Bidets: Now More Than Ever

It's all one big weird dream, right, Yeah, did you see what I titled this episode? By the way, no, I haven't looked yet. Bidats colon now more than ever. That's great, good job, man, because that is true, like having a Biddat right now can really keep you out of the rat race to find toilet paper dude the first, because you know, I used to have one of the toilet attachments and it got lost in the in the renovation and move and I kind of forgot about it.

And the very first thing I did when I heard about this toilet paper surge was get online and buy another one of those things. Yeah, yeah, we had had just happened to get one um for other bathroom right before all this happened, So we're all set on the rear situation with the water application clean bottoms. Yeah, I'm so. I was raised the toilet paper guy, of course, and

I know how you feel about that. Every once in a while though, I'll remember in our toilet paper episode you, I'm just gonna come out and say it wiping using paper to wipe your bottom with and that's it is just gross, gross gross, And like, like, seriously, I hear that in my head a lot. It's hilarious. But um, to me, that's that to me is like, okay, this this makes sense, feels normal, and I've gotten used to a bidday, but even still like I'm using a little

bit of toilet paper there too. Also, we should probably say this episode is chuck full of t M I so just buckle in for that. But yes, I if I use a bid day, I still use a little bit of toilet paper. Um. And the thing that I think got me out of all of this chuck. I just want to stay up front is the science is still out on which one actually is more beneficial for

you health wise. There are people saying toilet paper is yeah, I've seen it, and I think this is what I suspect, because there's such a dearth of studies on this, and some of the studies that have been done are showing mixed results. That it basically depends on how your doctor or whoever you're asking um feels about toilet paper or bid days. That's that that that's what they're going to recommend, doctor or whoever likes the bus driver. Min doctor drives

a bus too. Yes, but these are hard times, alright. So we're talking about bidets, which is if you don't know what this is, uh, you have been living under a rock. But for a lot of Americans, and we'll get to why Americans haven't been hip to them a bit later, but some Americans still might not be hip to these. A bidet is a little and they can be different things. But the kind of classic modern bidet looks like another little toilet installed beside your toilet or

near your toilet. Not quite right though. There's something you can't put your finger on. It ain't quite right about that toilet. Yeah, Like if you walked into a room and you never see it seen one before, you wouldn't be like, well, there's one for pooping and one for peeing. Yeah, I think that definitely does cross your mind either that where else you go? Oh gool. But there are different ways that you can have these modern bidets. Some of them have little water streams that scored up, some of

them have a little like a shower handle. Um. But the long and short of it is it's another appliance in your bathroom with water and a little basin that you straddle after you do your business and uh and clean yourself up with water instead of dry toilet paper. That's the classic bidet, right, Yes, the classic bidet, not the biday of olden days? No, no, Um, should we talk about the other types or go back to the olden days? Now, let's go back to the olden days

and we'll catch up again. All right, that's a little tease everybody. We're gonna talk about other types of the days eventually. Yeah. And I didn't see exactly. I saw anywhere from lateteen sixteen hundreds to early seventeen hundreds, but definitely European and the first bid days. Uh. The word means pony or cob, which is a kind of a short, little, short legged, strong horse. Yeah. And at the time the

frends were crazy about those kinds of horses. Yeah, and apparently that has something to do with how you're supposed to use it. I still don't fully follow that. So, like these original days, it looked like a little kind of mini bathtub, but it also had something like a saddle shape and you squatted over it like you would, almost like you were riding like a little cob horse. All right, Well that makes a little bit of sense, I guess. And it also had like four legs coming

out of the body. Did you know, if you think about it, kind of makes sense that it looks like a little tiny horse without the top half or a head or a neck, or ears or a main or tail or hoofs. But other than that all that, it's the spitting image of a cob horse. Yeah, I think it looked They looked a little more like Ottomans with

a little chamber pot in the center. Yes, but Ottomans came from the Turks, and the French probably hated the Turks at the time because that was geopolitics, so they would never made that comparison, even though it was like this great elephant in the room's right, but these things were in the bedroom in France in the early seventeen hundreds, next to the chamber pot and the very idea of uh of pooping and peeing in your bedroom, it was pretty new, like the outhouse was like that, you still

had an outhouse, but from what I saw, chamber pots and bid days were for nighttime business. Like when so you don't have to leave your bedroom, right? Yeah, I mean it's really kind of sweet if you think about It's like poop and pee in you your bedroom, especially on a cold night. But eventually people were like, well, there's a lot of collar around, there's a lot of typhoid.

