When COVID started, every store sold out of toilet paper, and I started to see articles about people recommending bidets to eliminate TP use. Huh? I’d been using a bidet for several years, and I still needed toilet paper. So I thought, I must be using it wrong. Descriptions of bidet use sound like this: sit on the bidet, turn on the water, voila, you are clean! The implication is that the water flow acts like a power washer, cleaning your anus without anything else happening. Well, maybe if you shit rabbit pellets or hard bricks, but if your shit is soft and gooey, as mine often is, no gentle stream will clean this off.
The breakthrough came when I read a description that suggested “digital-fecal contact.” Aha, a lightbulb moment. The first order of business is to get over your natural resistance to this idea and then just do it. You turn on the water flow and get right in there with your finger. Rub the area around, and, yes, to some extent in, your asshole until it is clean. Believe me, you can tell. You are now left with a wet hand and a wet bottom—but it’s just water. Sure, you could use toilet paper to dry (some bidets actually have built-in air dryers), but I just have a wash cloth hanging near the toilet. Mop off your hand and bottom and you are good to go. Pull up your pants, go wash your hands and you are done, no toilet paper. The wash cloth dries and will be ready for your next use.
What I have not figured out is how this applies to women. I’m sure the anal part is the same, but not having lady parts, I do not how the front works with a bidet. Can you also avoid TP use after peeing? Maybe there are some foreign women (or other bidet experts) who read this and can enlighten me. Please by very direct, I’m obviously not good at implications.
