it live. Humans remember things best when there is a bit of narrative to root the facts to.

Youden2• 7 years ago

Personally narrative only helps me remember when I care about it, which usually isn't the case when I read this kind of article.

For me the endless fluff around the information is just wasted time.

asveikau• 7 years ago

As a father I found the tangent about the kids doing their business on a family vacation relatable, funny, pleasant, joyous. You may find it extraneous but others of us are enjoying the odd tangents in our lives.

personlurking• 7 years ago

I still follow the "Wadsworth Constant" from several years ago, which says one can skip the first 30% of content to get to the heart of the thing being discussed. Otherwise, I just skim through, looking for anything relevant to the title.

dbrgn• 7 years ago

Works on HN too, apaprently. (This thread, QED.)

chongli• 7 years ago

I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content?

Because short articles are penalized in search engine rankings.

WalterSear• 7 years ago

* Writing is cheap, research is expensive.

* People are rewarded for how long they can keep people looking at ads, not how much value those readers find in their work.

* Finding/re-engaging an audience via aggregator sites such as this one is cheaper than maintaining an audience loyal to the quality of your journalism. For the most part, people click on titles, rather than domain names.

The end result is small amounts of content, disbursed as slowly as possible, with a clickbait title.

FabHK3• 7 years ago

Dude, an article about Roman anal hygiene is not to be read for important facts. It's feuilleton, reading as pleasure per se, light-hearted entertainment, path, not destination.

Having said that, I agree that a) this article was extremely light on facts, b) many other long articles about actually important topics digress way too much on setting the scene.

nobodyandproud3• 7 years ago

Agreed. This is a perfect article to read, while sitting and taking care of #2.

LoSboccacc• 7 years ago

all those digression are used to spam links to third party blogs, which in turns cross link back on some other article.

if it was just the answer paragraph + affiliate paragraphs you'd notice it, rule of thumb is one paragraph of content per one of cross-linking.

snambi• 7 years ago

I wonder any of this is real.

davesque• 7 years ago

Can't you just skim over that stuff?

4ndrewl• 7 years ago

I wonder how anyone could consider this as being "so many words", or being so time poor that they couldn't spare 4 mins to read it...

troutwine• 7 years ago

I share the GP's complaint. It's less about the length -- it's not all that long -- but about the meandering nature of the form. The introduction of the author's family is not extensive enough to grab my attention as a reader, nor does the banality of the situation make them feel like anything other than a small bit of padding, nor do I feel closer to the author for our shared experience. Had the article started at "Modern American society..." this would have been a much snappier opener, though I'd argue that paragraph 4 should be rescued in some fashion.

brontide• 7 years ago

I was equally annoyed by the narrative intro, angrily skimming to find the answer. Unfortunately, I think its a trend within information media – I find myself skimming Atlas Obscura the same way I skim Nautilus. These articles are good for keywords to prompt the real search…

This style is leaking into documentaries too. The best example is "Wild Wild Country" – a six hour long docuseries where I still had to read the wikipedia page afterwards.

api• 7 years ago

SEO?

RandomInteger4• 7 years ago

Not sure, but ...

Pro-Tip: If you come to the US, please throw poopy toilet paper in the toilet and not the little trash can next to the toilet which is meant for women's hygiene products.

whenchamenia2• 7 years ago

This is not true in all cases, if unsure, ask, or look for any helpful hints (signs, presence of tp in garbage) Its really fine either way. Many places not in large cities are on well and septic and perfer you not flush tp unless absolutely needed. "If it didnt come out of your body, it does not belong in sewage" is a better rule of thumb. Just because many americans harmfully use their toilet as a trash can does not make it correct to do so.

zdragnar• 7 years ago

Say what? I've lived with septic systems all my life (aside from a few years in a big city) and we've always flushed toilet paper.

Wet wipes, paper towel, tampons never get flushed. Toilet paper always does.

debatem1• 7 years ago

Note that OP was specifically referencing America. If there is anywhere in the US where leaving toilet paper in the trash can is the cultural norm I haven't been there, and I've lived with septic tanks for probably half my life.

fit2rule• 7 years ago

In Kosovo: its the opposite, you put the used paper in a bin specially placed for the purpose.

I was very, very confused about the hygienic requirements during a recent visit - turns out that they don't have the plumbing to handle the paper in the loo.