We should probably move these two a separate room. And eventually they did, and they called those bathrooms, yeah, or restrooms or toilets or w c's or poop station bills or lose. Oh I've got one for you. I wanted to say this in the last episode we recorded, the wastewater episode. All right, let's hear it. So you know, the word lou means bathroom or toilet in the UK

at least, if not more. And they think so when we were in Edinburgh doing those shows, remember you took a nap and I got all bored, so I went and walked around the city by myself. Well, I went to old time Edinburgh like old time. I must have been napping when you went, because I don't know why you wouldn't have just gone with me when I tried to wake you up. But regardless, on this tour, maybe

you'll remember this. The the the tour guide said that they think the word lou came from the Scotch people, the Scottish people saying guardiloo when they threw their waste water out into the streets, like they would shout guardilou. And they think that guardi lou came from guard de lee, which means watch the water in French. And so they think that um, guardi lou came from wash the water, and then lou came from guardi loo. And then that's where we got that term for the toilet in the UK.

I love that. That's that's one for your next dinner party. Oh oh, I cannot tell you how many dinner parties I busted that out at so b days. Uh back to the Biday. They are or were more of a high society thing, like you know you were using an outhouse if you weren't, I don't know necessarily aristocracy, but you had to be like middle and upper class to have a bidat in your bedroom or in your house. Uh, and probably a chamberpot even for that matter. Well, for

a couple of reasons too. I think one, you typically had servants who were going to take it away for you. This number one, you got to change the number number two, right, and the number two. You know, if if this bidat is basically just a wash basin with water, they didn't have running water at the time, which meant you had to haul water, so you probably had a servant hauling

water for you as well. So yeah, you were probably this thing that's that that was like a luxury to the rest of the world, was just nothing to you because you didn't have to do anything. You just used it. You didn't have to do any prepper takeaway or anything like that. That's right. And they don't know for sure who invented it, but this dude, Christophe de Rosier UH made one for the French royal family in seventeen. A lot of people point to him as being the inventor

of the bidet. Uh didn't take long, you know, within the next thirty or forty years or so, they started having things like things like little hand pumps, so you could kind of have a little rudimentary spraying device to

help herself out. That's nice. It is nice. It is I mean because prior to this, it was just again a wash basin that you would straddle and just kind of flip it up onto your underside, your fanny as it were, your hand, right with your hand, and eventually that that water comes back down and mixes with the water you're flipping up and you reach some critical point tipping point is Malcolm Gladbo would put it, and now you're just flipping poop water up onto your nether regions

and it's no longer helpful. So the idea that you could just sit there and and spray a pump a stream of water on there and have to just flick the stuff out of the basin onto you. UM, that's an enormous advancement. And they came along pretty early. I think the seventeen fifties, right, Yeah, that's about when the little spray spray thing came along. That's beautiful. And chuck one other thing too. I think about the same time

that that pump handle came along. They also UM installed like a refillable tank, so you fill the water with tank and the everything that was in the basin was all just wastewater, So you were good to go by seventeen fifty as far as bidats were concerned, Yes, everything was totally clean and totally safe by seventeen fifty. Nothing could possibly go wrong. So these were big. Obviously in Europe they spread. Italy and Portugal were really big on

the bidets still are. I saw Italy may have been the actual inventors of them, and that the French possibly just popularized it. I could see that. Yeah, French and they steal everything they did. But at the same time they were also they were a superpower at the time, and they were also basically global taste makers. So once they became into it, got into bidets, the rest of the world followed suit pretty quickly, or most of the rest of the world. Not if you were England or America,

you probably went no, thank you frenchman. Yeah, Uh, South America, UM, Argentina, Venezuela. They're pretty popular. Uh, in the Middle East, and of course Asia and Japan very much leads the way in not only bidet use but bidet technology these days. Yeah, It's a classic example of what I've talked about before. The Japanese say, oh, I really like this invention. We can improve it by a hundred and thirty pc. So let's do that, And that's exactly what they did. That's

