I had my gallbladder removed at the end of 06. TP became less effective. I switched to wetwipes in 09, and got a bidet two years ago. Dear lord my life is genuinely SO much better now. It was an inexpensive $100 stainless steel addon for a regular toilet, and so incredibly worth it.

I've lived in three different countries in Asia. Have always had a mini-shower or at least a piped jet of water beside the toilet to help clean up. North America has the most bass-ackwards wiping convention I've ever seen.

This is the 21st century. We should be able to do a lot better. We should be able to have our sphinctors replaced with an artificial valve. This should be a standard size (or one of several standard sizes if one size does not fit all) and standard mechanism.

When you have to go, you sit down at a waste collection station, and a computer guided arm would connect a hose to your valve and open it. This can be designed so that at no time in this process is anything on the outside of the valve, the hose, or your body exposed to feces. All the feces goes into the hose. When you have been emptied, the valve is closed, the hose retracts, and its interior is cleaned.

That is how civilized people would take a crap (until we reach Star Trek levels of technology...then we'd just beam our feces out).

Better than a Bidet = the Hand Bidet Sprayer. It requires no new plumbing and can go in any bathroom including a rental. See www.bathroomsprayers.com.

And if that sounds like too much, Amazon has super well-rated bidets for around $25-$30 that have served me well.

Unless you're at work, where you usually don't get the luxury of having a sink inside the stall.

I never understood this suggestion. I've tried it, the toilet paper shreds and gets stuck everywhere, including my hands. It's a huge mess.