# Why don't Americans have bidets???



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I heard on the radio recently that around 50% of Americans go around every day with a contaminated underside. This is probably because it's long and difficult to completely clean yourself with just toilet paper.

It stops you from feeling like you need a shower after taking a #2. It saves billions of trees by substituting for toilet paper. The Japanese have bidets, why can't we??!


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Ravellian said:


> I heard on the radio recently that around 50% of Americans go around every day with a contaminated underside. This is probably because it's long and difficult to completely clean yourself with just toilet paper.
> 
> It stops you from feeling like you need a shower after taking a #2. It saves billions of trees by substituting for toilet paper. The Japanese have bidets, why can't we??!


:lol: Good question. I mean, we clean ourselves with water when we shower/bathe and we also clean our food with water before cooking/eating.

Maybe it's in the interest of saving water versus saving trees.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Oh my. Recently we had a thread about colonoscopy. Now this... 
What's going on with Talk Classical?
LOL


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

As the greatest inventor of the 21st century, I'll make sure every toilet in here has a bidet by 2051.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The bidet is inefficient (a butt-wipe does a better job), water wasting, space wasting, and Frenchified.

Any other dumb questions?


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Maybe it's in the interest of saving water versus saving trees.


According to this article, manufacturing toilet papers actually requires much more water than the bidets.

_To those who say that bidets waste water, advocates counter that the amount is trivial compared to how much water we use to produce toilet paper in the first place. Biolife Technologies, manufacturer of the high-end line of Coco bidets, says the amount of water used by a typical bidet is about 1/8th of a gallon, with the average toilet using about four gallons per flush. Lloyd Alter of the website treehugger.com reports that making a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water, 1.3 kilowatt/hours (KWh) of electricity and some 1.5 pounds of wood. Thomas points out that toilet paper is also a public nuisance in that it clogs pipes and adds a significant load onto city sewer systems and water treatment plants._


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Perhaps I'm lucky - my lavatory has such a powerful flush a bidet-style 'upsurge' occurs whether you want it to or not!


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

I don't need one. I never take a # 2. Yeah, I'm this clean. # 2 is for dirty people who eat junk food.
I have developed for my own delight this very scientific diet that makes me absorb and utilize every molecule of food that I ingest so there is nothing left for # 2. I've been trying to patent it but the lobby of toilet paper makers and bidet makers has been fighting me continuously. Big business doesn't want a # 2-free humanity.

But I'm confident that one day their **** will hit the fan.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> According to this article, manufacturing toilet papers actually requires much more water than the bidets.
> 
> _To those who say that bidets waste water, advocates counter that the amount is trivial compared to how much water we use to produce toilet paper in the first place. Biolife Technologies, manufacturer of the high-end line of Coco bidets, says the amount of water used by a typical bidet is about 1/8th of a gallon, with the average toilet using about four gallons per flush. Lloyd Alter of the website treehugger.com reports that making a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water, 1.3 kilowatt/hours (KWh) of electricity and some 1.5 pounds of wood. Thomas points out that toilet paper is also a public nuisance in that it clogs pipes and adds a significant load onto city sewer systems and water treatment plants._


People who seriously think that absence of bidet has anything to do with saving the planet lack basic historical perspective: people who don't use it today didn't stop because of environmental trends - they never used it to begin with, just like people who used it before, still do.

Bidet it good, mkay.


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## hawk (Oct 1, 2007)

Gee i thought this, according to the topic title, was about french donuts....


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

It's sad to see a thread like this gets more attention than some of the serious threads I have tried to start.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Ravellian said:


> I heard on the radio recently that around 50% of Americans go around every day with a contaminated underside.


I wonder how this study was conducted...


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I'm sorry, but this is my only reaction to this thread:


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Waste is the American way. As long as some powerful industry continues to make money, who cares about trees and wasting water? Here's another question. Why does America use so much plastic that gets discarded immediately? Why haven't plastic grocery bags been outlawed? Why are all of our CDs and DVDs wrapped in cellophane? It's not necessary, but somebody's making too much money to stop.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

My one and only experience with a bidet was after an 18 hour bus ride from Lucerne, Switzerland to Rome, Italy. That was really something ... the bidet ... not the trip. 

