# Wiping our butts **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2000, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430 "2000-01-17T03:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Basil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@Sweet\_Basil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Basil)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2000, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/41 "2000-01-20T08:12:00Z")
This seems like an appropriate place… Do you wipe from the front or the back? Sweet Basil ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2000, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/42 "2000-01-20T09:18:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Sweet Basil: > \*\*This seems like an appropriate place… > > Do you wipe from the front or the back? > Sweet Basil\*\* Not only an appropriate but an astute question. I wipe from back to front, it leaves a shorter skid mark this way. The butt crack seems to facilitate skid marks, has anyone noticed this? I believe that women are taught to wipe from front to back so as to avoid contaminating the vaginal opening. Are there any women in this topic who can affirm or deny this? ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2000, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/43 "2000-01-20T10:16:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Major Feelgud: > \*\* Not only an appropriate but an astute question. > > I wipe from back to front, it leaves a shorter skid mark this way. The butt crack seems to facilitate skid marks, has anyone noticed this? > > I believe that women are taught to wipe from front to back so as to avoid contaminating the vaginal opening. Are there any women in this topic who can affirm or deny this?\*\* I, being a female, can confirm that I have been told this numerous times. I have a different (extremely personal–probably won’t get many responses!)question just for women: When you wipe after taking care of both solid and liquid business (going #1 and #2), do you wipe both areas in one swipe or do you wipe one area and then the other? * * * The Top 10 Greatest Things About Procrastination: 1. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2000, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/44 "2000-01-20T17:42:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by evilbeth: > \*\* > When you wipe after taking care of both solid and liquid business (going #1 and #2), do you wipe both areas in one swipe or do you wipe one area and then the other? > > \*\* Even I, as a man, can answer this. You can’t wipe them both together otherwise you’ll contaminate one or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/45 "2000-01-21T03:56:00Z")
In the case of cleaning up after doing both #1 and 2: I wipe for #2 from back to front (with the right hand going in from the front) - and yes I’ve heard that we should do it front to back; if the t.p. isn’t messy,I kinda fold it over and than dab for the #1. If the t.p. is messy from the #2, I make sure THAT area is clean first (more t.p., maybe wet it), then use more t.p. for #1. Okay, now I have a question for the men: why don’t you use t.p. after peeing? It does drip doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/46 "2000-01-21T04:05:00Z")
## It does drip doesn’t it? Yeah, but it get all over our labia. (snicker) Peace, mangeorge * * * I only know two things; I know what I need to know And I know what I want to know Mangeorge, 2000 ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/47 "2000-01-21T04:17:00Z")
it \ get Smartass payback, I guess. ☹ Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/48 "2000-01-21T04:21:00Z")
it **doesn’t** get I’m going to bed. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/49 "2000-01-21T04:28:00Z")
> [@](#): > > You can’t wipe them both together otherwise you’ll contaminate one or the other. Didn’t Cecil report that urine is bacteria-free? If so, it wouldn’t matter if you wiped urine before feces, but you don’t want to wipe the other way. ## I never would have guessed that 1) this thread would still be going, and that 2) I’d be one of the people keeping it going. “Don’t start no shit, now.” – Richard Pryor ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/50 "2000-01-21T04:37:00Z")
Yes, Cecil touched on it here (so to speak): [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/960112.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/960112.html) ---
**Author:** ![mellonhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@mellonhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mellonhead)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/51 "2000-01-21T05:07:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by spoke-: > \*\*The hole-in-the-floor style toilets are not just an Asian phenomenon. I have seen them in public toilets in Morocco, and even in Portugal (though they seem to be the exception there rather than the rule). \*\* It never really stops amazing me to find that most Westerners don’t realize that the majority of the world is the 3rd world. On the “Big-Hole-In-The-Ground-Toilet-With-Various-Accessories” subject, does anyone have one of those great folk stories that they tell children about the old lady who lives down in the Hole? ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/52 "2000-01-21T06:38:00Z")
Sycorax: You’re not married are you? Yeah, we do drip after peeing, but once you finish peeing you just shake your organ and the pee flys off the end of it. You can also “milk” your penis by squeezing the middle of it and pushing towards the end. That squeezes any left over urine in the urethra out to the end. Interesting enough, at home, I now sit down to pee. It’s much cleaner. When you’re standing the pee always splatters somewhat and you got pee on the rim or on the floor and that’s pretty disgusting. I also notice that when I sit to pee I have to dab the end because there’s no room to fling your organ around. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2000, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/53 "2000-01-21T07:11:00Z")
Back to the topic on hand. I was just in the Kentucky Fried Chicken topic. Do they sell KFC in India, and if they do, do they use the “finger licking good” slogan? Any one from India here? ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/54 "2000-01-22T02:00:00Z")
Thanks Major - no not married, but do live with my s.o. I coulda asked him, but it’s more fun to ask the teeming millions! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430/55 "2000-01-22T05:35:00Z")
from Major Feelgud: > [@](#): > > Irishman: The colon is too far up to be prolapsed down past the sphincter. You got the rectum and then the transverse colon which is perpendicular to the rectum The rectum is part of the colon. The colon is not just the transverse part, but is the three segments from the small intestine. It goes up, across, and down. Rectum included. The doctor called it a prolapsed colon, not a prolapsed rectum. Also, I saw a mention somewhere (not on SDMB) talking about some kittens that had intestinal problems, and they prolapsed a good deal of their entire intestines. If it comes loose, it can dangle out all the way up to about the liver (bile ducts) plus a straight shot. Though that would be **bad**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-our-butts/6430.md?page=2)