"The question is, if toilet paper becomes a luxury item, can Americans live without it?"
The article itself appears to be part of the marketing machine. I don't at all consider toilet paper a luxury, in fact using water seems far more satisfactory and hygienic.
Japanese style washlets and european bidets are the luxury, um, end, of the market. If anything, plain toilet paper is set to be discarded as a rather unhygienic relic.
I hate traveling outside Japan! Can't live without "shower toilets" (that's how they're called here). It's hardly a luxury. It's an essential household equipment!
I feel like I'm going to barbarian lands when I leave Japan (for the sake of full disclosure, I'm not Japanese)
I keep a lotion bottle next to my toilet. Not only is lotion cheap, it's lubricating as it cleans, so it helps make the next wipe cleaner than just using a wet wipe! Lotion ftw.
I visited Japan, they had so many awesome toilets, I had to take videos and photos of all the crazy versions and options in restaurants, public, at home etc... they are awesome.
Also, the standard toilet conserves water by adding a small hand washing sink to the top of the tank, brilliant! Google this, as it's so common sense, I can't understand why it hasn't spread wider. This kind of toilet allows for a tiny extra bathroom, without the need of a sink, and it's still sanitary.
Something I find quite strange is how South American countries pervasively discourage people from flushing used toilet paper (instead preferring to have a little wastebasket to collect it and later throw it away in the trash). The usual account of the reason for this is that the plumbing can't handle it -- which you also hear about some old buildings in the U.S.
OK, but this norm persists even in buildings that were constructed within the last decade, like some super-recent hotels and airport terminals. Surely the plumbing there should be able to handle toilet paper, right?
And restrooms in stores along the U.S. border where people cross from Mexico often have to have signs in Spanish telling people to please flush their toilet paper and not throw it on the floor beside the toilet or go out into other parts of the store and drag trash cans into the restrooms to dispose of it in.
(This is not intended as a criticism of Mexicans, merely a comment on the fact that just across the border such practices still remain very active. Unfortunately due to the clash of expected practices, their belief that it's necessary to avoid clogging plumbing, and the U.S. lack of such a practice meaning there isn't a wastebasket beside each toilet, it often leads to rather unhygienic restrooms. In some cases, stores compromise and put wastebaskets in as well so everyone is satisfied.)
Encountered it in Canada in the maritimes. Anywhere on the coast there were places that just had a pipe going straight into the ocean. Cafes, restaurants, you name it. There were even portable toilets set up with the pipes so they never had to be pumped. I'm guessing they don't want to see tons of toilet paper floating in the ocean I guess, but excrement is not a problem? Maybe someone else has some better insight, for instance I know in the states if it rains too much and sewage backs up a bit, the beaches get closed. Do Canadians not see a problem with high bacteria levels?
It's not an isolated thing and comes up often... Canadians just seem backward at sewage management[1][2].
If the signs say don't flush anything down, they usually mean anything other than toilet paper and bodily excretions. Flushing tampons, pads, condoms, whatever the hell else is in your pocket is common and that is what those signs are discouraging. Toilet paper is designed to basically disintegrate once it gets wet, so it is not causing any problems in plumbing
Same thing in Moldova. I was told it was the old plumbing that candle handle large amounts of toilet paper, but I have a feeling it might also be antiquated treatment facilities that can't deal with paper breakdown either.
OK, if we are going to talk about toilet paper and its use...I'm reminded of a Q&A column at some gaming site about 15 years ago. Someone wrote in and said that he and his friends were talking after a LAN party, and somehow the question of which direction you wipe came up. He said that he was the only one in the group who went bottom to top (bottom up). Everyone else did top to bottom (top down), and told him he was a freak.
The columnist, after wondering why the hell this topic came up after their LAN party, admitted, if I recall correctly, to also going bottom up, and she asked around the office and found that something like 90 went top down.
I was totally surprised by this question. It never occurred to me that anyone would use the opposite direction from the one I use. The thing is, I have no idea why I go the way I do...presumably I was taught that when I was young enough to need assistance, so presumably I learned to use the same direction as my teachers, but that's before my earliest memories.
If the columnist's observation, and the original questioner's observation, and what I and a friend observed when we asked around at work, hold up, then it looks like there is a heavy skew toward top down.
So...how does bottom up persist? Unless there is some factor that tends to make bottom up people tend to marry other bottom up people, most bottom up people will marry to down people, and so most children of bottom people will be raised in a mixed direction household. So shouldn't half of them take after their top down parent, and so shouldn't the bottom up fraction be decreasing?
Or...maybe some people who themselves use top down find bottom up works better when they are teaching a young child, and that leads some children of top down households to end up bottom up?
There's probably some fascinating psychology research possibilities in this, but because we generally don't wipe in public or talk about it, it gets lost in the cracks.
An abundance of anus hairs in my case. Top to bottom (back to front) aligns the hairs in such a way that they don't end up stuck in the anus hole, which I've experienced leading to itching and irritation. However, at least one front to back (bottom to top?) is mandatory in the middle of the loop for increased cleanliness, as either the skin folds or anus hairs obscure some fecal matter that the top to bottom (back to front) directionality doesn't pick up.
