But am I gonna die if I don’t wash my hands the next time I have oral sex? And do I wash my hands before or after? Or both? And is it better having oral sex with a penis or with a clitoris? And … Oh my God, my God, the dilemma you all have put me in!!!
I assume you recognized that my last post was ironic. But not entirely. This whole discussion has been male-centered. i.e. how contaminated by e.coli or whatever is the penis. While going through school, my wife swabbed and cultured another member of her class, and was cultured in turn. The objective was a cervical smear, but what she found was massive e. coli in the vagina. Anyone who had oral sex with her classmate would have got a dose of e.coli equivalent to licking the flush handle and the doorknob and doubtless the toilet seat, too. My guess, extrapolating wildly, is that nothing hanging onto you people’s penises remotely approaches what she saw in that culture. Her guess is that her classmate just wiped from back to front instead of the correct front-to-back, and the result cultured itself. If the kind of infestation that my wife so shuddered about exists in the vagina, I figure it’s about 99 to 1 that the whole vulvar groove was comparable. And that warm, wet space under the clitoral hood should put to shame all the petri dishes in the history of modern medicine. So are all of you dudes that are so fastidious about their penises now swearing they will meticulously disinfect their partners of the evening before they get on to the really fun part? And Ohmigod, surely you rushed off to wash up between the foreplay and what came next, didn’t you, or you would of course be too dead to be reading this.
I’m sure curious what your partners of the evening think of all this.
So yeah, there are good reasons to wash your hands after you pee, and before, and maybe during, and then the next morning so you can still respect yourselves, but in the whole scheme of your lives, is this real?
How about some kind of tablet or pill “vaccine” with weakened forms of all e.coli?
Pokes all readers and says patent pending.
That would be a bad idea, since various strains of E. coli are normal flora in your digestive tract.
**nacaguy:**IANADBIPOOTSDMB
The way I understand it, you build up immunities to your own bacteria and that of your partners and other close contacts. So anything that’s lurking around on your SO is probably lurking around on you already anyway. Most people probably have similar bacteria, with some variances here and there. The whole point of trying to be hygenic is so that you don’t unnecessarily spread stuff around that someone else might not have immunity to. Of course, proper hygeine would also help you avoid picking up any new stuff you’re not immune to. It almost sounds futile, but the point is to minimize the speed at which germs get spread around.
Anyone feel free to correct or clarify what I said. …As if I had to say that.
Voltaire, I imagine you must be right about having immunity to your SO’s particular mengerie of bugs. I sure hope so, cos I was rapidly being put off one of my favourite activities while reading through this thread. (No, not peeing and then failing to wash my hands…)
QtM the reason that I have a hard time believing some of the stuff you say is that you say you have cites for it but the cites you provide arent relavent to the more outlandish of the things you are saying.
It’s really easy to spout off about E Coli and anus and sweat but if all of this were really something we needed to worry about I think we would all be walking around sick as dogs.
I still wash my hands after I pee, all I am looking for is a credible source of info as to why i should.
alterego, which of my statements do you claim are outlandish?
alterego, if you do wash your hands, and you want to know why you wash your hands, then you should be the one finding some evidence/cite as to why you are doing this.
Otherwise, washing your hands constitutes acceptance of what others have advised.
Denial or refusing to accept what others have advised - by not washing - while they tried to convince you would require those doing the convincing to come up with cites.
Let me summarize my basic contention: Failing to do handwashing passes around a lot of germs to people who do not have that particular subspecies of germ. This will often result in the person with the new subspecies suffering a few days of cramps and diarrhea, of varying intensity (from nearly unnoticeable to very severe).
Does this happen every time someone fails to wash their hands? No. But this sort of transmission, hand-to-hand, hand-to-food to mouth, has been documented.
From your cite:
I don’t live in an area without safe water or improved sanitation, and I am pretty sure you don’t either.
This makes the point that in a small village inside a poor third world and undeveloped country the rampant spread of diarrhea is stopped by handwashing.
Philstr, I came to this forum looking for a pragmatic answer to a simple question, not to be rained on with common sense. THATS WHAT I’M SAYING ANYWAY
Cites, please. When I answer questions, in my quest to eradicate my own ignorance as well as that of others, I try to provide cites for everything I say. If I simply state what I currently believe then all I am doing is spreading ignorance.