Theodores• 7 years ago

Nearby in Greece the pipes are 2 inch diameter, not 4 inches as is expected in the UK. Apparently the pipes were a British addition to Greece, I would like to know the story and if in nearby Kosovo you have the same diminutive pipe problem - 2" diameter.

cdelsolar• 7 years ago

The most annoying part about this article is that he never specified how they cleaned his son’s butt.

cafebabbe• 7 years ago

[Narrator voice] They didn't.

asimpletune• 7 years ago

Maybe it’s possible that the shared poop cleaner had some unknown health benefits as well. Obviously we all understand the risks, but there are potential upsides as well. I’m not familiar what they could be precisely, but I know there’s a lot of ongoing research into stool transplants and other poop-related remedies.

pkd2• 7 years ago

I'm still surprised how many people here get defensive when it gets pointed out that toilet paper is not the best solution for cleaning up. Everybody should try using a bidet sometime and see the difference for themselves.

blub3• 7 years ago

It's not the best, but it works pretty great in the end: one is reasonably clean until one can properly clean themselves. It's available everywhere (not just at home), easy to carry and easy to dispose of.

Wet wipes are a nice upgrade for those that can't stand the thought of TP, although they're usually not that easy to dispose of when not at home.

beatgammit3• 7 years ago

And wet wipes are kind of expensive and wasteful. A bidet is just so much simpler (jet of water cleans you, washable rag dries you).

Honestly, I don't get what the big deal is. People latch on to a solution that still leaves something behind, when another solution is both cheaper and more effective (and eliminates the occasional itching you get if you didn't do a good job with TP). My only complaint is that there not common.

stoppergoo2• 7 years ago

seems like the sponge can spread disease.

tres• 7 years ago

Today, toilet paper is ubiquitous in Western cultures; it’s a US$9.5 billion-a-year industry in the United States. Americans, in their typical excess, use more than 50 pounds per person per year! About 1.75 tons of raw fiber are required to manufacture each ton of toilet paper. That doesn’t seem sustainable, and frankly, I’m surprised that people haven’t protested more as a result.

Given these numbers and the marketing efforts behind them, it’s hard to argue that the use of toilet paper is somehow natural. On the contrary, toilet paper is nothing more than a technology. So the next time you’re enjoying a morning constitutional, think about the fact that defecation and urination are more than biological functions; they are cultural activities that involve artifacts and technologies that change through time.

My takeaways:

* Lots of opportunity in taking on the "dirty jobs" that don't get the glamor.

* Something so ubiquitous and integral to our daily lives is a relatively recent introduction... It's not "perfect," nor "finished;" thinking about this mainstay as a piece of technology that can be made better holds opportunity.

Retric• 7 years ago

“One tree produces about 200 rolls (100 pounds (45 kg)).” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper

Now, how much land each tree needs, and how long it takes to grow is not exactly easy to calculate. But, something like 2 * 200 trees per acre / 20 years for fast growth forest ~= 1/20 acre of forest per person for sustainable production does not sound bad.

And that’s assuming you can’t use waste streams from some other processes like sawmills.

microwavecamera• 7 years ago

Human urine is full of ammonia and other chemicals that are great natural detergents. If you worked in a Roman laundromat, your job was to stomp on clothes all day long—barefoot and ankle deep in colossal vats of human pee.

It gets worse, the ancient Romans also used urine as a mouthwash to whiten their teeth.

ravar• 7 years ago

wait, our urine doesn't contain ammonia, we convert nitrogen to urea as it is far less toxic than ammonia.

spurgu• 7 years ago

Because urea in urine breaks down into ammonia, urine has been used for the cleaning properties of the ammonia therein. In pre-industrial times urine was used – in the form of lant or aged urine – as a cleaning fluid.[25] Urine was also used for whitening teeth in Ancient Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine#Cleaning

doc_gunthrop• 7 years ago

There's a YouTube channel, called Invicta, that produces videos that cover how ancient civilizations handled commonplace tasks; their "How They Did It" series includes videos on things like how ancient Romans ran elections, paid taxes, and went to the bathroom.

Not part of that playlist, but a beginning recommendation of mine is their video "Everyday Moments in History - A Roman Soldier Prepares Dinner"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-l_EbXE3LU).

MobileVet• 7 years ago

I thought they used the 3 shells...

bangonkeyboard2• 7 years ago

One up, one down, and one to polish?

c3534l• 7 years ago

I can't imagine living in a society before they invented the three seashells.

marci• 7 years ago

All the unecessary swearing...

nobrains• 7 years ago

Toilet paper vs. water.

The decision is clear, at least in my opinion: Water.

