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Seems about right. Just found this: > Throughout this bidet boom, the United States resisted its appeal, and the reason might have been the power of first imp
by flanbiscuit 7y ago
Seems about right. Just found this:
> Throughout this bidet boom,
the United States resisted its appeal, and the reason might have been the power of first impressions. Americans were introduced to bidets on a broad scale during World War II, when troops were stationed in Europe. GIs visiting bordellos would often see bidets in the bathrooms, so they began to associate these basins with sex work. Given America’s puritanical past, it makes sense that, once back home, servicemen would feel squeamish presenting these fixtures to their homeland.
But even before the war, bidets were linked to sex and scandal. In the United States and Britain, when various forms of douching were thought of as a pregnancy preventive, bidets were considered a form of birth control. As Norman Haire, a birth-control pioneer, put it in 1936, “The presence of a bidet is regarded as almost a symbol of sin.” The present-day American sociologist Harvey Molotch agrees, concluding that the devices were tainted with France’s hedonism and sexuality. “Bidets have had such difficulty ... Even all the power of capitalism can’t break the taboo.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/the-bidets-revival/555770/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/the-b...