I want to get to the root of whether or not washing your hands -3-4+ times a day after you take a leak is overdoing it. If I am doing it out of ignorance maybe I might ought to wanna’ stop.
To summarize the information in this thread so far:
The immune system benefits from “exercise”
We all have our own Jungle of e-coli & others (menagerie refers to animals–let’s not go there!)
Intimate relationships lead to similar jungles (ever notice that your stuff smells like the last person you were with, even after you wash up?)
The standard set of quasi-flu that comes with office life is due, in large part, arguably, to folks exercising poor hygeine.
Seems like what we need is some mandatory intra-office romances. I wonder if I could get that one past HR on the premises that it would drastically reduce sick leave absences?
OK, but I have 2 questions: 1) doesn’t being overly clean lead to stronger germs because the weaker ones are killed off? 2) What constitutes SUFFICENT washing of the hands when we’re talking about the latrine? Most folks I see washing their piddly paws give 'em a quick rinse of cold water. Is that good enough? or are they just getting their germs wet? Don’tcha need to scrub w/ soap under hot/warm water while saying the alphabet in order to sufficiently break down the oils in the crevices of your hands to expose the nasty lurkers?
I wanna wash my hands, but I don’t know how.
Oh and by the way, I’m pretty sure the reason men have cleaner bits than women stems from the thorough, lengthy, soapy and vigorous cleansing the penis receives in the shower.:dubious:
But maybe your right, I should come up with the answers to all my questions. If thats the new policy this forum needs to get shut down!
**Why are men supposed to wash their hands after urination? Plus: urine therapy! **
Here is a cite from a US study showing regular hand washing reduces diarrhea. http://chhd.csun.edu/shelia/pptvirtual/handwash/sld006.htm
Doubtless you will argue that since the study was of children, it won’t apply to you.
Here’s a cite from a CDC researcher at a meeting of the American Society of Microbiology:
from: http://www.hygenius.com/ITN09182K.htm
But since it also mentions transmission of respiratory viruses via this method you may not find it relevant.
Here’s the rationale behind [National Handwashing Awareness Week. But it’s in December, so you may find it inapplicable.
A recent review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal suggests that a surprising 42-47% of all diarrhea could be prevented if people washed their hands with soap.
Sources:
- What is the evidence for a causal link between hygiene and infections? " by Allison E Aiello, Elaine L Larson
Volume 2 Issue 2 Page 103 - Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review Val Curtis, Sandy Cairncross
Volume 3 Issue 5 Page 275 - Hand hygiene and patient care: pursuing the Semmelweis legacy Didier Pittet, John M Boyce
Volume 0 Issue 1 Page 9 - Revolutionising hand hygiene in health-care settings: guidelines revisited Didier Pittet, JohnM Boyce
Volume 3 Issue 5 Page 269
http://infection.thelancet.com/journal
And with that, I wash my hands of this.
Hey, Qadgop??? You want fries with that?
( Picks nose, scratches bum, types a doctoral thesis at Kinko’s, serves him his food )
I wash. Early and often, just like voting in an election. I don’t wash before I use the bathroom, I am going to change that habit having read this thread. I do wash after…AND- and- I use a bit of clean paper towel to pull open the door to the bathroom. I never touch it on the way out. Ever. Dunno about my daughter, but my son has learned not to touch the door handle/knob as well.
Cartooniverse
Don’t you still get germs etc from bathroom taps that 10 million people have previously used to wash their hands (not to mention the toilet cistern, seat or other bathroom furniture…)?
Um, when I get the flu I dont usually notice an upset stomach. Having said that I dont know if i’ve ever had 24hr flu…
I have had the shits though, but it’s usually after eating a take-away.
QtM no doubt indeed.
You seem to have missed your mistake - A point is only as good as the evidence backing it up. This is the way of science. You can try to belittle me, or you can instead resort to the proper method of answering questions in this forum. With cites relavent to your information, and not on the third or fourth attempt.
I don’t know why you replied in the first place if all you had was information that you were going to get upset about providing cites for.
QtM: Do they still teach in medical school: “If you don’t know the answer, talk like you do and change the subject.”
We all know and agree that we need to wash our hands.
The question is: are there more germs on alterego’s tallywacker or on the faucet handle.
Please don’t give us another cite on how important it is to wash our hands or that ass germs can cause diarrhea.
You’re right. I missed that. Sorry. :smack: