Exactly. This is a huuuge pet peeve of mine. There is no such thing as a 24-hour or 48-hour flu bug. What those people have is most likely food poisoning or some other gastro-intestinal upset brought about by poor hygiene.
The flu lasts at least 7 days, not 2. :rolleyes:
Well, with all that said, I hope none of you ever engage in oral sex with a female.
As Johnny said, “the groin area is warm and can be moist.” And you would find yet another source of migrating bacteria.
Which, BTW, makes me wonder, do women catch their infamous bladder infections from their own transplanted bacteria or from something the man brought along?
None of this causes me to say “Hell, no! Don’t ever wash after,” but the world needs more devil’s advocates.
Men don’t pee, men piss.
Women pee.
And, what Q the M said. I grew up a non-washer. Then I got married and she (the pee’r) made me wash my hands. The result was a dramatic reduction in the occurance of the “flu”. So you can get sick from your own bugs.
Peace,
mangeorge
“But did they call me MacGregor the fence-builder? Nooo…” 
[sub]Click the smiley if you are unfamiliar with this joke[/sub]
Thanks, Dooku. Now I’m going to feel compelled to click every freakin’ smiley I see.
I’m still looking for a Cite, especially from Cecil, that shows that a dick that has been washed within the last 18 hours transmits any more disease than a head, a toe, fingernails, lips, a public doorknob, money, or any other number of items our hands touch in the course of a day.
The face is moist (oily), the nose is a haven for pathogens. Nose pathogens migrate to the face. Bacteria thrive on the face. I have yet to see one ad for a dick zit remedy.
Wash your hands anytime you touch your face or rub your nose.
The “stomach flu” mentioned in the thread may have been caused by the doorknob to the building, or the telephone, or yesterdays lunch. mangeorge: maybe the pee’er also cleans out the fridge more often than you did. Anecdotes and conjecture do not make fact.
The fact is that most people have beneficial bacteria in their intestines.
Yes, there are “bad” strains of bacteria. The source of these is usually from animals, especially cattle that have been fed antibiotics.
Wash your hands anytime you touch an animal.
Unless alterego is a bovine, or has a “stomach flu”, or just doesn’t feel well, he is much more likely to be passing on beneficial bacteria, if he is passing any at all.
BTW, Unless Cecil and some of the dopers are wearing woolen underwear (makes me itch just thinking about it), they may need to change their underwear more often. I wear cotton briefs. Boxers are even less likely to retain moisture.
I thoroughly checked many times during the course of the day :rolleyes: (hey, if you can find research you can enjoy) and my privates were dry. (Please no comments about needing to find a girlfriend!).
If you wash your hands before touching your food, mouth, nose or eyes, you do not need to fear alterego.
The thing is, when you flush that toilet, you’re getting whatever the previous flushers had on their hands (or shoes). This, of course, may include any number of bodily by-products. And I seriously doubt that toilet handles in public restrooms are **ever **sanitized.
This is why I don’t understand women who think they don’t have to wash after peeing, because the only thing they touched was the toilet’s handle.
Actually, you should wash your hands BEFORE you pee as well as after. Where have your hands been??
Wash before for your own safety and after for the safety of others.
Untrue. There are thousands of strains of E. Coli and other intestinal flora, and each individual has a unique ‘garden’ of them. Within families and other intimate relationships, the strains tend to be similar. But there is an adjustment period, when one acquires and gets used to a new strain, during which time one may experience cramps, diarrhea, and other unpleasantness.
The typical individual doesn’t need any new strains, he’s doing just fine with his own. And decent handwashing by all involved will reduce the incidents of introducing new strains into the system with its accompanying unpleasantness.
Wash your damn hands!
QtM, MD
Do you have a cite for that?
** QtM, MD **: I definately require a cite from an MD. Show me the study that shows these germs are on alterego’s dick and not also on every other surface. He’s not scratching his balls, he is touching his dick. 
It is more important that you wash your own hands than rely on other people to wash theirs.
Indeed, I think you will find that if the immune system is exercised regularly, you will have that important resistance when the big one comes around.
E. Coli as a source of Diarrhea (besides the dreaded strain of E. Coli 0157:H7)
http://www.drgreene.com/21_1077.html (general info site, summarizing mainstream medical thought on e. coli and diarrhea.