Water, by far.

And from so many angles (hygeine, cost, ecology, availablity, ikkiness, etc.)

fouc• 7 years ago

I really like the water gun next to the toilet in Thai bathrooms. It's multi-functional, not only can you use it as a bidet, but you can use it to wash other things.

latchkey• 7 years ago

It is called a 'bum gun'. =) So much better than paper!

spacedog11• 7 years ago

an ancient Roman would often grab a tersorium (or, in my technical terms, a “toilet brush for your butt”).

Picture: http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1b...

nobodyandproud3• 7 years ago

Americans don't have a high ground here.

The first time I used a modern bidet was eye-opening.

It eliminates the funk. It's environmentally friendly. It's easier on the bum, if you have hemmaroids (I don't, but this is the report from friends and family that do suffer). And it just feels refreshing.

The toilet paper is only needed to sanity check cleanliness and dry out.

The American squeamishness over the bidet is irrational and overdue for a change.

edoceo• 7 years ago

The hemroid thing 100%. For all us desk jockies, they'll happen! Paper hurts, bidet/water all the way.

jseliger• 7 years ago

For all us desk jockies, they'll happen

Sit-stand desk https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/24/geekdesk-max-sit-stand-de...

rootusrootus3• 7 years ago

I read somewhere that everyone has hemorrhoids, they just become noteworthy when significantly prolapsed or inflamed.

aszantu• 7 years ago

https://www.gutsense.org/fiber-menace/why-fiber-causes-hemor...

thatoneuser4• 7 years ago

OK I've seen the bidet crowd grow for years. Never used one but how does it actually remove all the filth? If I got shit on my arm or something I wouldn't be satisfied squirting some water on it - I'd scrub scrub scrub. I just can't see how it does as good a job. Any input?

Also - how do you prevent the bidet from becoming a fecal squirtgun? It sits inside the toilet no? Aren't you in effect washing off with everyone's shit mixed in?

maktouch• 7 years ago

If you had shit on your arm you'd just scrub it without water?

Filipino uses a system called tabo, or sometimes a hand hose bidet (I call it the bum gun). If the pressure of bum gun is strong enough, well, it's like a pressure gun. You shoot it at 45 degrees angle (cause 90 hurts lol).

If the pressure is not strong enough, then use it like tabo. Tabo is a water scoop. You water your hand, you water your butt, then you soap both of them, and wash it out. It's a shower but just for your butt.

This sounds a little bit weird and disgusting but it is the cleanest since it's like a shower. Nothing beats a soap and scrub.

If there's tissues, take a tissue, pat down your butt so it's dry, put it in the bin.

Hope that explains it!

badestrand2• 7 years ago

Yes, you are scrubbing with your (usually left) hand. It may sound disgusting but actually feels really, really clean.

how do you prevent the bidet from becoming a fecal squirtgun?

I have the same concern about the bidets installed inside toilets. Using "bum guns" which hang next to the toilet solves that problem though!

nobodyandproud3• 7 years ago

1. One can adjust the strength and width of the stream. It often starts out gentle anyway, to wash off the loose crud.

2. The area that needs cleaning is within a valley formed by your butt cheeks. So there's really no splatter.

3. Bidets are for the home. It's not an impossible problem to solve, but I wouldn't use a public one. I do know that the squirt gun is washed before and after use automatically, but really. When you poop, how do you avoid the inevitable water splash as the poop dives in?

In any case there are manual portables that one can carry in a pocket or purse, however. I don't bother but the option exists.

firekvz2• 7 years ago

Funny story, as a Venezuelan and having toilet paper shortages I was forced to go water and soap.

Never comming back, not even with all the toilet paper in the world

The feeling is shared with alot of friends (we joke about this as a way to keep the good mood agains the crisis) but a lot of people have realized that toilet paper is not the correct way plus a huge waste of money (we have to pay around 0.5$ per roll nowdays)

Bidets are not a thing here but since alot of Venezuelans are on my same position and also alot of venezuelans have migrated to Argentina, a country where bidets are pretty common, I foresight it becoming a thing in the next few years.

Invest in bidets!

gcb0• 7 years ago

The legend goes that bidets where associated with whorehouses in literature from europe (as most literature not focusing on body fluids would not have reasons to mention bidets), so that when apartments started to be retrofitted for plumbing (initially for a kitchen!) in the USA, the extremely puritanical society left the bidets out.

nextos• 7 years ago

Bidets are quite common in France and Spain, but I haven't seen many anywhere else in EU.

