Why are bidets just now getting popular in America?
cnn.com
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I've gotten so used to it that I find myself reaching for it when I'm out in the world, even installing them in (willing) friends houses! It really does feel barbaric to use TP alone nowadays.
In general, not having useful objects around the house because kids might misuse them deprives the tiny scientist of critical self-educational opportunities.
The comparison I make is, if you had sh1t on your hands, would you use a tiny piece of thin paper to clean it off, or go wash your hands in the sink. How is it that the place you probably can't see, is special somehow?
When I came back to the US and eventually bought a place, I remodeled my house myself and when I did the bathroom, I splurged and installed a fancy $700 Chinese knockoff tankless toilet that I got off Amazon [0]. Heated seat, warm water for the bidet, auto flushes when you stand up. Pure heaven.
In addition, I plumbed in a separate bum gun with a holder/valve coming out of the wall. These are super cheap to buy on aliexpress [1]. Best decisions ever.
I removed the toilet paper holder entirely and just installed a hook on the wall for a small hand towel to dry myself. After all, my rear is clean at that point.
For the occasional heathen guests, I keep a roll of TP around... sigh.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/EPLO-Integrated-Temperature-Controlle...
The wetness is literally solved by a single square of tp post-cleaning. Attachments are available that can be installed on any toilet, so the "I'm a renter" excuse doesn't hold water either. Not even going to address the sexuality concerns-- I honestly think anyone who believes that shouldn't be welcome on HN.
> I honestly think anyone who believes that shouldn't be welcome on HN.
Why? It seems absurd and laughable to you and me, but I'm certain we also have beliefs that others on HN would find absurd. Why should the conversation be stifled? If you have absurd beliefs currently and others try to exclude you, how are you ever supposed to correct (or even challenge) your beliefs if you can never talk about it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ui6t76/straight_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/comments/18tcqu6/am_i_wron...
https://www.reddit.com/r/pointlesslygendered/comments/kj74ml...
I've also had several discussions in real life where people have told me that bidets are "gay", most recently by both my realtor and then my home inspector. The topic was prompted because the house I bought had a plug installed right next to each toilet in the house for bidet attachments.
I hate making conclusions like this, but in this case it might just be this simple, that it is just a shallow emotional response to something unfamiliar that makes no logical/rational sense but is accepted by people who operate on emotion and don't make much use of the powerful Prefrontal Cortext that nature has gifted them, and happen to be from a cultural background that has weird superstitions about assholes :-)
Still though, if anybody knows anybody who feels this way who could explain it, I'd really love to hear a steelman defense.
Having a bidet is the ideal, but without it, wipes (I recommend ultra-sensitive non-scented baby wipes) carried in your purse combined with regular changing of a pad or insert (depending on flow rates) will mostly keep the job done anywhere you need to go. In unusually dire situations, I'll grab a paper towel and wet it in the sink, but that's rare.
I'm so glad bidets are a thing
It is pure luxury to be able to sit there, push a few buttons on a panel on the wall next to you, and have a warm jet of water wash you in exactly the place you need to be washed. The alternative - what virtually every American does to clean themselves - is comparatively barbaric.
I actually think some of the resistance to bringing bidets into the typical American household is pride - not wanting to admit that another people/country does something better. To adopt bidets would be to admit that we were in some way not as smart or as advanced as we think we are relative to the rest of the world. (This may sound ridiculous, but from what I experience in Texas I can attest that it is real.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolut...
Now to be fair, France's motivation may have been more to damage their rival than to help us, but either way we got some much needed assistance.
I have one so I'm not talking about myself. But it seems to have long not to made it onto US radars as something you should have even in a high-end bathroom.
Fair enough to your points though. Even if people have heard of it it seems weird and foreign--and maybe expensive if they haven't looked into it.
ofc something sex-related would sink an obviously good idea in the US.
Regardless, we purchased our first bidet in 2017 after I used one in an office I visited. It completely changed how I use the bathroom.