They are starting to gain popularity in the US ... but only in the more expensive homes.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I don't know why, I always crack up laughing on the mention of a bidet :lol:. Maybe because of THIS scene from the Aussie film _Crocodile Dundee_ with Paul Hogan which I saw as a young lad. Corny but hilarious.

It's similar here to the USA situation people describe, bidets have been traditionally uncommon here but now are gaining ground in new homes, esp. more expensive/luxury ones as Krummhorn says...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

In Korea lots of toilets have bidets but I can't read what the buttons say and am too embarrassed to ask anyone to explain it all to me. Recently I found one with pictures though!


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

A baby wet-wipe is much less hassle.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ravellian said:


> According to this article, manufacturing toilet papers actually requires much more water than the bidets.
> 
> _To those who say that bidets waste water, advocates counter that the amount is trivial compared to how much water we use to produce toilet paper in the first place. Biolife Technologies, manufacturer of the high-end line of Coco bidets, says the amount of water used by a typical bidet is about 1/8th of a gallon, with the average toilet using about four gallons per flush. Lloyd Alter of the website treehugger.com reports that making a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water, 1.3 kilowatt/hours (KWh) of electricity and some 1.5 pounds of wood. Thomas points out that toilet paper is also a public nuisance in that it clogs pipes and adds a significant load onto city sewer systems and water treatment plants._


So... after you shoot that water up your butt, you don't wipe it?


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Tapkaara said:


> It's sad to see a thread like this gets more attention than some of the serious threads I have tried to start.


I feel the same way...I believe no. 2 is more popular that "the cutest thing"...LOL I was showing an 11 years old buy playing the lovely Glinka Nocturn "the separation", nobody made any comment. About the bidet, I would say I was amazed when I came here and didn't find any. How comes? People don't wash their butts after no. 2? Actually, I use my washbasin for it...Using just paper is gross...
This doesn't apply to Almaviva (he's out of this "common" world). LOL

Martin


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2011)

Am I the only one who had to go online and look up information on how you use the damn things? 

Incidentally, while I lived in Europe (Southern Germany and Switzerland), I lived in one apartment that had a bidet. My roommate used it as a footbath for when he was sitting on the toilet, after a long day of walking!!! (We had never used it for its proper purpose, and he DID clean it. Still, I never cared to dip my feet in it). But this one was weird, and didn't seem to fit the description I saw - rather than having a water spout in the middle, water just ran down the sides. Is this something completely different? I'm showing my complete ignorance regarding these things.

Incidentally, I do prefer the American method of taking care of #2 to what I experienced in Saudi Arabia - the hole in the floor.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

I saw this few minutes ago and it reminded me of this topic:


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

DrMike said:


> [...]
> Incidentally, I do prefer the American method of taking care of #2 to what I experienced in Saudi Arabia - the hole in the floor.


I worked on a job in a Hyundai automotive plant in the late '80s. Early on I used the easily accessible restroom - which had the hole-in-the-floor. I had to remove my trousers to use it (the Koreans did not have to) to get a clear path. Apparently the necessary skill is learned early in life. Eventually someone told me where the Westerners' rest room was. The same dual restroom arrangement existed in Jordan, the difference being that the Jordanians' arrangement did not include toilet paper.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

DrMike said:


> Am I the only one who had to go online and look up information on how you use the damn things?
> 
> Incidentally, I do prefer the American method of taking care of #2 to what I experienced in Saudi Arabia - the hole in the floor.


The eastern nations haven't totally got the monopoly on the 'hole in the floor' facility - about 20 years ago I remember having to use a similar 'convenience' at a small railway station in central France - and it had foot-shaped dips in the ceramic floor where you were supposed to - ahem - position yourself. There did seem to be a cubicle which I assumed contained a conventional lavatory but the door was padlocked. It wasn't a pleasant experience - the time before that when I was forced to use something remotely similar was when I went to see Led Zeppelin at Knebworth Festival where, if you couldn't find a portaloo that was either vacant or without a plumbing problem, the more basic amenities were just a plank with a hole in it which was directly above a pit. On a hot August day, as well... Still, when needs must, the devil drives...


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I'm with Taapi...really?...oh, geez...enjoy your bidets, folks.


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