a good Japanese accent. Thanks. I added a little vocal fry there at the end to make it particularly confusing. So maybe let's take a quick break, go cleaner uh bombits as my daughter says, and we will talk about what's the deal with America and why we hate cleaning our butt holes the right way? Right after this, to check you, we're talking about butth holes, I believe before the break, let's pick up. Let's pick up where you left off. Yeah, what's up, America? Why don't you clean

your butt hole the right way? I thought this was pretty interesting. There's a guy who I guess is a bidet expert um who was speaking with the New York Times, and we happened to overhear it. He had some theories about why America didn't like bidets, and one you kind of touched on before, which was that England hated France at the time. They were I have a world superpowers, much akin to America and the United States during the Cold War. I mean in the USS are America, USSR

Draco versus Rocky during the Cold War? Right, Um, so the English hated everything associated with the French and they would just have never gone from bidays. But that seems to have carried over into the colonies like America, which is a pretty good theory for why Americans have never adopted bidays. Yeah, and those were you know, in the

early days of non adoption. Uh, World War two happened and and this is uh, this sounded kind of like I wasn't sure I believed this at first, but then I saw it in a different way in a bunch of different places, So I do believe it. Yeah. But apparently American soldiers would go to brothels in Europe and in Japan, and depending on what theater of war you were stationed at, and you would see these bays and you would associate it and there were a few different

things going on. You might associate it with sex work. I think you gross um. At the time, the there were people that thought using a bid day after sex uh could be a contraceptive practice. Not true at all. Well, yeah, they thought that douching was a reliable contraceptive practice, and it wasn't until like the twenties or thirties where it was proven basically indisputable that no, it basically does absolutely nothing.

But the idea that you would use the bid day to do that, um, kind of further associated it with sex work as well. Yeah. And then the other thing, which is incredibly sexist, uh and maybe throw in just a dash of misogyny, is that uh, women on their period. It was it hasn't been that long that women have been able to get products to deal with that and to talk about it as if it were just a normal thing that happens to the human body. It was

very much under the table. Um, I think we should do something, man, if we if we dare go down that road on Springtime Flower Blossom episode, well, I was thinking maybe a shorty just on um like tampons and maxi pads and the development of of those things, because it took way too long, uh for the for the awful awful reason that manufacturers just didn't want anything to do with that. Right, Yeah, for sure, Um, I'm down,

all right, Well let's do it. But menstruation had a lot to do with uh BI days not being used in America because no one wanted to talk about menstruation for a long long time. So you've got g i's returning from uh overseas where they visited brothels and aren't particularly looking forward to introducing their wives to bidays because they associated them with sex work. They're also really useful

for menstruation, which wasn't talked about at the time. Um, and then they remind everybody the King of France, who everybody hated. And you put those three things together, that makes it really difficult to market in America. And so they think that one or all of those reasons are why Americans never really got into bid day's not until the Japanese said, hey, everybody, UM, check this out. But

we'll get to that, not quite yet. Yeah. Another reason, and this was mentioned as a chicken or the egg thing, I personally think because the idea is that American bathrooms aren't big enough for this extra thing in there. But I think had we adopted it to begin with, we would have made our bathrooms a little bigger to fit these things personally totally, because I mean, our bathrooms are enormous now and they could totally fit a bid at. But if you if you look at most bathrooms, they're

like a master bath in the suburban house. Like the bathrooms big, but the toilet is still small the little toilet area. So yeah, I think we totally would have expanded our bathrooms to allow it. I think we just didn't need to have bigger bathrooms because we didn't have it. So I say, disdaining for biddat lead to smaller bathrooms rather than vice versa. Where do you fall? Yeah? I agree. Um, I'm kind of mad because this this was my chance when we renovated our house to put a real deal

biday in there, and you want one. Yeah, I didn't even think about it. Um, But like you know, like you said, our our toilet is wedged in a little zone like all toilets. We could have made our shower smaller and stuck a Bidday next to it. I guess uh. I can see you like dropping your highlighter while you were researching this article, like when it struck you like um. Interestingly, though, the um kind of one of the bigger bidet models that was popularized around the world, was invented by an

