Agreed. I keep the sanitizer in my bag though. A large part of that is the quality of the soap in the bathrooms. It feels gross and unclean afterwards and has been known to give me a rash.
The only time I don’t is if I’m going to the shower right after I’m done.
I do, unless its been pissed on, in which case I wipe it off with a wad of paper towels beforehand.
Regarding washing the hands after doing my business, rarely. Certainly not at work, but thats more sanitary, since the germs would have a hard time getting through the grease and such on my hands. No, I don’t wash my hands before I go either… Anything that washes off my hands at the end of my shift will wash off Mr. Happy as well. Like as not its already dirty anyway.
I also do not care if others don’t wash their hands either. Immune systems are meant to be used.
Oh, I do of course wash when in a hospital or other sterile environment.
Well, being a male, it’s pretty difficult for me to urinate without touching my naughty bits. And so that was the area of experience from which I answered. While transient flora (including E. coli) can be picked up from direct skin contact, I don’t know if it could without.
I could imagine that a woman would be less likely to make contact with external genitalia while urinating. Of course, if she dries herself off with tissue, she may make some direct contact with the pubic region. But I am no expert in this regard.
Your proposed study is certainly worth trying. Searching through OhioLink’s Electronic Journal Center (I can’t believe my university account still works!), I found lots of articles and studies done with regard to defecation, but I couldn’t find any that concentrated on urination. The only articles related to sanitation that recommended hand washing after urination were not studies, but guidelines (such as the guidelines for the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology). These would no doubt tend to err on the side of caution. So any study that looked into benefits of hand sanitation after urination (in men and women) would be worth a try.
I apologize if I offended.
I’ll admit it. I don’t wash my hands. I will if they are noticeably dirty, if I am going to prep food, or if I somehow managed to get poo on them during wiping. otherwise I see no reason at all to wash them. In my line of work, my hands get dirty every three seconds, so my privates are probably a lot cleaner than my hands at any rate. I shake hands, sit on the toilet seat, feet don’t bother me. I don’t get the germ-a-phobes, I’m never sick. To be frank, I’m an asshole and I don’t care if you precious snowflakes get the sniffles. I’m courteous enough to sneeze into my elbow though. I just don’t buy that the chances of someone actually getting ill from bathroom germs transmitted from surface to surface multiple times is that great.
OMG I cannot believe how many people think their shit don’t stink, stain, travel, or migrate off the tp and on to their skin of their fingers hand or sleeves or every surface in the room.
Would these same folks pick up a fresh steaming pile of dog shit off the ground with a few thin sheets of absorbable paper and then stick your fingers in your mouth?
The mind boggles!
Only if there is nasty on my hands, or if an air dryer is available. I hate wiping my hands after washing with tissue. Also, most places the sink and the soap dispenser don’t look all that sanitary to me.
I don’t touch other people, if that’s some sort of consolation…
Don’t be silly, I’d wipe my fingers on my pants first of course. Traveling, migrating germs and bacteria? :dubious: Seriously now, those things are TINY. They’d have to be moving at the speed of sound to get from the dirtied side of a piece of TP to your fingers in the few seconds you actually touch the paper.
I think those of you who are over concerned about the state of cleanliness of other people’s hands are operating under an offensive strategy. You are trying to kill the germs before they can attack you.
Consider a defensive strategy. The quantity of pathogens is immeasurable (I’m guessing one quibababillionzillion). Your body has a very effective barrier (skin). You have a few vunerable entrances that are mostly on your head. Protect the entrances.
That being posited, my main rules are
- Touch your eyes with clean, freshly washed hands only.
- Touch ear canals and nose with clean, freshly-washed hands only but rule 1 is an order of magnitude more important.
- Touch mouth with clean hands only (2 being an order of magnitude more important).
- Emergency breaches of the skin should be addressed swiftly, with clean hands.
- Any rule can be broken, but the spirit of the strategy should be maintained.
Rule 5 is the tricky one. If my eye is fiercely itching and I’m in public, I’m probably going to rub it with the outside area of my wrist, or the upper portion of my lower arm.
I don’t find a defensive strategy to be lazy or ineffective. I find it to be the perfect example of the “work smarter not harder” saying. I can’t control or monitor what 6 billion humans do, but I can be aware and protect my own vunerabilities.