Any bathroom without one is neanderthal to me.
The idea of using nothing but toilet paper to clean quite possibly the nastiest orifice on our bodies is mind-bending to me. (Wet wipes would be an improvement, but it's super hard to find even those in public restrooms.)
Even four-star+ hotels in the US won't have bidets! I carry my own when I travel. (The St. Regis in DC has a bum nozzle, but I think they carry those because everyone in the world comes to DC and most bathrooms of the world is with it and has at least these.)
We upgraded two of our toilets to TOTO Washlets last year. These changed the game AGAIN. THEY HAVE DRIERS. I didn't even know a dryer for your bum was possible!
I'm glad the US is finally coming to their senses on this very important topic.
there's a popular meme from someone who failed to realize that the wouldn't have hot water during a power outage; and the bidet specifically would be cold. "religious experience"
It's legitimately disgusting that bidets aren't common America. Such unsanity bathroom practices.
Or you can use a bidet with cold water, but good luck using that in winter when the water comes out at 10C.
Here is an instalation video for a geberit aquaclean: https://youtu.be/1GU7SBIJc6A
The ones I have used in the last few years all have a small instant warmer unit. Japanese homes don't always have access to hot water tank & even the shower space is serviced by a electronically activated gas heater.
Source: I live here in JP, and my parent company's main revenue stream is from gas heaters OEM, heating appliances and even bespoke plumbing & installations.
They have self contained water heaters, seat heaters, drying air heaters, and ozone based deodorizers. They pre-mist the bowl sides when your first sit down to help keep the bowl clean. It's a pretty magnificent device. It's 25% of the way through the 21'st century, and I may not have a flying car just yet, but at least I have a robot to care for my tushy.
Prior to installing bidet seats throughout the house, we had handheld bidets that were attached to the cold water line. It's really never immanentized a "religious experience" so far as I have noted, and while the heated one is certainly more pleasant, a cold water bidet seems to function pretty well for hundreds of millions of people around the world.
So far as I know, I've been an American for the ~50 decades I've been on this planet, and I'd say ~85% of the people I interact with on a day to day basis were born in America. I've observed that it is a common American trait to form strongly held views about things where one has no experience, and to defend those views fiercely. The Dude said it best.
Not exactly sure what you mean by "bidet seat" vs "handheld bidet" based on context, but mine goes under a regular seat (seat isn't replaced) with controls jutting out the side. I have also used what I'd call a handheld bidet during an extended water outage. It was a squeezy rubbery thing from Amazon, a bit like a cycling water bottle, and I'd fill it up with water from a jug or sink depending on where I was (was not "attached to the cold water line"), then it squirts out water from an angled plastic tip. I found I had to be a lot more efficient with that to get the job done on one fill, but it was certainly better than nothing.
Thinking on it more, maybe your handheld was like a pressure washer, totally separate from the toilet, and what I had in mind would be called "portable".
Whole-house battery backup is a modern marvel, too. (We have 80KWH of stored battery capacity and it shifts grid load to non-peak hours to save huge amounts of money.)
During the pandemic, when toilet paper was hard to come by, I did consider it as a backup plan. Thankfully, it never came to that.
Occasionally with a standard toilet I'll get Poseidon's kiss, and as gross as that might be, I can see the benefits of introducing water into the equation. However, with the bidet, it seemed like the water didn't clean stuff up, it just added water into the mix.
It's fully possible that I was doing it wrong. I tried to look up stuff online to learn what I might be doing wrong, but didn't find much. It was mostly just jokes or people glossing over the whole thing. I get it, it's an awkward topic, and if someone didn't learn growing up from their parents, or have a lot of time and will to experiment with it, it probably wouldn't go well.
When I was in India there were sprayers next to the toilets, the type we generally have next to the kitchen sink in the US. I wasn't brave enough to even attempt to use those in a public setting. Sanitary concerns aside, I wasn't sure how I'd possibly use it without making a mess.
