Butt Sanitation: Water or Paper Rolls?

It is not a topic that finds place in a polite conversation, but figures in every civilized person’s everyday life. It affects you the moment you step out of familiar environs of your home and particularly, your country. I am talking of cleaning your butts after defecation. An icky, yucky job indeed, but it’s still yours; so you better brace yourself.

Hindus have always considered water the best purificator and used it for personal hygiene. Lavatories in my mother’s native village in those days were located away from the house and consisted of sanitary pits near which would be kept a pile of earth and dry leaves. Every body was expected to carry a small bucket of water inside to clean oneself and cover their tracks with mud and dry leaves after they used the pit.

Source

Once the pits were full, the makeshift roof and door would shift to the next newly dug pit. The old pit would be left as-is for some weeks, after which the village farmers would remove the earth and use it to fertilize their fields.

More pertinent to the topic, how did people clean themselves after the elimination act? They would wash their private parts in the privacy of the lavatories with water, and later wash their feet and hands with soap near the well before entering the main house.

Nowadays most villages have underground sewer lines; many have western toilet and commode. Most still use the plain old water bucket and a plastic mug, but toilet paper rolls have entered the toilets in private and multinational work places in addition to the “health faucets”.

Source: Proper Use of Indian Toilet

Source: AllVoices

Health Faucets; Source: Wikipedia

My old parents accompanied me the first time I came to USA, and they secretly brought a small plastic mug along, having been warned about the paper rolls and the unavailability of plastic mugs. This is how a typical bucket and mug looks like:

Source

Luckily, my parents coped very well with using toilet rolls; it was me who had the maximum (unspoken) reservations with the paper rolls. The rolls at most public places were thin; I had to repeatedly pull out long strips of paper to make sure no excrement was left behind. What I found disgusting was that minute, almost invisible, bits of paper stuck on to the body. I started carrying and using wet wipes wherever I went.

I have this habit of googling any thought/concern that worries me. I found scores of research that said the germs were found on the wash bowls, taps, hand driers, door knobs et al, but no research done on the germs left on the body through incomplete cleaning of the butts.

Not only that, I thought of the amount of paper rolls that were used in a normal home, and the number of trees that had to be cut to make this possible. I thought to myself wryly there wouldn’t be a single tree left on the planet if every body converted to using paper rolls. Talk of sustainability of a process. Heck.

Fortunately, many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa use water to clean their butts. Here’s a bidet that has been used in France since centuries in various forms and designs.

Here’s a more common design:

Sit facing the tap and nozzle for washing the genitalia and turn the back for butts; Source: Wikipedia

Japan has perfected this art by combining aesthetics, technology and user-friendly interface.

Japan, as well as other East Asians also use squat type toilets. Check out.

Think of the advantages of squatting for s**tting. You are actually doing a Yoga exercise!!