I always wash in public bathrooms, unless it just way too gross to touch anything. I never wash at home, unless I get something on my hand. I do wash before cooking anything, or if they just feel icky-sticky.
I view washing as more of an exercise in avoiding sickness, and my normal bathroom schedule at work leaves me washing my hands about twice a day during work hours.
I also sit on the public toilet seat, and I pee in the shower!
I hardly ever do at home, I showered and the little guy is clean. I don’t make it a habit of peeing on my hands. I normally do in public restrooms except if there are no paper towels and just the God awful hand dryers, those just piss me off and I end up drying my hands on my pants.
I drink a lot of water so I pee several times in an hour. The bathrooms in my workplace are cleaned obsessively, and the soap in there dries out my hands. (Public bathroom soap is literally the only reason I need to buy hand cream, which I find tiresome.) So no, I do not wash my hands with soap each and every time I go in there. At work I wash them after being outside, and before eating, and so forth, but the cycle of washing hands/stripping moisture/moisturizing/washing hands several times an hour seems rather pointless, considering how little I touch in between cycles.
Furthermore, altho my work bathroom is cleaned obsessively, I do not trust air dryers. Up until recently they were manufactured with no mitigation measures for the fecal (etc) bacteria that they recirculate and blow right back on to your hands. This sort of defeats the purpose of washing in the first place.
At home, and in other places where the soap is more rational and the towels clean, I wash every time, because who knows what kind of disgusting things I might get up to while not at work. Also my house gets cold and nothing warms you up quite like washing your hands with warm water and soap.
I don’t wash every time, for the same reasons as have been stated. I wash in public bathrooms if there is someone else in there just for the sake of courtesy to them, not because I feel like my hands are dirty.
I have eczema too, so washing constantly is really hard on my hands.
I don’t wash every single time at home - always before cooking or eating or otherwise doing something that requires clean hands - but I do wash every time in a public restroom or at work. I don’t wash at home because I keep my bathroom clean and don’t pee on my hands. At work I always wash, partially due to peer pressure (no one wants to be the woman who walks out without having washed), but mostly because people here rarely take sick days, even if they’re on their deathbed. That said, I prefer not to use antibacterial soap and try not to disinfect everything obsessively. The only time I use the antibacterial gel is when I have a cold and have to go to work, and that’s out of courtesy to my co-workers. If it were just me, I wouldn’t bother.
It seems like many people did not read Cecil’s column that I and others linked to previously in this thread. So, in case you missed it:
(bolding mine)
Now, he’s talking about men only here, but I think the same principle applies generally. I’m not a major germaphobe by any stretch, but really, it’s just common courtesy. I know I’ll probably get a bunch of people responding that “I’m clean, I shower every day, I wash my privates, etc. - what’s the big deal?” It’s not a big deal, but as Cecil explains, you’re not clean, so it makes sense to wash up (nasty and disgusting sinks excepted, of course).
Well, it hasn’t killed me yet. And unless you wash your bed linen everyday chances are good that you are sleeping with more critters than you probably want to think about.
The only reason that I even wash my hands in a public restroom is courtesy to the clerk with money changing hands.
Interesting - I didn’t read that. Consider ignorance fought.
Hasn’t hurt me in 29 years, I doubt it’s going to hurt me ever.
I generally do, but I only feel compelled to after #2- even though studies have shown that generally a swab from your @$$ is cleaner than a swab from your face. Not a direct cite, but as close as google will get me right away… http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-02-14-dirty-desks_x.htm
Urine is sterile, and as someone upthread posted, my penis is cleaner than the faucet.
No reason not to do so if it is readily available.
That said, I NEVER did as a youth. Until I was about 25 I didn’t care at all and would see it as an inconvenience. Probably comes from growing up with a shovel and a roll of TP around the handle as a bathroom in the woods where I grew up. Hand sanitizer didn’t exist and we didn’t have running water. Oh well.
What I did, what I’m doing next, the cleanliness of the sink, soap type and drying options all are factors that sometimes make my skip the wash.
Not an absolute rule but I dislike the hot-air hand dry option. I like a disposable towel, thinking that the hot air evaporates the water depositing anything microscompic floating things back on the skin.