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Comment by DitheringIdiot | Hacker News Reader

What an incredibly wasteful way of cleaning your butt. Probably brought to us by the same people who advocate throwing away perfectly good things to support heavy industries because the new things make them feel like they're being environmental.

Use a bidet you ass wiping heathens! Far less wasteful even if you feel the need to pat your ass dry with a few squares of paper when you're done. After some practice you'll realize that the butt is pretty good at self drying and shedding water.

I just had to come back and edit this to note that smearing of the poop thing seems to ingrained in the US mindset and thinking your "clean". The US has potable water and electric nearly everywhere, yep people smear the poop. Whereas you can travel to some of the poorest counties and villages in the world with none of those things, and the people still understand you wash your ass after you shit you don't just smear it around a bunch.

Was coming here to make this same comment lol. Not just wasteful, but inefficient and insufficient!

I got my first bidet at an apartment several years ago. Some people thought it was weird and my roommate always had a funny line he would use to change their minds:

"If I took a piece of poop and smeared it on your arm right now, would you just take a thin a piece of paper and wipe it around a few times? NO, YOU WOULD WASH IT OFF"

This is the bidet I recommend and give as a gift to the bidet curious: https://www.amazon.com/Luxe-Bidet-Neo-120-Non-Electric/dp/B0...

I of course now have a 300 dollar one with a heated seat and warm water, which I can't recommend enough.

Many people don't realize that the "quality" of poop has a lot to do with what you eat. When you have a proper diet this cleaning ritual gets greatly simplified.

Ability to wash my butt is one of the best perks of remote working. I'm not going back to the office.

Many EU toilets are small and in old buildings (no electricity near toilets). So ymmv.

Electricity doesn't have a thing to do with this. Maybe you're imagining those fancy Japanese toilets that sing to you.

A bidet is just a spigot with a valve. Open valve, blast ass, get clean, close. Unless you have bizarrely cold water, this is all you could ever want or need.

I use a bidet that relies on water pressure from the apartment’s plumbing. No electricity needed.

It does get cold during the winter, but it’s not bad at all and it’s so much better than using toilet paper for wiping. I still use some toilet paper for drying, but far less than I used in the pre-bidet era of my life.

Get a toilet seat bidet. It's mechanical. Doesn't need electricity, only water... which is already present!

We have what's supposed to be a pretty good one of those. It's a gross, annoying extra thing to clean and hits entirely wrong for me, so I can't use it anyway.

My wife says it's OK. But considering what I see get on it (obviously! how could that not be a problem?!) I wouldn't want it spraying on me anyway. It's got a shield thingy that protects it from the worst, but not what comes up from under it. Just nasty.

A separate bidet is probably fine. Never used one, though.

> hits entirely wrong for me,

It's probably installed wrong. The aim of them is typically adjusted by various sliders and stuff before doing up the bolts to hold it in place.

Better ones have a "ladies front wash" and "back wash" nozzle, with different aims.

10 years ago I bought an unpowered toilet seat bidet just to try out the concept. Still haven't gotten around to upgrading to a powered version, because it turns out that cool water is nice. I even have a plugin next to the toilet that I had installed when the house was built, because I anticipated getting a Washlet.

I still intend to get a fancy one with warm water, heated seat, and a glowing bowl (for aiming in the middle of the night ;-)). Some day.

You can have a handshower mounted next to the toilet seat. Also: what bidets require electricity? (Except the Japanese toilet and bidet in one thing.)

> Also: what bidets require electricity?

There are some with heated seats, and some that heat the water to a comfortable temp and also some with pumps to supply more pressure. There are dozens on Amazon.

Ok, heating water makes mild sense, but heated seats would gross me out.

My bathroom is really small and I’ve been using a poor mans bidet. Which is made up with a clean jar that I can reach and fill with water from the tub while sitting on the toilet. I then slowly empty the jar on my lower back. The water will find its way to where it needs to clean. I use my non-dominant hand’s pinky to clean better while the water is dripping. I then have a towel for drying.

Have you not been introduced to flushable wipes? Sure it's wasteful, but most folks aren't just on the paper these days smearing.

Note that flushable wipes don't really disintegrate. At least not anywhere even close to as fast as paper. So you should also save up a few bucks for the plumber. And maybe send a Christmas card every year to the local sewer utility workers.

You should seek out the endless articles about "so-called flushable wipes." Or read up about Fatbergs[1] that are often made up from those same "flushable" wipes. Sanitation organizations hates them, plumbers hate them, and you often hear about ordinances and legislation trying to restrict claiming they're flushable.

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

Flushable wipes still cause issues when they're flushed. Wipes should not be flushed.

Really? I thought paper only was still very much standard practice.

Wet wipes cost money and aren't really flushable, bidets can get germs on them and aren't standard in the US

someone needs to hurry up and squat on the domain 'howtowashyourbutt.com'

I disagree with the wording, but couldnt agree more with the bidet gang.

Did they seriously forget to mention Step 6? Check the toilet bowl after flushing. Did everything flush? If not, flush again. Is there any residue left on the porcelain? If so, use that toilet-brushy-thingy to clean that and flush again. Pro tip: lift the seat _before_ using the toilet-brushy-thingy to avoid droplets on the seat and then replace seat when done for marital reasons.

