The fine folks over at the Internet have also created a number of informative websites which were clearly inspired by this book. Browse through a few of those and your hangup will be gone, quickly replaced with new, far more disturbing hangups.
Gee, Zuma. You really started a shitstorm here, didn’t you?
Obviously the subject of the thread is not on a par with “Discuss the possibilities of a modern revolution in the Catholic Church ala Martin Luther and the effect it will have on organized religion and bingo night.” But I did find it interesting in that I never realized just how many people prefer certain methods of cleansing versus others.
Also, since I am not usually sharing the lavatory with someone else when they are downloading some brownware I never really pay attention to their wiping ritual. Teaching my son what to do when he was toilet-training was easy because he had the same equipment as me. My wife had to work with my daughter on methodology because they came from the factory with the same features. However, I have discussed with her that it is not necessary to use half the roll at one sitting.
So if you don’t like the thread or consider it immature or gross, that is your choice. But I don’t think it’s necessary to poo-poo the OP.
It’s funny - I’m usually all about potty humor, but I was surprised to find myself feeling the same way zuma did about that thread. Probably because it wasn’t humorous or interesting, just uncomfortably intimate and scatological.
Hell, one of my most durable threads ever was on the question of whether people sit or stand when they wipe (result: half sit, half stand, and neither side can remotely understand how the other does it). I’m fully in support of seeing the research carried on.
Honestly, though, if there was ever a thread made to be shit in, there it was. Why bother with a Pit thread?
I refuse to read this thread as well as the one that inspired it.
Great. Now I’ve got REM music stuck in my head. Thanks a lot. 
Oh, quit being so anal. Don’t like a thread? Don’t let it hit your **ass ** on the way out. Who cares if the thread is “pointless”. Hell, we have a whole forum dedicated to that shit. I don’t bitch at the buffet at the seafood dishes because I’m allergic, I move on to the other dishes.
I think it’s an improvement on the REM song - “EV-ry-body POOPS …”
But yes, I think this pitting is weak. I would rather read a thread on wiping your bum than yet another thread on American politics (a.k.a. the AM NOT - ARE TOO school of debating).
It was remarkable to me only because I saw it and thought: There it is, the very last thread on earth I would respond to. I didn’t read it not only because the subject is inherently icky, but because I honestly don’t want to know which of my fellow Dopers want to have that conversation, because I’m afraid I would think less of them for it.
Hi.
[shakes hand]
You’ve reached the Internet.
Come on in.
Wasn’t that thread a natural consequence of the whole Sheryl Crow thing, much like wiping your ass is the natural consequence of eating?
Thanks,Troy. That exchange is priceless.
I feel the exact same way about all the “Jesus is personally responsible for all the wars EVAR and I can’t see why anyone could believe in God because he’s teh BAD” threads. Yet those seem perfectly acceptable.
That’s pretty much it. While a lot of it is way TMI, a more general thread isn’t necessarily offensive. It sort of goes along with the “Wait, I heard there is a way the women can pee standing up. How?” topics or discussions about bidets (or one I remember recently about corncobs). Taken to a juvenile extreme it’s stupid, but not utterly pointless.
For example, a friend of mine is a serious mountaineer (think Everest type stuff). I asked quite uncomfortably, about the logistics of “waste disposal” when you are sequestered in a tent, hanging off the side of a mountain, and the temperature on the other side of your tent flap will give you frostbite in seconds. Sometimes a legit question is lurking behind the juvenile poo-poo humour.
The again, I was working at a Waste Management conference not long ago, and heard a few “human behavior” stories (not so graphic though), so I guess the idea doesn’t bother me so much. The intent of the OP in the IMHO thread, I suspect, is more along the Beavis and Butthead lines though. I didn’t bother reading much of it because I have better things to do.
I didn’t read much of it. But really, there are things to be learned from that type of thread and it’s not the kind of conversation topic that is likely to come up in real life. For example, there are methods of wiping that reduce a woman’s chance of getting a urinary tract infection. IME, many women are unaware of this until they get there first infection and the subsequent hygiene talk from their doctor. Also, it hadn’t really occured to me, until reading a similar thread (there have been others,) to use wet wipes. YM obviously V.
You can wipe standing up? :dubious:
And assuming you could, why in hell would you? Wouldn’t standing up compress the cheeks and their interstitial contents in a fairly gross way?
Color me 
!
Lean forward a bit, a little lift of one leg, no problem.
I don’t see how you do it not standing up? Doesn’t the seat get in the way of the wiping motion? Doesn’t your hand get in the water? Isn’t if more likely you’ll get poo on your leg or thigh when you bring it up for a look and or sniff?
With one square which I wash out so I can reuse.
Not so much to reduce my ecological footprint but to confuse braindead idiots who can’t comprehend the notion of an ecological footprint, if I can reduce global warming by it, I see it as a side effect.
I kind of agree with the OP. But there is an advertising campaign that some tissue paper company is doing here about ‘are you a folder or a schruncher?’
I do not wish to know what they are talking about.
There are also two very frequently shown TV ads that show people on the toilet. Why do I have to see this? I do not want to !