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I would venture to bet that the vast majority of Americans have never had the opportunity to try a bidet, and wouldnt know how to use one or what to expect if t

I would venture to bet that the vast majority of Americans have never had the opportunity to try a bidet, and wouldnt know how to use one or what to expect if they did. I know I haven't. I think this is an education problem. And articles like this only serve to highlight the problem, not solve it. In ignorance, spraying water at feces on a rear, especially with no way to aim things before hand, leads me to expect a mess being sprayed around the bowl at least, and outside the bowl if you don't have a good seal. Aerosolizing feces is already a problem with the flush, now we are splashing it around? And I assume you still need to use TP to wipe up, but anyone who has used toilet paper around water knows how ineffective it is at drying things. I'm sure im wrong and theres good answers to all of these concerns - ive heard many proclamations of my savagery at not using a bidet over the years, but ive never seen these things addressed. Find a way to tell people how they actually work and I bet you would see a lot more movement. Put them in hotels or other places where people have a chance to give them a try.

tpmoney 2y ago
So things might vary from bidet/setup, but at least for my own experience with a Luxe Neo 320: Aiming really isn't a problem. For one, the water doesn't just come on at full blast, the control allows you to bring it up from off. It takes a few days to figure out where you setup is aimed and know how to position yourself there, and from that point on it's basically not a concern. Other fancier ones might have aiming capabilities that don't require you to move, I haven't found it to be something I feel I need, YMMV. Beyond that, you're sitting over everything and they aren't generally aiming far forward, so even if you miss at full blast, it's just going to hit you somewhere else. After a few years of this, the only mess outside the bowl that has ever occurred was when the dog turned it on with no one on the seat (so to that end, put the lid down). As for aerosolizing, not sure that there's been any particular studies but just speaking from a use perspective, again you're sitting over things keeping a lid on it as it were. The stream isn't exactly a pressure wash level of power (or at least, you can tune the stream to not be if you had really high water pressure) and if you were to imagine the effect of spraying a hose into a loose canvas awning hanging above you, that's generally how things happen. Lots of water sheeting of more or less straight down with a bit going to the side and down. A little wiggling about (again, since the Neo doesn't have any functionality to aim the nozzle) and you clean up even around the sides just fine and I would venture little is aerosolized and what little has been is largely contained in the same way having your lid down contains from flushes. Yes, you still want to use a few squares of TP to dry up at the end, but if you sit for a few seconds, you'll drip dry most of the way, and 3-5 squares to pat dry is considerably less than used otherwise.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
In Italy the bidet is not used like in Japan, it's essentially like a hand sink, but for your butt. Wipe once with toilet paper (while on the toilet), then proceed to sit on the bidet. The water is not meant to flow on your butt, it's for your hands. Put soap on your hand (only one is needed), grab some water while sitting on the bidet, wash your butt as you would wash your hands, rinse with the running water, dry your butt with a towel, wash the bidet if necessary, go to the sink and wash your hands. No poop in the air, no aiming challenge. It takes a bit of getting used to clean your butt without watching it.
ebiester 2y ago
The aiming problem is solved within 1-2 times of using it. You get used to where to put your butt, even if you can't move the nozzle. Aerosolizing isn't a big deal because your butt is on the seat. It's nothing like the flush. Finally, the TP that you use to dry is still quite a bit less than what you use to wipe. And it's so much easier on the skin down there - I'm currently staying at a place without a bidet, and it definitely adds to the discomfort around the day. It's something you don't know is an irritant until it returns.
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  Pretty much this. The lack of bidet being common makes me not want to travel anymore, thats how big a benefit a bidet is. No matter how much tp you use your butt will have a tiny bit of poop smear on it until you shower and the difference in comfort is gigantic once you experience the difference (side note the best bidets are the cheap ones that dont heat and blast you at up to full pressure. The super expensive japanese one both dont have enough pressure for all situations and have features that pamper without helping.
- srean 2y ago
