There was a point in human development between no-wiping like chimpazees and triple-ply aloe-vera pre-cut toilet paper when humans started wiping their asses after shitting.
Any idea when that was?
Are you asking about the use of toilet paper, or just wiping in general? If the former, I seem to recall that the Chinese were using paper for that purpose around the first century BC. If you are talking wiping with a corn cob or something similarly organic (perhaps a convenient hedge hog or squirrel), then I’d guess there is no way to answer that in a GQ manner. My WAG would be a long, long time ago…probably once we started losing the hair and began using clothing.
Hard to say, but it may have coincided with the wearing of clothes. Or not.
Simply put, we have no idea.
Probably related to bipedalism, at which point the buttocks became too large and the anus was no longer optimally placed for mess-free defecation.
General wiping.
I also guess clothing must’ve promoted wiping, however, since less hair means less mess you could argue that wiping/cleaning was less important.
Plus what Baffle is getting at with the configuration of humans bottoms. Very different than our other primate cousins, and while an attractive sexual display for a bipedal species it makes things a bit inconvenient in the defecation department. It probably all came together fairly early on though that we needed to wipe with something, but as John said there is (afaik) no way at all to definitively answer that question, since no one is going to decorate a cave with wall paintings or carvings of a human taking a crap and wiping up afterwards, and since anything they would have used was almost certainly organic it’s long gone.
This is an old standby cite, always finding its merry way here:
Rabelais, Gargantua, 1534; translated Urquhart, 1653:
Chapter XIII
How Gargantua’s wonderful understanding became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech
[spoiler]
…To this Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, that in all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he. How is that? said Grangousier. I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and curious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen. What is that? said Grangousier, how is it? I will tell you by-and-by, said Gargantua. Once I did wipe me with a gentle-woman’s velvet mask, and found it to be good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my fundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that was comfortable. At another time with a lady’s neckerchief, and after that I wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a pox take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a vengeance. Now I wish St. Antony’s fire burn the bum-gut of the goldsmith that made them, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a page’s cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers’ fashion.
Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it I wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and exulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morning thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother’s gloves, of a most excellent perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped me with sage, with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd-leaves, with beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-tree, with mallows, wool-blade, which is a tail-scarlet, with lettuce, and with spinach leaves. All this did very great good to my leg. Then with mercury, with parsley, with nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the bloody flux of Lombardy, which I healed by wiping me with my braguette. Then I wiped my tail in the sheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arras hangings, with a green carpet, with a table-cloth, with a napkin, with a handkerchief, with a combing-cloth; in all which I found more pleasure than do the mangy dogs when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which torchecul did you find to be the best? I was coming to it, said Gargantua, and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and knot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with thatch-rushes, with flax, with wool, with paper, but,
Who his foul tail with paper wipes,
Shall at his ballocks leave some chips.
…Afterwards I wiped my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief, with a pillow, with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that was a wicked and unpleasant torchecul; then with a hat. Of hats, note that some are shorn, and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and others with satin. The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a very neat abstersion of the fecal matter.
Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf’s skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney’s bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer’s lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel, ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this, according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.[/spoiler]
I suspect it didn’t really start before bathing and the emergence of scatological taboos. Other than the smell and social embarrassment, there aren’t a whole lot of practical reasons to wipe.
There might be a more practical reason-- having a poop-smeared crack might result in retaining moisture, might result in all sorts of interesting fungal things growing in there.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that chimps do occasionally wipe with leaves, but only on the most messy or uncomfortable occasions.
Maybe they’re just having salad with their lunch.
Probably NSFW, or even before dinner:
“When did humans start wiping their butts?”
They did?
lol, that’s exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote the part about the squirrel or hedge hog, though I couldn’t recall the exact quote. Thanks!
(bolding mine)
There aren’t?! :dubious:
Ever heard of ‘diaper rash’? :eek:
(bolding mine)
Ain’t no ‘might’, about it.
And I don’t know about ‘interesting’ but it will, most definitely, be a painful experience.
I’ve seen that video before and it makes me wonder, is that behavior also practiced/been observed, in the wild? 
I wonder if there’s a change in diet thing here too. From lots of roughage to more meat…
I believe it was on a Saturday.
Wiping prevents skin rash and eventual skin breakdown. Early man must have used something. Grass, or scraps of animal hides seem like good candidates.
The day a husband came home early and found one lit in the ashtray.
ETA: Ooop, sorry, that’s when a wife started smoking cigars.
Is wiping considered “work”?