American named Arnold Cohen. In the nineteen sixties. Yes, dude, So I had no idea about this, but the bid day seat that you use, that I use that basically all Americans are starting to be like, hey, this is kind of awesome that everybody in Japan uses, that a lot of people around the world used today was invented by a guy named Arnold Cohen in the nineteen sixties in the United States. Yeah. I also saw him referred to as the bid At King. Yeah, man, and God

bless this guy. He tried his best. Uh. He created this thing for his dad who was older and not doing too well. And we'll talk about medical benefits here in a minute, but um, if you have a rash back there, if you have a hemorrhoid or an anal fissure or something like that. Um, there is some research, like you said, not enough, but some research that shows that a biday can really be helpful if you have one of those conditions. And his dad did so. He was a former ad guy. He tried his best and

it just didn't quite work out. In America for Arnold Cohen, Yeah, he aided a model called the American Sits Bath s I t Z Bath, which is weird because it's not a Sitz bath. No, and there are six baths now and I don't know if they predated it or and he just kind of adopted that or what. But he basically took a toilet seat and modified it, added a foot pump to pump water under your bum with um he uh. He went to trade shows, he tried to market it as much as he could, and he also

was very much ahead of his time. And then again, this is the nineteen sixties and he was still a young man at the time. Um that that he was trying to He saw that it was a problem how much toilet paper Americans use. That was one of his driving forces, in addition to trying to come up with something that could help people like his dad who are suffering from rectial issues. Um. And he said, I think one of his quotes is nobody wants to hear about

tushy washing one oh one. It was just too difficult to market and so he kind of he gave up.

I guess to an extent, and I guess sometime in the seventies he either approached a company called TOTO, which stands for Toyo Tokei or Oriental ceramics and Japanese um Or they approached him and they licensed his concept and kind of tinkered with it, made it better, made it much more automated, made it electronic, and um they deybuwed the washlet in in Japan, and it took a little like getting used to over there as well, but in very short order, the Japanese kind of clumped onto it

and it became like part of their culture as much as like sushi. Sure, Sure, we did a great episode on sushi. We did. I was also gonna say chopsticks anime, um cuteness who knows a lot of stuff. You could say, Sure maple Japanese maples. A couple of those, M Yeah, they're beautiful. Man. Do you have the kind of like sweeping, spreading kind or the upright kind? I have. One of my favorite ones are the small low spreaders, and I

got a couple of those. I don't think they're gonna be huge, but the way I have them in our garden and it's just very lovely. It's one of my favorite trees. Yeah, you don't want them to be huge when they're like that, because they're supposed to be kind of subtle, understated and like low growing. You know. Yeah, boy, there's one around the corner for me that I just I have Japanese maple envy in a big way. It's it looks like a it looks like a twelve foot

umbrella that's about four ft off the ground. It's just gorgeous. Yeah, I'll bet it's old. Yeah, it's got to be. I just want to sit in it every time I go by their yard. You you probably lay under it and just tickle it. Did I say sit under it or sit in it? You said sit in it? Yeah, I'm in sit under it. Okay, you're gonna be the weird neighbor who just sits in people's yards. Maybe I've wanted to do that so many times and I just you know, and oh you can't do it, especially as they've grown adult.

So what kind of a day do you have? You don't have the buzz market, But I got kind of one of the um like a seventy five dollar model, but that go under your existing toilet seat. But I know that some of these Japanese models it's actually part of the toilet seat and has dryers and they talk to you and all that good stuff. I will buzz buzz buzz, because I love mine. I have to total washlets and they it's not like the highest n one where like you stand up and it flushes automatically or

um it talks to you or has lights. They have some that have like UV lights built in so when the lids shut like kills everything in sight. Um. But it's like it's like a good good washlet has like a heated seat and everything, um, and like it's it's

just wonderful to have. It's just really that's the one where the seat is part of the unit, right, Yeah, Like the whole thing replaces your toilet seat, and there's like a big kind of bulky contraption in back that I think is like a water tank and where all

like the mechanations are. But it's like you take your old toilet seat and you throw it out the window into your neighbor's yard under their Japanese yep, next to year old spirit tires and and dead possums, and you replace it with this one, you know, bidet toilet seat you connected to the water supply and then you plug it in and there you have it. I'm looking at this thing now, I kind of want to get one, but I don't have a I don't have a power

