I actually posted a similar question on another message board.
My question is partly inspired by something I once heard or read some time back. Women shouldn’t douche they said, because the vagina naturally cleans itself. All douching does is throw off your pH.
Now I know the mouth cleans itself. The nose certainly does. What about the anus?
I know sometimes I am out on the road. And I am not sure if I had a tiny accident. I only find out until I come home. If I just let it go, would my body take care of the matter by itself?
A little bit graphic, I know. But a good question. And I couldn’t be the first to wonder.
My first wife never douched but always used a wash rag slight inside the vagina when showering and she always smelled sweet and clean. I don’t know about butts, I think they could get nasty. I have naturally hard stolls most of the time so TP is more of a formality but I can’t imagine not cleaning up when thy are not so firm.
No, no, no. As Mother taught you, wash yourself. Things down below are not self cleaning. I know men don’t like to hear it, but guys really? Wash vigorously when you shower. And use toilet paper, every time you go.
As I understand it, there’s a fairly significant difference between sitting poops and squatting poops and because we’re not squatting that significantly increases the contact between the feces and the cheeks.
That said, they still use toilet paper (or other washing techniques) in countries where squatting is the norm. We seem to have evolved to stand up along with the ability to wipe, and we didn’t evolve to need to be self-maintaining without manual intervention. Or, simply, a little bit of smear wasn’t enough to affect our health when we were sitting directly with our anus coming into contact with dirt (and so cleaning off in that way) and when we were mostly living a migratory existence so that the incidental smearing tended to not accumulate too heavily around our living area.
Are you talking about the anal canal (which is about 3 cm long) or the very end (the anus)? I’m asking because you’re comparing the anus to the vaginal canal and inside of the mouth, so an analogous comparison would be the anal canal, and not the opening at the end.
The canal is self cleaning and like the vagina, doesn’t require “douching.” That’s not to say it’s clean in the way a dinner plate is, but clean as in no cleaning required.
Not the best advice.
Particularly for patients with itchy butts:
Another reason to get off soap and use body washes, which are slightly acidic:
x-ray vision has the right of it. Vigorous washing and improper use of improper toilet paper do far more harm than good for many folks. Some of the worst cases of perineal itch/chronic rash that I’d ever seen resulted from excessive attempts at hygiene. Bidets are a great invention and it’s a pity they’ve not become more popular in the US; they’d resolve a LOT of issues.
“Mom” apparently gave a lot of bad advice; let’s not perpetuate it here in GQ where the standards are supposed to be higher.
If you are getting feces on your cheeks when shitting, you are doing something wrong. It never ceases to amaze me to learn that a non-zero number of people shit standing up, or can’t spread their cheeks while sitting on the john.
Technically, I don’t know where it is. But the toilet paper does seem to be necessary and there’s not a lot around the hole that isn’t cheek. Cheek fold?
There’s lots of anecdotal evidence on the internet that children, just before and during their tweens, really don’t get that through cleaning is something that’s important. And I’ve been standing 4 feet away from 10 year old girls, and 12 year old boys who clearly missed the memo given to them by health and hygiene classes. And I’m like – “Welp, one good infection will teach that little girl a lesson she’s desperately trying to ignore.” But unless the boy plays sports, he may never learn until he’s a crusty young adult and someone just tells him he stinks and has to fix that.