There's another missing step. Take a quick look at your poop before you cover it with any TP. Seriously. There are things that will show up there which indicate health problems you want to further investigate, and that may be your first warning sign.

I found the German. US toilets typically don't have this issue, and if they do, don't have a brush nearby to correct it.

Same problem in the UK. I live in a new-ish (supposedly luxury [0]) flat in London and the toilet flush is pretty appalling. Not to mention that it clogs up frequently (unclogs itself in an hour or two usually but still...).

[0] "Luxury" is a tag builders apply to flats that are not 100% the cheapest they could be so they can charge a markup on the prices. In my case, it's a very nice flat, but there's no luxury.

Yes they do... With no brush, you won't have it sparkling white everywhere under the waterline...

A large number of people, particularly men, were never taught some basic hygiene — given the demographics of hacker news, i figured this would be worth sharing.

Edit: as some comments have mentioned, the bidet is the better way to go. Much of the world doesn't use toilet paper. But, you may not have access to a bidet!

I was thinking about clicking that URL but of course I did...

I don't wipe my butt that way and I think people that crumble their toilet paper are unsophisticated barbarians.

You're spot on regarding hygiene, especially men. I haven't seen what people do with toilet paper but I am shocked and appalled almost every time I see a co-worker use half a tree to wipe the hands they didn't even wash but only dip into water for a second or so.

I get not caring about hygiene but the waste is infuriating.

How do you ‘see’ this? Loads of red flags here!

Toilets and kitchens, how else would I?

I understand the "red flags" and downvotes. Pointing this out to people is never applauded. Hardly surprising

They're washing their hands. They do this at the communal row of sinks common in most public bathrooms (in the US and UK at least).

When topics are social taboos, it's easy to miss out on some basic knowledge. However, in this case it's also possible to miss out on physiological variations and assume somebody just isn't wiping their butt properly.

At first I thought "what is this, Facebook?" but you make a good point.

More important doubt: how to do it with the three shells.

Just swear at your Alexa and wait for the tickets, if I recall.

Honestly, at my age -- the last thing I want to know is that I've been doing it wrong

Poll, is this particularly timely as you read it?

A simple analogy I use to explain to people why wiping with toilet paper makes zero sense. If you accidentally got poop on your clothes would you wipe it with a tissue paper or wash it thoroughly with water and soap? Of course you'd do the latter - so why do you treat your body any differently?

Because cloth is porous and absorptive but skin is not.

As a parent I’ve had to do this more than I’d like, and the answer is soap, water, and scrubbing of some kind. Just spraying a little water on it is definitely not sufficient.

Use a washlet, dry with a few squares. It's foolproof, Japan has long since figured this out.

Also, eat more fiber.

Scrunching up the tissue into a ball creates gaps in the surface.

The only logical thing to do is fold to maintain proper contact.

Noobs.

Anecdotally, most people use more than three squares. Probably 30. Some stand up, some lift a cheek, etc. There are some hilarious threads on Reddit once in a while where people argue relentlessly about the 'right' way to wipe your own butt.

As a 1 square person, I was amazed to find that some people can use 50+ squares every time...

Are they like eating them or something?!?

One square is living dangerously, if it's just regular old two-ply paper. My guess is the first time someone pokes their finger through and finds it covered with some poo, they grab a big handful next time. And then every time after.

I bet TP makers have worked out the average number of squares each person uses per sitting, but I haven't tried to find that information.

Wipe from the front.

Grab the boys and pull them out of the way

Reach through the front and it's much easier to get everything clean while using less paper.

While we are at it, who uses a wad? Am I the only one carefully folding the paper to maximize padding and hand coverage?

So many questions...

It's quite an enlightening conversation to have for many people if you ask a group who wipes standing and who wipes sitting. Most in each group don't know the existence of the other group at all.

When talking about wipes they need to mention the most important thing - do not flush them! Even the "flushable" ones are known to cause sewer issues.

Lighting a match afterward is not a good idea. The reason that smell is strong enough to overpower poop smells is that it is extremely toxic.

The best approach is to use fresh air circulation to remove the smell. Failing that natural and non toxic smells as from potpourri or scent absorbers like activated charcoal or odor neutralizing agent (ONA) can remove the scent without covering it up with toxic pollutants.

I feel like I get more mileage out of folding a larger run of sheets and refolding after each wipe, feels like I use more surface area of the toilet paper even if there's the initial fold that means 2 sheets per wipe. The only disadvantage is the risk of your long strand dipping into the toilet.

This is so primitive. A bidet is the way to ‘go’.

I would submit that the bidet or using water to clean yourself is even more primitive than this. I would call this grotesque and barbaric, but that would likely insult barbarians who did know how to use water! Sitting on a throne to poop and using paper is "modern" and totally idiotic.

Sitters ruin toilet hinges and make the seat all wobbly

You miss leg day or something? Pop a squat

Do we do these steps while sitting or standing?

The article says you’re supposed to be sitting.

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