
Toilet Paper History: How America Convinced the World to Wipe (2009) - shawndumas
http://mentalfloss.com/article/23210/toilet-paper-history-how-america-convinced-world-wipe
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jacknews
"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.

~~~
sergiotapia
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A0RHSJO/ref=oh_aui_deta...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A0RHSJO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

$35 and you can install it in about 5 minutes flat. It's terrific, can't go
back to TP ever.

~~~
taneq
Honest question: How do you dry your butt afterwards? Do you keep a butt-towel
next to the toilet? Shared or one per person?

~~~
scarlac
Toilet paper. You'll still cut down your consumption (60% on average from my
personal numbers) and you'll need it for visitors who are not into 'that bidet
thing'

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schoen
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?

~~~
oh_sigh
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

~~~
bootlooped
In Korea there are buildings that still insist you don't flush toilet paper.
They usually say specifically toilet paper. My position is that it would not
be dangerous to ignore this, firstly, because like you stated toilet paper is
very weak when wet, and secondly, the impression that I got was that it was
mostly an old-fashioned idea.

~~~
djsumdog
It's a bad idea. I'm not sure about Korea specifically, but a lot of
developing nations have old/narrow pipes and they don't have the waste
treatment facilities to deal with toilet paper. They might not have the money
to install advanced filtering or even activated charcoal. Often times the
waste water is just diluted and dumped into oceans or lakes.

I encounter the "toilet paper in the trash can" signs first in Moldova. The
Nistru river has high levels of cholera, so it makes sense they simply do not
have advanced treatment facilities.

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tzs
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.

~~~
anotherevan
As I understand it, for women front to back significantly reduces the
likelihood of contracting a urinary tract infection.

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perfectstorm
Having used bidets in India and Japan I can never go back to toilet papers if
I've a choice.

~~~
3131s
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.

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electic
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.

Washlets or bidets are far cleaner and preferred.

~~~
usaphp
But when you use water - don’t you get your hands dirty? At least with paper
you have paper to do all the work instead of your fingers?

~~~
dingo_bat
You can wash your hands with a nice antibacterial soap. It's easy and very
clean.

~~~
yeahsure
Isn't every soap antibacterial?

~~~
dingo_bat
No most are just detergents that make the dirt loose and then you wash it off
using water. Anti-bacterial soap kills the bacteria before you wash them off
using water.

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autokad
> "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

~~~
allengeorge
Which are often not flushable. [1] [2]

[1] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/flushable-wipes-clogging-
canad...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/flushable-wipes-clogging-canadian-
sewers-waste-water-officials-say-1.2430071)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/nyregion/the-wet-wipes-
bo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/nyregion/the-wet-wipes-box-says-
flush-but-the-new-york-city-sewer-system-says-dont.html?_r=0)

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-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/putrid-130-ton-mass-
clogging-london-sewer-highlights-worldwide-sewer-strife/)

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Jach
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.

~~~
neutronicus
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.

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RandomInteger4
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.

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bencollier49
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."

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cyberjunkie
Holy shit! A hand-spray is any day better (than of course a hand and mug to
the rear)!

\- India

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singingfish
The bum hose is a wonderful thing. Especially for us hairy bastards.

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chmaynard
I'm too embarrassed to comment.

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juancn
I don't understand societies with no bidet, you basically walk around with
dirty asses all day long (or use wet wipes).

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milani
Middle-eastern countries have used water for centuries to clean after the act.
Nowadays, they are converting to western style as it seems luxury!

~~~
pseingatl
No, they are not. A shouf (water hose) is always next to the toilet in Middle
Eastern countries and in public facilities. Always.

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pruthvishetty
Not India.

~~~
afroboy
Not Arabs too.

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pseingatl
Interesting how Maduro's Venezuelan toilet paper crisis could be solved with
soap and water.

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hbarka
I’ve heard some Europeans call it the “sandpaper practice”.