Or, would you go wash them in the sink...
In this case, our noses are probably a better metric. If you used your fingers to touch your ass after wiping and then smelled them, would you wipe more with dry TP, or would you wash it off another way?
It is odd to me that anyone would argue that TP would do a better job in this case.
The Qorantos/Trainwrecks conjecture
Go around all 50 states. The worst retail bathrooms to the most wealthy corporate offices in the newest construction.
Every where you look:
1. Bathroom stalls with 3" gaps in the hinges so everyone can watch you pee and poop and wipe yourself.
2. If you're a man, consider yourself lucky to have a waist high divider between urinals.
You want a fancy gun that shoots water into your ass? Not going to fly here.
yeah no
ive seen gas station bathrooms where i really wanted to wash my feet after "2 steps in, 2 steps out, go pee on a tree".
On the other hand, they keep talking up "fecal transplants" as a health panacea; public bidets would probably achieves that. Get the "public health" people on it, there's probably grant money to be had, at least.
I do not care at all if someone wants to use the bathroom for sex or drugs or whatever other pearl-clutching deviation is supposed to be deterred by the bathroom gaps,
ONE PLY.
sandpaper feels better than that crap. low-grit, though.
how that can be considered toilet paper beats me.
it's especially punishing for women since they absolutely need the toilet paper to clean up.
Also, i don't understand men who cannot aim into a toilet bowl.
Holding it can also have not-so-fresh downsides.
In an emergency, in a public restroom... after the normal TP mechanics, you can follow that up with some TP that's been wetted in the sink. Then dry TP to dry.
Optionally, the tough and brave can add a tiny bit of whatever hand soap of unknown formulation is available. You'll need additional passes of wet TP to rinse.
Not-recommended: Some people carry those supposedly 'flushable' wet wipe products, but I think those are known to cause problems for plumbing and sewage systems.
(I'd better not get hit by a bus today, because I don't want this to be my final HN comment. :)
I loathe having to poo in public toilets. Where available, I’ll buy pre-moistened, disposable towels. If unavailable, I’ll use the sink as a bidet and either wet towels or use my hand, if there’s privacy. Better than walking around feeling disgusting.
I also suggest anal shaving.
genuinely asking because in the past I shaved various body areas, and the stubble caused some irritation that seems ... unpleasant ... to experience around my asshole. is that a problem one encounters with shaving?
(I’m not sure why I’m “downvoted” for discussing body grooming in a thread about body grooming.)
Same, I've been seeing a lot of downvoting for reasons that aren't at all clear. Usually that happens on threads that are very opinionated or emotional, but I don't know why this one would qualify. It might be cultural and the downvoters come from a culture where such discussions are taboo? /shrug
That is absolutely not the case in countries like Italy and Portugal. You simply use _both_. Washing yourself with soap and water after you wiped with toilet paper is unquestionably another level of hygiene.
It is also shocking that the article makes very little difference between a toilet seat with water jet and an actual bidet.
In Italy having a bidet is required by law.
It's such a weird quirk of online discourse: any worthwhile alternative has to be a 100% drop-in replacement with no costs or trade-offs. The same thing happens in discussions of biking/transit/car balance.
You can use a bidet (or bidet attachment) with toilet paper. You'll feel much cleaner, get clean quicker, and use way less paper in the process vs. using paper only.
(1) https://thepublicsradio.org/episode/should-i-use-toilet-pape...
(2) https://www.popsci.com/environment/bidets-vs-toilet-paper/
Toilet paper is sign of a developed country /sarcasm
[citation needed]
America is very backwards and hilariously underdeveloped in some areas especially in day to day life. The fact that the parent comment calls toilet paper "sandpaper" is another example.
That seems quite hyperbolic. It's not as though you can't buy or find a bidet in the US...
The other 2 countries I know of where bidets are widely common are the ultra-modern Korea and Japan.
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bathing-h...