Agreed, toilet paper falls short in nearly every regard compared to a bidet or a "bum gun". Using water is faster, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly.
This might be TMI but I never understood toilet paper. Think about it. You are taking a piece of paper and just spreading it around. No matter how hard you try it's still there. It's not clean. Gross.
In fact, the use of toilet paper has spurred a whole new industry that most other countries don't have...the ointment industry.
Seems like that same logic would obviate the dish cloth/sponge, dust cloth, mop, and towel too. Since these devices actually work, I suspect you're thesis is kinda wrong. Needless to say, when you wipe with an "clean" cloth, some of the material you want to remove sticks to the cloth and gets removed, leaving less on the surface being cleaned. Some number of repetitions pushes the concentration down below whatever it is you want to consider your target.
It works no differently for poop or spilled gravy.
I'll take no position on the bidet vs. paper debate.
Speaking of TMI, one solution (ahem) to spreading feces around is to spit on one side of the toilet paper and then wipe. After several repetitions with fresh paper/saliva, the paper will come back relatively clean and you can then use plain paper to dry.
(I learned to do this from my Asian mom. When I finally did travel to Japan, I greatly preferred their washlets to US-style toilets.)
> "But as our economy continues to circle the drain, will Americans part with their beloved toilet paper in order to adopt more money-saving measures? Or will we keep flushing our cash away?"
written in 2009, so I guess we know that yeah, we will continue using toilet paper. Though more are using flush-able wipes
Tried a Japanese toilet, I like the combination of spray + paper. Spraying alone would be gross, I'll take the paper alone over the spray alone (Japan seems to agree at least with public toilets that don't have sprays). It's just like your hands not being clean until you dry them. But really any method that doesn't use soap is leaving you dirty until you can shower.
What I don't get is why anyone wants to take cleanliness advice from cultures that still follow a "one hand for eating, one for wiping" custom.
That's not an area of your body that you should be washing with soap very often. It's a mucous membrane, and if you soap those up they get dry and irritated.
My doctor told me this when I complained of itching and irritation, and following his advice finally got me some much-needed relief.
From reading through some of the comments I really have to ask, is wiping ones ass really that complicated?
Get some single ply (not the cheap shit in public bathrooms, which is often like 0.25 ply or whatever the fuck ... fucking wax paper or some shit), fold it sheet-over-sheet using 5 sheets (defined by the perforation) for the first wipe, use 4 or 5 sheets for the second wipe, then finish off with a third wipe at 4 sheets. A wipe is one iteration through the ass_wipe_process loop, which has 2-3 sub-wipes depending on how comfortable you feel folding in half the 4-5 sheet-over-sheet folded unit.
I'm a dude, so I wipe back to front the first few sub-wipes, with a front to back followed back a back to front mixed in there somewhere. The reason for this directionality has to do with the length of my anus hair, which depends on when I've groomed it. The longer the anus hair, the more likely a front to back sub-wipe will lead to anus hairs in the butthole, causing itching and irritation. For some reason this doesn't happen with the back to front sub-wipe, so that is mandatory after a front to back, in order to realign the anus hairs.
Pro-Tip: Only groom hair close to the anus, otherwise you might end up with an ass-cyst from sitting on a groomed region where the hair can't properly grow out due to the pressure from sitting. Generally there's less constipation after grooming as though the hairs themselves bind the anus closed or some shit.
I mean seriously, just fucking take this shit seriously and do it right so you don't end up with shit in your undies stinking up the place or spreading fecal matter all over the place, getting people sick.
Factually incorrect article - fails to mention the Chinese at all, and credits America with the invention of soft toilet paper.
"From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies of that same year [1398], it was also recorded that for the Hongwu Emperor's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, and each sheet of toilet paper was even perfumed."
[+] [-] jacknews|8 years ago|reply
The article itself appears to be part of the marketing machine. I don't at all consider toilet paper a luxury, in fact using water seems far more satisfactory and hygienic.
Japanese style washlets and european bidets are the luxury, um, end, of the market. If anything, plain toilet paper is set to be discarded as a rather unhygienic relic.
[+] [-] sergiotapia|8 years ago|reply
$35 and you can install it in about 5 minutes flat. It's terrific, can't go back to TP ever.
[+] [-] GreaterFool|8 years ago|reply
I feel like I'm going to barbarian lands when I leave Japan (for the sake of full disclosure, I'm not Japanese)
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|8 years ago|reply
I visited Japan, they had so many awesome toilets, I had to take videos and photos of all the crazy versions and options in restaurants, public, at home etc... they are awesome.
Also, the standard toilet conserves water by adding a small hand washing sink to the top of the tank, brilliant! Google this, as it's so common sense, I can't understand why it hasn't spread wider. This kind of toilet allows for a tiny extra bathroom, without the need of a sink, and it's still sanitary.
[+] [-] LV-426|8 years ago|reply
(Somewhat disappointingly) there is now an explanation for this:
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/6688/how-did-the-t...