  ... and you have a choice on what and how to aim, a pivot if you will, if you use a health faucet. If you allow me quote myself ... I find health faucets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower quite effective, except that one time it went terribly wrong. These are essentially telephone showers installed next to the toilet. You switch them on using a valve/trigger and then manually direct the fire. Simple, cheap, no fuss. This little guy, however, turned out to be a closet fire hose. It pretty much went from 0 to 1000 gallons per sec in an instant and just wouldn't let up. The valve was stuck. The extension hose was twisting and coiling around like crazy with the pressure released. The shower head was going full blast in my hand, initially directed at my rear, it was continuously pushing my hand away from anything that I was trying to point it to. It give me a visceral understanding of how jet engines work. Working out a sequence of operations in my head to get out of such a situation while caught in a compromised and inflexible position, with only one hand free, was quite a challenge. I am not quite sure if I should be thankful that it wasnt autonomously powered and directed. My first Japanese toilet experience happened @ Google (I was interning there at that time). When the water touched the derriere, it made me flinch and jump with surprise, as I wasnt quite sure what to expect, this was several years ago and Japanese toilets were still an unfamiliar object to me. And it really tickles the shit out of you ! (no pun intended) There are ways to choose between a laminar and degrees of non-laminar, to full-on turbulent flow (all those controls must be for something), I would expect the former to be somewhat less flinch inducing.
hoosier2gator 2y ago
Oh wow. I made an account just to address the misdirection in your comment. 1) "especially with no way to aim things before hand" - The precision and accuracy of the water stream is extremely high. On less sophisticated models, which can be had at local hardware stores and Amazon in the US for less than $50, you "aim" by adjusting your seated position. In other words, you bring your @* to the water stream. This sounds like more of a chore than it really is. It's a game of inches, not feet. More expensive models have some range parameters that can be changed for front and rear washing preferences. 2) "leads me to expect a mess being sprayed around the bowl" Practically speaking this has not been an issue for me. 3) "outside the bowl if you don't have a good seal" ??? You are seated on the toilet seat. Unless you weigh considerably less than me, I'm not sure how you wouldn't have a seal. 4) "Aerosolizing feces is already a problem with the flush, now we are splashing it around?" This is an interesting point, and one that I had not really considered. I am not aware of any studies in the literature (and I suspect it would be a bit of a red flag about myself if I were) that looked specifically at aerosolization during the actual act of using the bidet. However, a cursory search did yield a few studies that looked at bacterial colonization of the nozzle. This can be concerningly high in a shared use toilet, though the limited amount of studies are not in good agreement here. Iyo et al. (2016) found Pseudomonas aeruginosa on 2% of bidet toilets in a restroom on a university campus; a different study noted that in a university hospital, 34% (n = 10) of bidet nozzles contained isolated of Staphylococcus aureus (Katsuse et al. 2017). Tsunoda et al. (2019) found that there was an 87% colonization rate of bacteria (all species) in hospital toilets with bidets. My follow up question would perhaps be "so what?" when you consider the issue in the frame of a personal toilet (rather than a toilet in a hospital), which might be shared with your family members and, more rarely, friends. I personally consider it a negligible risk in the grand scheme of microbial activity to which I am exposed elsewhere. I do take the nozzle cleanliness seriously, and I make it a point to clean the nozzle with a bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner. That said, I agree with you that this is a relative unknown and one about which I would like to know more. 5) "And I assume you still need to use TP to wipe up, but anyone who has used toilet paper around water knows how ineffective it is at drying things." You do need to do this. Anything more than single-ply is up to the task. I have never had an issue with ineffective drying. Sometimes I only need to use 1-2 squares. 6) "Find a way to tell people how they actually work" They shoot a stream of water up your butt. This is conceptually simple enough (and logical, to boot: I'm sure everyone here is well aware of the common argument for bidets that water cleans better than paper). I personally think the bigger issue is that people are uncomfortable with the idea of something going up their butt, not that they don't understand the answers to the questions you've posed. 7) "Put them in hotels" I have seen them at a hotel in Hawaii, but this was due to Japanese influence. I do not think that most hotels would take on the investment in order to be the harbinger of change in this country. It might cut down on their TP costs, but they buy (horrible quality) rolls for pennies on the dollar. Bonus: I recommend watching the South Park episode wherein Randy buys a bidet, for further (albeit fictional) testimonial to their greatness. --- References: Iyo, T., Asakura, K., Nakano, M., Yamada, M. and Omae, K. (2016) Bidet toilet seats with warm-water tanks: residual chlorine, microbial community, and structural analyses. J Water Health 14, 68–80. Katsuse, A.K., Takahashi, H., Yoshizawa, S., Tateda, K., Nakanishi, Y., Kaneko, A. and Kobayashi, I. (2017) Public health and healthcare-associated risk of electric, warmwater bidet toilets. J Hosp Infect 97, 296–300. Tsunoda, A., Otsuka, Y., Toguchi, A., Watanabe, K., Nishino, R. and Takahashi, T. (2019) Survey on bacteria contamination of bidet toilets and relation to the interval of scrubbing these units. J Water Health 17, 863–869. Abney, S. E., Bright, K. R., McKinney, J., Ijaz, M. K., & Gerba, C. P. (2021). Toilet hygiene—review and research needs. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 131(6), 2705-2714.