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/Disease_ctrl/epi/htopics/reports/ecoli3.pdf (epidemiological studies on the wide variety of E. Coli which cause various diarrhea manifestations)
DuPont HL, Formal SB, Hornick RB, Snyder MJ, Libonati JP, Sheahan DG, LaBrec EH, and Kalas JP.1971. Pathogenesis of Escherichia coli diarrhea. New England Journal of Medicine 285(1):1-9 (Unavailable online, talks about how E. Coli causes diarrhea)
Poitrineau P, Forestier C, Meyer M, Jallat C, Rich C, Malpuech G, and De Champs C. 1995. Retrospective case-control study of diffusely adhering Escherichia coli and clinical features in children with diarrhea. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 33(7):1961-1962. (More varieties of E. Coli causing diarrhea).
Now are you actually claiming that the genitals are not colonized by E. coli??
Don’t piss off the good doctor.
Semi-hijack, but since there’s a lot of talk about catching things from nasty people in your office, I have to add this…
NEVER, I mean NEVER, let anyone use your keyboard. Even if you don’t, you should clean or replace it regularly.
I once let someone use my keyboard, then came back in the next day with itchy eyes only to see this person with the most horrid case of pink-eye you could imagine. The next day, my own eyes were worse than his. I just threw that keyboard away and made it a rule to keep my keyboard off limits.
Keyboards have got to be one of the dirtiest things that you touch often since they rarely get cleaned and even when they are cleaned, it’s almost impossible to clean them thoroughly.
Be very weary of communal computer keyboards. If you must use them, wash your hands afterwards.
Dear QtM, MD:
The question on the table is NOT whether E. Coli causes diarrhea, how it causes diarrhea, whether it can cause outbreaks of diarrhea, whether it causes diarrhea in children or is spread by children with diarrhea, or whether women are more susceptible.
No one is claiming that the genitals in general are not colonized by E. Coli.
My understanding of the original question
is:
Will a healthy penis that was washed this morning be sufficiently colonized to transmit harmful bacteria to the fingers and then to others? Are these bacteria in sufficient quantity to be detectable above the background noise of colonizations already picked up by the fingers in the course of the day?
alterego: Please correct this if necessary.
My sense is that the penis is far enough away from the rectum that this route of transmission is not significant. But then, I admit that I am speculating, not stating fact. That is why I have been asking for a cite.
Maybe we should move this to Great Debates. I have yet to see an actual fact posted that is relevant to the question.
Well, I posted a nice reply with cites, but the hamsters ate it. (says a naughty word)
Briefly: Washing cuts down on genital E. Coli colonization only briefly. In less than an hour the bacterial counts are just as high as ever. E. Coli likes the crotch, it’s got lots of fatty sweat glands.
The hands don’t hold E. Coli well after washing, as there are no fatty sweat glands to feed them there.
The big danger is handling the crotch, handling food, and contaminating the food. This is where most of the transmission comes from. But its not unknown for it to be transmitted thru a handshake from someone who touched their crotch. Then the next person takes those bacteria passed to him, and sticks them in their nose or mouth. This phenomenon has been well documented in the transmission of MRSA. Nosocomial MRSA transmission
Now, I’m done with this topic. If all this doesn’t convince someone of the need to wash their hands after handling their genitals, there’s nothing further I’m gonna say to change their mind. Just keep your hands off my food.
I once drank 4 or 5 big gulps of fluid out of a gallon jug in my car… only to find out that my brother pissed in it, while it was almost empty, two minutes earlier.
Not sure if my nautious feeling was from the piss or the thought of the piss… I was fine though. Seems like you never get sick when you are supposed to…
Have we really become such babies today? How did we ever survive before the advent of running water?
It is a survival of the fittest type thing. If you get terribly sick from things like this, you probably shouldn’t be walking around anyway, and reproducing your inferior genes and your inferior immune system.
No, of course it’s not going to make you sick every single time you neglect your hygeine. It’s not even going to make you sick every single time you drink pee. NOTHING in biology happens with a full 100% confidence. But the law of averages catches up eventually. Probably…