A really practical solution to simulate a real bidet is to buy bidet cleansing foam and/or a portable bidet.

You spray the cleansing foam into regular toilet paper, and it does improve performance a lot. Afterwards, just use the portable bidet.

sureaboutthis• 7 years ago

Venezuelans are on my same position

I see what you did there.

throwayEngineer• 7 years ago

Bidets are cold water? And you need a "rag"?

beatgammit3• 7 years ago

You can get heated bidets if that's your thing (just mix the hot and cold water pipes), and a rag is to help you dry off afterward.

When I lived in the Philippines and used a bucket and my hand (and yes, alcohol afterward to disinfect), I didn't bother with a rag because it was so hot and I'd dry off quickly anyway. However, in fancier places with bidets, a rag to dry off after is completely normal. And it's just as sanitary as using a hand towel after washing your hands because you're already clean.

Aeolun2• 7 years ago

Forgive my ignorance, but how does ‘water and soap’ work?

I can immediately see the application of a tersorium, but not water and soap.

firekvz2• 7 years ago

Just shower after you do your business, you can imagine the rest.

muzani• 7 years ago

Use a small hose to wash off the stuff. Use soap, a hand, and water to wash off anything remaining.

gingabriska• 7 years ago

Sometime back I remember reading a paper where it was hypothesised that using hands is less hygienic than using toilet paper.

And to demonstrate this they used human stature (height) as a way to workout the effect of this practise on health and well being, and the results were constinent with the hypothesis.

Conclusion: People are taller in the countries where toilet paper is used.

Unfortunately, few minutes of googling didn't turn up any links now.

The problem with using hands is that the people often shortcut and do not wash hands properly now if you don't use hands, then this entire problem disappears.

What do you value more, then money spent on toilet paper or the time spent washing your hands properly?

The law of life is that people will often take shortcuts where it is possible to take one and along the way suffer consequences which weren't in their mind at that point because all they wanted to achieve then is to get through this fast enough to do something else later.

To get best of both, there can be a service where someone else washes you but then you lose privacy and you need to allow others to touch you but then it's also possible if that person's health suffers then you might also suffer on subsequent contact.

DanBC• 7 years ago

Aren't they just correlating poverty?

foxhop• 7 years ago

I pee in a sealed orange juice jug. It takes me about 3-4 days to fill it, at which point I take it with me during my morning garden walk about and pour it on top of my compost pile.

The resource is too valuable to piss away.

tasty_freeze2• 7 years ago

I have read the glowing endorsements of bidets on reddit and HN for a long time. I've researched after-market bidets that would be suitable for my bathroom. I've bookmarked a few that seem suitable and have good reviews.

But there is one thing which stops me. I'm not sure of the exact details. Even in this thread, I don't know the brass tacks of using one. Do I turn on the sprayer and that is that? Or do I mechanically rub my ass with my hand during/after the anus gets wet? Then do I use toilet paper to dry? Just how much of my ass is going to get wet? Then of course I need to use soap and water to clean up my hands. But someone else below said they use soap and water on their butt. Too much is left to the imagination.

Does anyone want to provide a detailed, step-by-step process of what I should do once I install one?

_xnmw• 7 years ago

Yeah, if you just spray and pray you’re going to have a bad time.

The way I was taught as a Middle Eastern man was: first use toilet paper at least three times to remove the majority of the material. Secondly, hold the spray hose or the bottle in your right hand and point downwards towards your perineum from the FRONT of your legs. Use your left hand to lift your junk and have two fingers down there. Now pour water over your left hand towards the perineum, and let the fingers carry the water and rub to clean out the ass crack. Usually a single litre water bottle is enough to feel extremely clean and refreshed. This method obviously works better if you’re squatting, but I use it with western toilets too. The most common mistake people make is to try and put their hands behind their back or pour the water from behind - makes a mess and doesn’t clean right. The imagery of the cleaning motion is like a woman fingering herself.

thatoneuser4• 7 years ago

...so you have to use your hands to clean shit out of your ass? This does not sound like a good thing.

rootusrootus3• 7 years ago

There are lots of instructions just a Google click away.

But for a short answer:

1. Just water, the pressure is more than sufficient. Hell, it's too much sometimes.

2. You can get models that air dry, but even the good ones aren't too quick, so it's pretty common to use a few squares of TP to dry.