That said, water isn't always effective at cleansing for all people, in every situation. Sometimes you do need the ability to apply a little more force than what a jet of water can do without causing discomfort. We probably need a product that complements the bidet approach but still allows you to dig in there with some targeted and managed pressure when you need to.
I've never seen anywhere to put soap, and no controls for it's usage, and I would imagine this would need controls to ensure adequate rinsing, but my exposure has mostly been hotel rooms. I imagine that is something that would need to be refilled?
In any house you go, you will see soap on the bidet… So I'm probably not an outlier in using soap.
Everyone who doesn't have $5 million to afford a house has to use a normal toilet.
If you live in the US, I challenge you to find 10 renters in your area that have a bidet or whose landlord actually gives a shit (ha ha) about their tenants' bum health.
Houses cost $1-2 million in any city that actually has jobs. Yeah, you can get a shack in Kansas for $200k but good luck finding work there.
Nothing wrong with renting, it's not gonna come with a bidet though.
390k 1,000 ft starter home, two bedrooms two bathrooms, in a literal beachfront town in southern California where you are at most a 10-minute walk from the water. Oh you're picturing something more mcmansion like, sorry that may take a little extra creativity and luck. But you absolutely do not need to spend 2 million, 1 million or even half a million, to live in a highly desirable area in this country. It took me all of about 30 seconds to find, granted I live in the area and have a general sense of where to look for something like this but zooming around the map will find dozens of such examples.
This house is 390K. A few pennies short of a million much less 2.
All in, because sellers pay all fees so the price shown is 95-100% what you pay.
With decent credit you could get this with 10% down, now 40K in the bank is not exactly couch money but it's nowhere near beyond the reach of a single person, much less a couple, before kids and who jointly make an absolutely reasonable 70 to 90k combined given the area that you'd be in.
b-Buying stuff with money you don't have should never be the "default" way to do things. If you don't have the cash you can't afford it.
Your claim here is that someone who is buying a house, likely early-mid in their career at 25-40 years old, needs to pay for a million dollar house in cash while also having $3-4 million dollars additional cash reserves? For retirement, which they won't be doing for 30 years? What?
And this is why "normal people" are broke.
I don't buy stuff with money I don't have. It should never be "normal" to do so.
> For retirement, which they won't be doing for 30 years? What?
They job might be obsolete in 5 years with AI on the horizon.
War may break out given the current incompetents for presidency.
Climate change is happening.
If I had $1 million I would be saving it up and investing it for potential hard times coming, not blow it on a $1 million house.
If I had $5 million, sure, I might throw $1 million of it at a house.
The only time I would take a loan is if I have the cash but I believe I could significantly beat the loan interest rate by investing the balance in something else, AND I have other stable assets in case my plan doesn't work.
If you took out more loans than you have assets, you are broke.
Yeah, the US economy is f'ed up, roofs to live under should not be this expensive. If you think a huge fraction of the economy borrowing money at high interest rates to have basic life necessities, despite being employed, is normal, you have been brainwashed by the system.
Yes some people push it, no that's not what I'm talking about, as your argument was that you must have enough assets to purchase a house cash before you can "not be broke buying a house."
In the USA, not at all. I've only ever seen them in rich peoples' homes that they purchased. I have not once seen a rental property in the US with a bidet.
It is required by law.
You can buy one with all the bells and whistles for < $300 on Amazon. 2 minutes to install. I’ve had to use an extension cord (kept dry, and into GFCI outlet) if there isn’t a convenient outlet for the heated water/seat/dryer ones.
A lot less effort than mounting/unmounting a $300 TV and the quality of life improvement is so great I’m actually willing to talk about how I clean feces off my anus in semi-public.
The non-integrated TOTO Washlets range from $400-$1000. These have heated water, heated seats, heated dryer, a carbon air freshener and a remote. Some have auto-closing lids too. Definitely accessible for many in the HN crowd.
Cold-water bidet attachments are, like, $30.