Obsessing about doorknobs is one thing. Not washing your hands after using the bathroom is another. The former is silly, the latter makes you a pig.
Why?
Maybe for YOU. Ever tried doorknob on rye?
I’d eat a knob at night.
Even if you didn’t get your hands dirty in the bathroom itself, you’ve most likely been touching many other things that do have bacteria on them, and the bathroom is a particularly convenient place to wash your hands, since there are, y’know, sinks and soap and stuff in there.
Handwashing is probably the single best way to reduce the spread of communicable diseases. From the CDC: Why is handwashing important?
Because your skin, particularly the skin covered up by your underwear, is a breeding ground for various bacteria. I’ve linked to several sites so far in my past few posts that might give you some examples.
These bacteria can cause various health problems for the average person.
Hence, wash your hands.
What if I didn’t touch my junk?
How’d you get it out of your pants? Or were you wearing a skirt?
Actually, this really interests me. Honestly, how would you go about taking a leak, as a man, without touching yourself below the belt at all? Do you aim? Do you lean? If so, do you brace yourself against the wall? Or do you let the urine fall where it may?
It’s pretty easy. You unzip, you lean forward, and gravity does the rest. You don’t have to touch anything but your pants.
When you unzip the front of the pants comes down low enough that most guys who are not morbidly obese can, with a little practice, get willy to appear of his own voilition. He does most/all of the aiming and when finished is shaken by a wiggle of the hips. Afterwards an upwards tug on the top of the pant-front accompanied by a receding motion of the hips will usually be enough to return little william to his place. One need only touch the fabric at the top on either side of the zipper and the zipper itself in order to urinate.
Not that I don’t wash my hands at every opportunity. I work as a mail-man and, during flu season especially, I take every opportunity to wash. I never know where the stuff i touched has been. Viruses can survive extreme temps and dry for significant periods of time. Better safe then sorry.
For those who’ve said that they would like some cites that handwashing reduces the spread of infection, I found two cites that show a reduction in respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses.
This study on handwashing and the spread of respiratory illnesses:
This study in an elementary school shows handwashing reduces rates of gastrointestinal infections:
OK, little followup TMI here: My wife gets squicked by the idea of willy’s germs flying willy-nilly, but sometimes when you’re out in the woods (we’re avid hikers), you just gotta go. Generally we bring those little packets of moistened antiseptic buttwipes (as I like to call them), and even if I’m just taking a leak, I’m expected to use one to clean my hands. We have forgotten the buttwipes, on occasion, though. So I just whip it out hands-free, and tuck it back in again after bouncing up and down a bit to shake off any last drops. Awkward, but works.
What I wanted was not a cite about handwashing in general, but a cite that it makes any difference if you do it after taking a hands free piss. In other words, how does walking into a bathroom make your hands any more dirty?
If anyone took a shit recently, you’re bound to encounter some airborne fecal matter.
As I said earlier, doorknobs and such aren’t exactly hotbeds for bacteria.
uh… band name?
On every surface of your body, yet we don’t go through a decontamination shower after each restroom break.
That said, washing your hands is always a good idea (unless taken to insane extremes) and doing it after a restroom break is as good as any other time. Also noone argues that washing after a bowel movement isn’t a hygenic necessity.
Which wouldn’t be practical, anyway. 
My point was that not washing my hands doesn’t seem to have killed me yet, even though I’m exposed to the dreaded crotch cooties.
I don’t know how large you are, but I’m big and soft enough that my breasts frequently try to escape from bondage. This requires cleavage adjustment for the comfort and safety of all passers-by.
Waenara, those are actually interesting cites. I’m not sure how relevant the one in pre-school children is, since I think we all agree that pre-schoolers have a high tendency to have appalling crap on their hands at a higher rate than adults. The military cite is interesting and statistically significant, but you’ll note that the change in minor respiratory disease is (self-reported) as 3 instances per 2 years vs. 4 instances per 2 years, with no difference in lost time at work, which is not exactly a shocking level of change. There was absolutely no change in serious respiratory illness between the control group and the recruits directed to wash their hands. While it does seem that there was a small drop in minor respiratory illness connected with hand-washing, my suspicious mind wonders if military recruits are less likely to seek treatment (or self-report) for minor colds after their superiors give them orders to avoid getting colds.
Also, it doesn’t address the issue of handwashing as connected with going to the bathroom.
mischievous
By all accounts, Carlyjay, you should be more demanding that boyfriends wash their hands after using the phone at work than teasing out their peckers to take a piss. If you think about it, the amount of harmful bacteria on a dick shaft (something that is washed in the morning and then hidden away for most of the day) should be negligible compared with the variety of filth that comes into contact with your exposed parts, hands and face in particular, throughout the average day. Furthermore, if the ‘skin covered by underwear’ zone is as dirty as you posit, why are toilet seats so surprisingly free of bacteria when compared to other objects?