outlet over there. That can be a problem. So you have to That's like an added cost a lot of the times. Unless you're comfortable with just having like an extension cord and surge protector or something, we're just fine. It's at the end of the world. But if you're not, then yes, you need to have an electrician comput a power outlet next to year. Yeah, yeah, because you could have done that when you're doing that that Sorry I

didn't warn you. That's all right. So I guess since we're talking about Bidet's seats, I guess we should talk about the cheaper ones. You can get them for like anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks. And like we said, that goes under your seat, and you have a little control device on the side of your toilet seat that you just turn on the spray and it shoots out. Um, it's cold water and less do you have the means

to hook it up to warm water? Um, but ours is cold water, so you know, so it's a little bit of a h of a wake you up in in the morning, you know, Yeah, is your warm I guess yes, it is it's warm, the seats warm. It's just beautiful. I just want to poop at your house now. It's you come over and use it anytime you want, because I know you pee sitting down, so you're okay in my book. But these washlets, so get this man.

The washlet when it was introduced in and the washlet is like, I don't know what you call it, but they took let's wash and turned it into the washlet when they released it. But as of two thousand seven total had sold seventeen million of these worldwide about nineteen eighty it is amazing. As of two thousand nine, twelve years after that, it was fifty million. They sold ten million since two thousand and sixteen or so, I'm sorry.

Two thousand nineteen was fifty million, two sixteen was forty million. So at some point along the way, a big portion of the world said, I like that, We're going to try it, and I'm gonna get one. Because the sales have taken off even before this um coronavirus shut in toilet paper run that we're experiencing in America. Yeah, I wonder I was gonna say if they had like a counter of that said like fifty million clean butt holes. But there's more than that, is you have two butt

holes in your house, right exactly. So I mean that's well, that's one of the things that people point to is like, well, you know, there's a cost savings if this thing lasts long enough, you'll eventually pay for it, will eventually pay for itself, and savings from having to buy toilet paper, and well, and we'll get to the waist and toilet paper.

But that is a problem. Yeah, yeah, because even if the cost thing doesn't quite work out, you are still you know, it's coming close to breaking even it's not like a complete like waste of money, but also money aside. Ecologically, it's probably a much better thing than toilet paper by any measure, any metric. All right, well, should we take another break? I think so, all right, let's take another break, and we'll, believe it or not, we're gonna tell you

how to use these things right after this. Okay, Chuck, so I teased it earlier. I think we should start with this, uh, this this third act by talking about the different kinds of bidats. We've already talked about two. Right, there's the little cob horse bidet that looks like a tiny bathtub next to your toilet. There's the um. The washlet is a brand name, but it's almost become a proprietary eponym. It's so so um, so um widespread. Yes, um. But that's also called the bidet seat that you replace

your toilet seat with. And then the third type is a hose that looks like you know, the dishwashing hose that you have, like as coming out of your your kitchen sink, if you if it's like that, but next to your toilet. That's the third kind of bidat. It's called like a water wall, a wall mounted shower head bidet. Yeah. I don't think these are nearly as common, are they. I didn't get that impression either, But when I looked it up, a lot of different images came up on Google.

I don't even want to do that. All right? So are we can we talk about how we use these things? Yes, But I just want to say one more time, I'm thoroughly engrossed by the wall mounted showerhead bidet. You have to see one of these. Sometimes I've seen pictures, I just haven't seen them in person. Okay, I got it, neither of I but I've just I spend a good hour like staring at pictures, he thinks, and imagining. You know, sure,

all the possibilities, so go so go ahead. I think this part I cobbled this together from a bunch of sources from the Atlantic, from How Stuff Works, I think New York Times, but me, I think was mental floss. And I think this came from How Stuff Works. This step by step for how to use a bid day and uh. The first step they say is locate the bidet. That is a good first step. I can't believe they

put that in there. I thought that was very funny. Actually, technically their first step, if you're going by bullet points, was used the toilet toilet as you normally do both for urination and for defication. That's step one as far as the editors of How Stuff Works is concerned. Oh, that is really funny. Um. Yes, And actually they do point out in that step one that whether or not you wipe a little with toilet paper first, I don't.