3. Depends on you. If you habitually sit off-center you might actually get a wet cheek. Otherwise it's eerily spot-on.

4. I don't know about using soap on my butt. That seems like it would be ... irritating. Water is plenty by itself.

I recommend trying one of the cheapo ones (Neo, for example), as they will give you an idea of what a washlet is like for a tenth or less of the cost. No heated seat or water, but I found that to be less of an issue than I expected. I bought the cheap one to see what I thought, and a couple years later I still haven't bothered upgrading to a Toto. I like the cold water. But where I live, it's not that cold.

flanbiscuit• 7 years ago

By "Neo" do you mean the "Luxe Bidet Neo"? The one where you attach it to an existing toilet?

PerfectElement• 7 years ago

I grew up using bidets and as an adult moved to a bidet-less country. I've installed handheld bidet sprays in all bathrooms in my house and they work great.

Here's a pretty affordable one: https://www.amazon.com/Abedoe-Upgraded-Handheld-Sprayer-Oper...

sneak2• 7 years ago

The one I have attaches under the seat, and sends a little jet of water up at what I imagine is about a 45 degree angle. It would make the opposite wall wet (with clean water) if I ever turned it on not sitting on it, which I haven’t.

Mine isn’t fancy, it doesn’t use power, just water pressure. The only setting is for front (for people without a penis) or for back (for everyone with an anus), and a knob for pressure.

You poop, and when you’re done, without getting up, you turn it on, and the jet of water shoots upward and hits you in the butt. It’s within an inch or two of the hole, and you can easily feel where it’s hitting you. A little wiggle/adjustment of your body on the seat to get it aligned (oh, you’ll know) and then you wait about 2-4 seconds. A little leaning of your body in the forward/backward axis (an inch or two, maybe) to sweep the crack, then you’re clean and you turn it off. Usually a second flush (if you’re the courtesy flush type like me) and the whole event is like it never happened.

Your hands are never involved, except to turn the knob on and off.

I don’t end up wet enough that I need TP at all—haven’t bought it in a year or more. It works more on pressure than water volume, sort of like the sprayer on a sink to rinse out a glass. Pretty much only the crack gets wet, it is more of a single focused jet than a spray. Some people like to use TP to dry afterwards, but there isn’t much water on you once you turn it off. It’s focused and it doesn’t really spray your cheeks or anything.

Mine was under $50 on Amazon. I buy one for every place I live in now, and couldn’t imagine going back. It’s night and day.

There are other kinds which are more of a sink sprayer kind where you hold the sprayer and have to do some aiming and whatnot; I have little experience with those. Mine is the squirting type that installs between the toilet seat the the ceramic bowl (“lux neo 120”).

tasty_freeze2• 7 years ago

Fantastic -- just what I was looking for!

jamieadams• 7 years ago

I replaced the lid of my toilet seat to one that has a bidet installed in it. It was easy to plumb into the existing cold water connection and cost around £30. It is the best thing I have ever bought.

In answer to your question: I find that the bidet gets rid of all of the poop the vast majority of the time. I just pat myself down with a small amount of toilet paper to dry myself off. If I see poop on the paper I give myself another rinse.

I can't handle dry wiping now. I save my poops for home.

jdashg2• 7 years ago

You're stuck in perfectionist paralysis. Just get one and figure out what works for you, trial and error.

xchip• 7 years ago

TL;DR: An ancient Roman would often grab a tersorium.[...] A tersorium is an ingenious little device made by attaching a natural sponge (from the Mediterranean Sea, of course) to the end of a stick

ramon• 7 years ago

Here in Brazil is chuveirinho, we used to use the bidets but it just takes up took much room and it looks ugly after usage. Inside the toilet the chuveirinho works well then we use the paper to finish the cleanup.

njharman• 7 years ago

Great documentary I watched today that touched on this very subject "Toilet the Unspoken History"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZHm3vkavgM

vagab0nd• 7 years ago

Just try a bidet, please. It's so worth it.

I had a "itchy butt" for the longest time. Tried many methods, saw many doctors (not fun!). Found no real solution. Flushable wet wipes helped somewhat, but didn't completely solve the problem and it would come back from time to time. Plus I was seriously concerned about clogging.

Then tried a bidet for a week, and... years of pain (I mean, itchiness), gone, just like that.

mmwelt• 7 years ago

Very similar article by the same author a year ago: https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/ancient-roman-bat...

There was even a HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16757044

em-bee• 7 years ago

"no business is complete until the paperwork is done" (author unknown)

What Ancient Romans Used Instead of Toilet Paper

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