tpmoney 2y ago

So things might vary from bidet/setup, but at least for my own experience with a Luxe Neo 320: Aiming really isn't a problem. For one, the water doesn't just come on at full blast, the control allows you to bring it up from off. It takes a few days to figure out where you setup is aimed and know how to position yourself there, and from that point on it's basically not a concern. Other fancier ones might have aiming capabilities that don't require you to move, I haven't found it to be something I feel I need, YMMV. Beyond that, you're sitting over everything and they aren't generally aiming far forward, so even if you miss at full blast, it's just going to hit you somewhere else. After a few years of this, the only mess outside the bowl that has ever occurred was when the dog turned it on with no one on the seat (so to that end, put the lid down). As for aerosolizing, not sure that there's been any particular studies but just speaking from a use perspective, again you're sitting over things keeping a lid on it as it were. The stream isn't exactly a pressure wash level of power (or at least, you can tune the stream to not be if you had really high water pressure) and if you were to imagine the effect of spraying a hose into a loose canvas awning hanging above you, that's generally how things happen. Lots of water sheeting of more or less straight down with a bit going to the side and down. A little wiggling about (again, since the Neo doesn't have any functionality to aim the nozzle) and you clean up even around the sides just fine and I would venture little is aerosolized and what little has been is largely contained in the same way having your lid down contains from flushes. Yes, you still want to use a few squares of TP to dry up at the end, but if you sit for a few seconds, you'll drip dry most of the way, and 3-5 squares to pat dry is considerably less than used otherwise.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago

In Italy the bidet is not used like in Japan, it's essentially like a hand sink, but for your butt. Wipe once with toilet paper (while on the toilet), then proceed to sit on the bidet. The water is not meant to flow on your butt, it's for your hands. Put soap on your hand (only one is needed), grab some water while sitting on the bidet, wash your butt as you would wash your hands, rinse with the running water, dry your butt with a towel, wash the bidet if necessary, go to the sink and wash your hands. No poop in the air, no aiming challenge. It takes a bit of getting used to clean your butt without watching it.

ebiester 2y ago

The aiming problem is solved within 1-2 times of using it. You get used to where to put your butt, even if you can't move the nozzle. Aerosolizing isn't a big deal because your butt is on the seat. It's nothing like the flush. Finally, the TP that you use to dry is still quite a bit less than what you use to wipe. And it's so much easier on the skin down there - I'm currently staying at a place without a bidet, and it definitely adds to the discomfort around the day. It's something you don't know is an irritant until it returns.

snapplebobapple 2y ago
Pretty much this. The lack of bidet being common makes me not want to travel anymore, thats how big a benefit a bidet is. No matter how much tp you use your butt will have a tiny bit of poop smear on it until you shower and the difference in comfort is gigantic once you experience the difference (side note the best bidets are the cheap ones that dont heat and blast you at up to full pressure. The super expensive japanese one both dont have enough pressure for all situations and have features that pamper without helping.
srean 2y ago
... and you have a choice on what and how to aim, a pivot if you will, if you use a health faucet. If you allow me quote myself ... I find health faucets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet_shower quite effective, except that one time it went terribly wrong. These are essentially telephone showers installed next to the toilet. You switch them on using a valve/trigger and then manually direct the fire. Simple, cheap, no fuss. This little guy, however, turned out to be a closet fire hose. It pretty much went from 0 to 1000 gallons per sec in an instant and just wouldn't let up. The valve was stuck. The extension hose was twisting and coiling around like crazy with the pressure released. The shower head was going full blast in my hand, initially directed at my rear, it was continuously pushing my hand away from anything that I was trying to point it to. It give me a visceral understanding of how jet engines work. Working out a sequence of operations in my head to get out of such a situation while caught in a compromised and inflexible position, with only one hand free, was quite a challenge. I am not quite sure if I should be thankful that it wasnt autonomously powered and directed. My first Japanese toilet experience happened @ Google (I was interning there at that time). When the water touched the derriere, it made me flinch and jump with surprise, as I wasnt quite sure what to expect, this was several years ago and Japanese toilets were still an unfamiliar object to me. And it really tickles the shit out of you ! (no pun intended) There are ways to choose between a laminar and degrees of non-laminar, to full-on turbulent flow (all those controls must be for something), I would expect the former to be somewhat less flinch inducing.