I wouldn't do that. I would uh. And how I do it as I wet to my bum first with a good spray, and then I used just a little bit of toilet paper and that's the great thing is is you're not using nearly as much. You can just use a few squares to kind of just make sure everything's cleaned up and dry. If you don't have a fancy pants dryer like yours. Yeah, I've found that the dryer takes so long that I don't have the patience for it. Now, who does you know, crazy psychos? Maybe

unless you're you know, got a good book or something. Sure, and Uncle John's bathroom reader that would do it. That would keep me on the can long enough to air dry with the blow dryer. Or a little book coming this fall? Oh yes, shall we plug it? I think it's a great time to plug our book. It's called Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things that's right coming to bookstores this fall. You can pre order now. And uh, I think all signs are

still full bore ahead. And though we're in the midst of a global pandemic, in fact, hopefully they're thinking this is just what people need. Yeah, and hopefully it is. And at the very least it is guaranteed to keep you on the toilet until your legs going numb. That's right. So that's an old George Carlin joke. Oh really, what to sit on the toilet to your legs go? Num? Now he did some like some. He was talking about some game show and one of the contestants was introduced.

One of her hobbies was sitting on the toilet until her legs went, which is not good for you, they say, especially if you have hemorrhoids. It can make that a lot worse. So you're supposed to do your business and get off. I could totally see that. You're also not

supposed to, like watch TV in bed. Beds supposed to be for sleeping, So if you ever have trouble getting to sleep, um, they suggest that you like go read out on the couch until you start to get drowsy, and then go to bed and fall asleep, so that you'll your body and your mind will start to associate bed strictly with doing your sleeping business. I say, poop poo, did that because I love watching TV in bed? Yeah, Hey, I'm with you. It's a nice, nice little treat. It's great.

I get why people don't do it, but uh, you know, I'm not one of those people. Hey, to each his own, we always say, right to reach their own teach their own. Yeah, alright, so I guess we're at medical. Oh no, wait, we did.

We located the bidet right right, You've done your business. Uh. To me, the downside of having the separate bidet is you do your business and then you gotta get up and like remount another device, so like you've got it going on with your your fancy pants washl I think I think that's why I was so surprised that you wanted a regular biddat, because there's like a whole drippy um step moving from one to the other, you know. So yeah, I think when you get a washlet, you're

not going to want a regular bidet any longer. I can't get a washlet, dude, I don't have the power. You can hire an electrician to come run an outlet. It's very easy. I know. Now I'm going to look into that. You're right, Okay, you're gonna love it, Chuck, Okay, okay, what does yours talk? I forgot No, it doesn't talk. That would be amazing. I've never seen a talking one except on the Simpsons. Well maybe that's where I got there was Yeah, because there's that one that says I

am honored to accept your waist. I think that's where I got it. Surely some of them talk, right uh. Probably think Japan is famous for for talking appliances right sure, and just having like weird random stuff written on their appliances. Yeah, I mean I've talked about that rice maker. I think you have the same one or one of the same versions. That thing makes all kinds of fun sounds. Yeah the uh um oh, hey, while we're talking about this stuff,

let me say, um, Mike's Mighty Good Ramen looked us up. Dude, that was so nice. Well, like, I'm first of all, thank you for mentioning it, because you got us hooked up big time. I did not anticipate that much Ramen coming no, like a box full of Mike's Mighty Good ram and basically saying, hey, thanks for the shout out. So um, I had never tried it before, and it is really good stuff, and we have a bunch for free, which is nice because it also stores really well too

during times like this. Yeah, and I had already also purchased about a hundred dollars worth and it all kind of came at once, so I have literally a big moving storage been full of Mike's mighty good and I eat it for lunch every day. Today I had the vegetable cooking up milk lemongrass and it is delicious. Yes, it is amazing. I think the beef is my favorite so far. I love that spicy beef. Have you augmented yours yet? No, I'm I'm a novice still. I'm just

kind of taking it a little by little. But I saw that on they have like a recipe card for suggesting how to kind of dress it up a little bit. Yeah. I mean I usually just because it's a good, good quick meal to go and a pretty low calorie, very low calorie. But the other day I did have some beef brisket and I minced that up really small, and I cooked, I did a boiled egg and cut that thing in half and it was so good. Man, that sounds good. Yeah. I mean, we don't buzz mark it much,

