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Comment by pertique | Hacker News Reader

While I've never used Google's toilets, cleaning your asshole using a water spray is usually accomplished by a bidet. They're somewhat common in toilets in parts of Europe, and quite common in Japan. It's preference, but people usually like them.

That being said, if the toilet component sucked then the whole experience will suck. I just wouldn't discount ass-spraying toilets from one bad toilet.

EDIT: Almost all the toilets with bidets I've used have also had manual flush options, although the UX is hit or miss.

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I was never convinced on bidets as in the UK virtually no-one has them.

But then I heard the line (from a Frenchman) "If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?".

On reflection, why aren't they everywhere?

Seriously. Once you have lived abroad and gotten used to it, you can’t go back to toilet paper. It is revolting, and ineffective compared to just a little bit of water.

Wait, aren't you still wiping your butt afterwards ? at least to wipe the water ?

Not really wiping, just padding. This avoids the dreaded rolls of tp stuck in your ass as well.

"If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?"

I don't know about you but I don't tend to touch my keyboard or food with my anus like I do with my hands

You’ll just rip little tears with rough paper all over your sensitive anus instead, giving yourself terrible hemorrhoids.

If you're wiping so hard you're giving yourself hemorrhoids the material you're using is probably not the issue.

I bought myself a $400 bidet for my birthday 6 or so years ago. It’s totally cured my hemorrhoids (and my wifes!) which were a major problem before.

South Park recently had a very funny (and tame for them) episode about toilet paper and bidets. Obviously it’s fictionalized but a combination of marketing and non historical usage keeps people in the US from widely adopting something that would be hugely beneficial to them.

As someone else with haemorrhoids, my Toto bidet seat really did improve my life significantly. I've now moved to the UK, where the lack of power outlets in bathrooms (and the fact that our flat has toilets with in-wall tanks) means I'm bidetless, and it's made my life worse again. :(

As a UK electrician, you can have power outlets in your bathroom. However, it has to obey certain rules. For example, if it is a BS1363 socket, it must be 2.5 metres outside of zone 2 (basically not close to any sinks or baths). This restriction does not apply to switched-fused connection units [1] so you can have an electrician install one of those next to your toilet regardless of how close that is to your bath or sink. These are also used for e.g. heated towel rails.

[1] https://media.screwfix.com/is/image/ae235/13479_P

You can get a Shatfa or "bum gun" installed next to your toilet instead, if you can't get power for an on-seat bidet instead.

They are very common in the Middle East.

Personally I wouldn't do without one and would install one in any new home I moved to.

Every one of them I've seen was the cause of a large puddle on the floor next to the toilet. I've only seen them in India and so this might be a statement on infrastructure in India. They are all over in India and they all leak, so I'm not interested in having one in my house.

I rented a house in London owned by a Muslim family, and the toilets had the spray things and no puddles.

Why would you need a power outlet for a bidet? The one I have just hooks straight into the toilet's water line and uses the water pressure from it.

The fancy ones have are built with a heated toilet seat, a water warmer, timed shutoff, and automated spray patterns. You pay a lot more money for those features, but they are nice to haves vs your basic cold water wash.

Power is needed for the full “smart toilet” experience, which can include a heated seat and warm water, and other less useful features like a self-opening toilet seat. It’s hard to go back to a regular toilet or a cold-water bidet!

This is really starting to sound like the recent "Japanese Toilet" episode from South Park.

You must live in a warm climate. The water from my tap is frigid in the winter, especially upstairs.

No, I live in the Rockies so my water is plenty cold. It just doesn't bother me that much. I suppose if I could make it warmer I would do that but I don't care enough to deal with putting an outlet in to warm the water.

A perfect shot of refreshment, the silver bullet.

I guess it's a good way to ensure that you are awake in the morning.

After a spicy one, you'll always want it cold.

Since it's making you ill, why not clean yourself using the shower?

> South Park recently had a very funny (and tame for them) episode about toilet paper and bidets.

s26e03. "Randy Discovers Japanese Toilets":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRL4l2GOqXk

> If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?

For one thing, I don’t eat with my bum. I’m still in favor of bidets.

Yes, but I assume you actually clean your ass with soap when you shower? So, why then would be ok leaving your turd residue to get on your underwear all day?

To be clear, I do think bidets are superior to wiping your ass with bits of thin paper. That said, if a bit of toilet paper can't get rid of all the "turd residue" down there, then I don't think a bidet is going to be all that much more effective. I may be naïve, as bidets are exceedingly rare where I live, but I've never heard of one that uses soap and scrubs your bum as well. After all, don't people who use bidets still wash their ass with soap in the shower? I can only speak for myself, but at the end of the day my underwear is not covered in "turd residue." If a bidet is the only thing between you and shit-stained underwear, toilet paper might not be the issue. I assure you, as barbaric as we are in the bidet-less reaches of the world, most of us are not walking around with turd residue seeping from our underwear.

Your tp is not getting rid of all the feces in your butt and it's leaving a bunch of pieces of rolled up shit paper behind in your ass. I don't care how good of a wiper you are.

Yes a water pressurized bidet spraying your crack is quite a bit better... not as good as actual soap but still. You can apply this to any body part and ask yourself if you think wiping that part with some shaved off tree is better than water???

There's a difference between pressure washing bidets and those that seem to just be a sink so you can get down and dirty with your bum and fingers

Similar dichotomy applies, pressure washing bidets also splatter. It depends on circumstances, you know

Price and maintenance. I asked while in France, and while you can buy them

- you need an electric plug, and builders tend to avoid putting them in the toilets or aren't asked for in the first place.

- once you have them, the water clogs the thin pipes with calcium apparently. So every one/two year we'd have to replace the tubes.

The calcium issue would mostly depend on the hardness of your water, right? So that would probably vary by region.

It is, and Japanese water is overall pretty soft so it helps in that regard.

We got one during the pandemic when TP was hard to come by. Life changer. I am now spoiled and hate using a non bidet toilet. Ours has a heated seat, warm water, a nice air vent to dry off your bum. So nice.

I'm used to bidets (separate from the toilet) being present in every bathroom, so it's strange to me how some people are completely unaware of the concept.

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