hoosier2gator 2y ago

Oh wow. I made an account just to address the misdirection in your comment. 1) "especially with no way to aim things before hand" - The precision and accuracy of the water stream is extremely high. On less sophisticated models, which can be had at local hardware stores and Amazon in the US for less than $50, you "aim" by adjusting your seated position. In other words, you bring your @* to the water stream. This sounds like more of a chore than it really is. It's a game of inches, not feet. More expensive models have some range parameters that can be changed for front and rear washing preferences. 2) "leads me to expect a mess being sprayed around the bowl" Practically speaking this has not been an issue for me. 3) "outside the bowl if you don't have a good seal" ??? You are seated on the toilet seat. Unless you weigh considerably less than me, I'm not sure how you wouldn't have a seal. 4) "Aerosolizing feces is already a problem with the flush, now we are splashing it around?" This is an interesting point, and one that I had not really considered. I am not aware of any studies in the literature (and I suspect it would be a bit of a red flag about myself if I were) that looked specifically at aerosolization during the actual act of using the bidet. However, a cursory search did yield a few studies that looked at bacterial colonization of the nozzle. This can be concerningly high in a shared use toilet, though the limited amount of studies are not in good agreement here. Iyo et al. (2016) found Pseudomonas aeruginosa on 2% of bidet toilets in a restroom on a university campus; a different study noted that in a university hospital, 34% (n = 10) of bidet nozzles contained isolated of Staphylococcus aureus (Katsuse et al. 2017). Tsunoda et al. (2019) found that there was an 87% colonization rate of bacteria (all species) in hospital toilets with bidets. My follow up question would perhaps be "so what?" when you consider the issue in the frame of a personal toilet (rather than a toilet in a hospital), which might be shared with your family members and, more rarely, friends. I personally consider it a negligible risk in the grand scheme of microbial activity to which I am exposed elsewhere. I do take the nozzle cleanliness seriously, and I make it a point to clean the nozzle with a bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner. That said, I agree with you that this is a relative unknown and one about which I would like to know more. 5) "And I assume you still need to use TP to wipe up, but anyone who has used toilet paper around water knows how ineffective it is at drying things." You do need to do this. Anything more than single-ply is up to the task. I have never had an issue with ineffective drying. Sometimes I only need to use 1-2 squares. 6) "Find a way to tell people how they actually work" They shoot a stream of water up your butt. This is conceptually simple enough (and logical, to boot: I'm sure everyone here is well aware of the common argument for bidets that water cleans better than paper). I personally think the bigger issue is that people are uncomfortable with the idea of something going up their butt, not that they don't understand the answers to the questions you've posed. 7) "Put them in hotels" I have seen them at a hotel in Hawaii, but this was due to Japanese influence. I do not think that most hotels would take on the investment in order to be the harbinger of change in this country. It might cut down on their TP costs, but they buy (horrible quality) rolls for pennies on the dollar. Bonus: I recommend watching the South Park episode wherein Randy buys a bidet, for further (albeit fictional) testimonial to their greatness. --- References: Iyo, T., Asakura, K., Nakano, M., Yamada, M. and Omae, K. (2016) Bidet toilet seats with warm-water tanks: residual chlorine, microbial community, and structural analyses. J Water Health 14, 68–80. Katsuse, A.K., Takahashi, H., Yoshizawa, S., Tateda, K., Nakanishi, Y., Kaneko, A. and Kobayashi, I. (2017) Public health and healthcare-associated risk of electric, warmwater bidet toilets. J Hosp Infect 97, 296–300. Tsunoda, A., Otsuka, Y., Toguchi, A., Watanabe, K., Nishino, R. and Takahashi, T. (2019) Survey on bacteria contamination of bidet toilets and relation to the interval of scrubbing these units. J Water Health 17, 863–869. Abney, S. E., Bright, K. R., McKinney, J., Ijaz, M. K., & Gerba, C. P. (2021). Toilet hygiene—review and research needs. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 131(6), 2705-2714.