but it is delicious. And they hooked us up. So thank you, Mike. Yeah, and thank you also. Um. The thing that made me think of it was the Zoji rushi rice makers. They liked us talking about them, and they're like, hey, you guys want some, You want a thermis yeah, it was pretty Maybe I'll get a washlet. Yeah, Toto brand washlets are really great, Chuck, I can recommend

him highly. All Right, so let's talk about um medical uses. Uh, they're like you said, there hasn't been a ton of research, and there has been a little conflicting research, but a lot of doctors GPS do say and specialists. If you have colitis, if you have ib s, if you have crons, if you have colon cancer, then a bidet seat might be right up your alley to help you out back there. It will be. But also, Chuck, I just realized we

never finished saying how to use the bidet. Well, now you know you scorch your butt, right, and it said that you either can dry it padded dryer or have a dryer. What else is there? So, oh, yeah, you we did make it through that. Wow, it just went

so quickly. I think one of the things just I want to point out really really really quickly is that, like the whole point of it is that you're using water to clean off your bottom in the exact same way that you would use toilet paper to clean off your bottom um or your other bits, depending on if you have other bits. Down there. How do you how do you put this? I don't know. Well, whatever's job, thank you very much. But in some people prefer to use toilet paper to dry off, like it sounds like

both of us do. Some people just air dry um, or they use the blow blower attachment or whatever, but like that's it, there's nothing more to it. I've read that some people use soap, which is crazy to me, but okay, and then some people chuck, I ran across this, they don't even use a but at if they poop, they take a shower after a word. Have you ever

heard of anything like that before in your life? No, you know, I would say that's an extreme clean freak germophob clean freak is probably not a nice way to say it, but le phobia is about that stuff. But from what I there's a significant number of people, at least in the United States who like, you poop, you take a shower. That's just what you do after you poop. Interesting, I would take seven showers a day if you have water crisis, just from you know what a waste so well, yeah,

that is a huge waste um. And that's actually kind of a criticism of bidats is like while you're using water instead. But as we'll see in a little bit, you're using a resource one way or another down there. So there you go. But okay, so you were talking about um medical issues. Sorry about that. No, that's right. Um, I talked about all the uh the ones dealing with

your bottom. But um, apparently, and this is I don't know how much research they've done on this, but apparently they can help out with U T I s as well if you get frequent U T E s. Yes, And here's how they suggest that, Um, if you're a woman, you use the bidet on your woman parts before and after sex, and that that will help cut down on fecal bacteria entering your vagina and becoming part of your vaginal micro flora, which can lead to U T eyes. Interesting.

I thought that was pretty interesting as well. Um, and don't take offense. Well, now you know you can get a prostate infection from from not keeping very clean down there. No, I just mean you know, if you if you make love and then your girlfriend and wife jumps up and runs in there and and cleans out real good. Yeah, just be a man about it, right, You should probably not take offense to that kind of thing should we be talking about this? Yeah, yeah, we haven't crossed the linet.

I think I think you established a new line in the student Loans episode, so I think we're well within there. Well, my my reasoning there is if there are any like elementary school kids listening to student Loans, then their little Alex P. Keaton's they can handle it. Alex peakey, Man, what a great, great shout out there? What else here?

If you're elderly and if you have arthritis or something, it's tough man, if you you might just physically have a harder time wiping your bottom, have to use the bathroom. And apparently as you age one of the single biggest factors for staying independent. Like you can still cook, you can still clean, you can still take care of yourself, but you might have a hard time wiping your bottom. You can still stay independent. Uh, if you can get

that bidet going. Yes, And again, if you're sitting there like just like, wait, what are you guys talking about? If you were raised on toilet paper from from what there's a huge divide right now in the world. Apparently a good three quarters two thirds the three quarters of the world does does not use toilet paper, or they use it much more sparingly and they use a bidet instead, and they consider that clean. They consider using toilet paper unclean.

And this this is this, whether toilet paper or b days are clean or unclean is so culturally ingrained that it's almost un imaginable considering one cleaner than the other, depending on what you've been raised on. But that is the case. And they've done a lot of well they haven't done a lot of studies, but some of the studies they've done have shown like, yeah, this actually is cleaner,

or no, this isn't as clean as you think. Um. But one thing that really kind of stuck out to me, Chuck, was the idea that water alone can make you cleaner than wiping your bottom, which makes total sense if you step back and think about it, because all you're doing is wiping paper on your bottom. But to me, it's like you're you're getting stuff out of there and and you're getting it away, which I guess you're doing with

water as well. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's kind of it with I mean, like you said, they've done some studies and they have shown that it can eat some of these symptoms of anal fissures and hemorrhoids. There's something called itchy anus that it can help up with.