[+] [-] schoen|8 years ago|reply
OK, but this norm persists even in buildings that were constructed within the last decade, like some super-recent hotels and airport terminals. Surely the plumbing there should be able to handle toilet paper, right?
[+] [-] waterphone|8 years ago|reply
(This is not intended as a criticism of Mexicans, merely a comment on the fact that just across the border such practices still remain very active. Unfortunately due to the clash of expected practices, their belief that it's necessary to avoid clogging plumbing, and the U.S. lack of such a practice meaning there isn't a wastebasket beside each toilet, it often leads to rather unhygienic restrooms. In some cases, stores compromise and put wastebaskets in as well so everyone is satisfied.)
[+] [-] joecool1029|8 years ago|reply
It's not an isolated thing and comes up often... Canadians just seem backward at sewage management[1][2].
[1] http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canada-dumping-...
[2] https://qz.com/545922/canadas-new-government-just-approved-d...
[+] [-] diab0lic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh_sigh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nrau|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djsumdog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|8 years ago|reply
The columnist, after wondering why the hell this topic came up after their LAN party, admitted, if I recall correctly, to also going bottom up, and she asked around the office and found that something like 90 went top down.
I was totally surprised by this question. It never occurred to me that anyone would use the opposite direction from the one I use. The thing is, I have no idea why I go the way I do...presumably I was taught that when I was young enough to need assistance, so presumably I learned to use the same direction as my teachers, but that's before my earliest memories.
If the columnist's observation, and the original questioner's observation, and what I and a friend observed when we asked around at work, hold up, then it looks like there is a heavy skew toward top down.
So...how does bottom up persist? Unless there is some factor that tends to make bottom up people tend to marry other bottom up people, most bottom up people will marry to down people, and so most children of bottom people will be raised in a mixed direction household. So shouldn't half of them take after their top down parent, and so shouldn't the bottom up fraction be decreasing?
Or...maybe some people who themselves use top down find bottom up works better when they are teaching a young child, and that leads some children of top down households to end up bottom up?
There's probably some fascinating psychology research possibilities in this, but because we generally don't wipe in public or talk about it, it gets lost in the cracks.
[+] [-] anotherevan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfectstorm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3131s|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yousufmyh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electic|8 years ago|reply
In fact, the use of toilet paper has spurred a whole new industry that most other countries don't have...the ointment industry.
Washlets or bidets are far cleaner and preferred.
[+] [-] ajross|8 years ago|reply
It works no differently for poop or spilled gravy.
I'll take no position on the bidet vs. paper debate.
[+] [-] mistersquid|8 years ago|reply
(I learned to do this from my Asian mom. When I finally did travel to Japan, I greatly preferred their washlets to US-style toilets.)
EDIT: adjective/quantifier, punctuation, adverb
[+] [-] usaphp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] autokad|8 years ago|reply
written in 2009, so I guess we know that yeah, we will continue using toilet paper. Though more are using flush-able wipes
[+] [-] allengeorge|8 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/flushable-wipes-clogging-canad...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/nyregion/the-wet-wipes-bo...
Edit: And, just in case you wanted to know more: they cause serious damage. [3]
[3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/putrid-130-ton-mass-...
[+] [-] allengeorge|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/are-wet-...
[+] [-] nugi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jach|8 years ago|reply
What I don't get is why anyone wants to take cleanliness advice from cultures that still follow a "one hand for eating, one for wiping" custom.
[+] [-] neutronicus|8 years ago|reply
My doctor told me this when I complained of itching and irritation, and following his advice finally got me some much-needed relief.
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|8 years ago|reply
Get some single ply (not the cheap shit in public bathrooms, which is often like 0.25 ply or whatever the fuck ... fucking wax paper or some shit), fold it sheet-over-sheet using 5 sheets (defined by the perforation) for the first wipe, use 4 or 5 sheets for the second wipe, then finish off with a third wipe at 4 sheets. A wipe is one iteration through the ass_wipe_process loop, which has 2-3 sub-wipes depending on how comfortable you feel folding in half the 4-5 sheet-over-sheet folded unit.
I'm a dude, so I wipe back to front the first few sub-wipes, with a front to back followed back a back to front mixed in there somewhere. The reason for this directionality has to do with the length of my anus hair, which depends on when I've groomed it. The longer the anus hair, the more likely a front to back sub-wipe will lead to anus hairs in the butthole, causing itching and irritation. For some reason this doesn't happen with the back to front sub-wipe, so that is mandatory after a front to back, in order to realign the anus hairs.
Pro-Tip: Only groom hair close to the anus, otherwise you might end up with an ass-cyst from sitting on a groomed region where the hair can't properly grow out due to the pressure from sitting. Generally there's less constipation after grooming as though the hairs themselves bind the anus closed or some shit.
I mean seriously, just fucking take this shit seriously and do it right so you don't end up with shit in your undies stinking up the place or spreading fecal matter all over the place, getting people sick.
[+] [-] bencollier49|8 years ago|reply
"From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies of that same year [1398], it was also recorded that for the Hongwu Emperor's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, and each sheet of toilet paper was even perfumed."
[+] [-] cyberjunkie|8 years ago|reply
- India
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