That is a real thing. But there was also a study about ten years ago in Japan that said if you use a warm water bidat, uh, and if you're a woman, it can kind of jostle loose your microflora in your vagina and you can just kind of knock things out of whack down there, and it can lead

to more vaginal bacterial infections. Yeah. So in the study, it was like two sixty eight women, um, and they found that normal microL microflora was not present in forty three percent of bidat users and only eight percent of non users of bidats had normal microfloora not present. That's pretty significant. And then of of the fifty out of the tight who had fecal bacteria present in their vaginal microflora,

forty six of that fifty used bidats. So that was a really surprising thing to a lot of people because they're like, no, no, no, this is this is clean. Um, this is way cleaner than using toilet paper, And this study suggests that that's not necessarily true. Now, was that for only for warm water though from what I saw, yeah, it with warm water. Yeah, use that cold water. Sure, it really gets you up in the morning, like you said. Uh. And then I guess finally we're at the point where

we talked about just toilet paper. We covered toilet paper in our episode on toilet paper, but as a reminder about of toilet paper in the United States comes from Canadian forests. Um, And that's not cool. Americans represent uh, less than five percent of the world's population, but we used of the world's toilet paper and that's got to stop, Yes, dude. So those Canadian forests, they're talking about old growth boreal forests, and there's a term I saw, the tree to toilet pipeline.

I saw twenties seven thousand trees a day go down the toilet in the form of toilet paper. And again this is mostly old growth trees. Um. And I guess the toilet paper industry in the United States is like a six six billion dollar industry from what I saw. So yeah, there's a lot of I think each American uses about forty rolls of toilet paper every year. The average household uses a hundred and fifty. There's a lot

of room for improvement. And that's a big, big plus for bidays that you even if you still use toilet paper to dry off, you're using so much less than you would without a bidat that it's it's um. You're just saving tons of trees by using a bidet. That's right. You are using water. But if you've ever used one of these seat attachments or seats like you have, it's not a ton of water. Um, it's not like a bathtub or anything like that. You know, no, not at all.

It's um. And if you have, you know, the more advanced your your bidat is. And it doesn't have to be like the most high end bidet for this to happen. But I mean, like pretty quickly as far as technological development goes in the biday you get um, the amount of water is going to be much more efficient than you know, just like say scorting a a dishwasher hose up there. I'm just fascinated by that. It's pretty great. Do you got anything else? I had nothing else? Well,

there you have. Everybody. There's bid days. We told you there's gonna be a lot of t m I and we delivered. And since I said t m I, everybody it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Mary Kerr in Buffalo, New York. Hey, guys, been listening to stuff you should Know for years. It's been my companion on many a morning run, road trip, and just tidying up around the house. I listened to the shorty on six six six and Chuck mentioned his license plate had

six six six in there. I thought of the story about my brother Matt. He recently moved to Wisconsin and was at the d m V to change his license plates. The d m V employee handed him his new license plate and number, which was six six six mph like six hundred sixty six miles per hour. I know, I'm I love it, not bad. Uh. The employee looked at the plates and said, uh, do you want a different number? And he thought about it for a second, and he thought a different number would be best so that he

didn't appear to be a speeding Satan lover. And so the the d m V employee graciously changed out the plates. Um And I'm not gonna read what plate they changed it out for, because it's just now occurring to me that I don't want to out her brother's license plate for some reason, Oh, that's that's true. It was, um, asked man. She said, just a silly story. Couldn't help a share. Thank you for your knowledge, levity and distraction that you've provided over the years, especially in this time

of stress and uncertainty. And keep doing what you're doing. And that is from Mary and Buffalo, New York. Nice. Thanks a lot, very much appreciate it, Um. Although I do have to say person only, I'm a little disappointed in your brother. But that's okay because he probably doesn't care if you want to get into this like Mary did till so you can hear that we're disappointed in

your your your sibling. Well, you can send us an email, then wrap it up, spank it out of the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.