Latest / Ridiculous History / Why don't Americans use bidets?

Transcript

Why don't Americans use bidets? · Ridiculous History

0:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. We'd like
0:27
Speaker 1: to start today's episode with just a couple of statistics,
0:31
Speaker 1: some of which may surprise you. You're gonna give us
0:33
Speaker 1: the straight poop, Ben, I am, I am, And yeah
0:37
Speaker 1: you're no, I'm Ben. That's our super producer, Casey Pegrum,
0:42
Speaker 1: saving the show every time we are here in the
0:45
Speaker 1: booth with you. So, first things first, the average American
0:51
Speaker 1: uses twenty three point six rolls of toilet paper per
0:56
Speaker 1: year per capita. Huh, which doesn't seem like that much, right,
1:00
Speaker 1: It doesn't until you consider that they're over three million
1:04
Speaker 1: people in the US with people, and that makes a
1:08
Speaker 1: total of seven point four billion rolls the toilet paper
1:12
Speaker 1: used in the US each year. You ever, just think
1:14
Speaker 1: about just picture everyone in the world's but you know
1:19
Speaker 1: what kind of blows the mind? A little bit, doesn't.
1:22
Speaker 1: But some people will think it's particularly cheeky of us
1:25
Speaker 1: to have back to back episodes related to butts, or
1:29
Speaker 1: should we say cheek to cheek? Yeah, you know, like
1:31
Speaker 1: the way you dance with the Lady in Red. You know,
1:33
Speaker 1: thanks for classing that up, man. We seriously, I think
1:37
Speaker 1: we need as much class as we can get in
1:39
Speaker 1: this episode, the average American uses fifty more TP than
1:44
Speaker 1: people in Western Europe and Japan. And there's a big
1:48
Speaker 1: reason for that, which is the subject of our episode today, which,
1:53
Speaker 1: by the way, yes, let me tell you. We're excited
1:56
Speaker 1: about this for a couple of reasons. Um. I don't
1:59
Speaker 1: know if you guys know what custom content as. That's
2:01
Speaker 1: sort of the industry buzzword for when you make a
2:03
Speaker 1: piece of content for a company, which is kind of
2:06
Speaker 1: what we're doing today. But it's totally awesome because I
2:10
Speaker 1: am just a huge fan of bidats, first of all,
2:13
Speaker 1: and I'm a huge fan of this company that has
2:15
Speaker 1: sponsored this episode, of company called Tushi, who actually sent
2:18
Speaker 1: us these bid days. And I will tell you, my friend,
2:21
Speaker 1: my but has never been cleaner, My disposition has never
2:23
Speaker 1: been sunnier. I'm just loving life, and the Biday life
2:27
Speaker 1: is the life for me, my friend. Yeah, it's a
2:29
Speaker 1: brand new biddet, did it? I see what you did?
2:32
Speaker 1: There's that's gonna happens. We've been throwing that around. Although
2:34
Speaker 1: apparently I saw an Englishman talking about it and he
2:37
Speaker 1: pronounces it b day. Yeah, I saw I saw the
2:40
Speaker 1: same video. Now, uh, let's continue peeking behind the curtain
2:44
Speaker 1: here because I want to assure you friends and neighbors
2:47
Speaker 1: that my co host enthusiasm is genuine and sincere. I
2:52
Speaker 1: literally talk about it all the time. It's weird, it
2:54
Speaker 1: gets weird sometimes, but but but this is gonna be
2:59
Speaker 1: rich so in our in another show that we do
3:04
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know with our illustrious,
3:07
Speaker 1: amazing co host Matt Frederick. We actually also did uh
3:13
Speaker 1: the Day sponsorship. We did some ads for them, but
3:17
Speaker 1: this episode came about because we reached out to them
3:22
Speaker 1: and said, we're gonna do this anyway. Do you guys
3:25
Speaker 1: want to hang out? Basically, and we're so glad that
3:30
Speaker 1: when we reached out to them, Yeah, we did it, yeah,
3:33
Speaker 1: because it just made sense and it's like podcast needs sponsors.
3:37
Speaker 1: Why not there's a matchmate in but Heaven Because we're
3:41
Speaker 1: also we're also fairly silly and juvenile for two grown men,
3:46
Speaker 1: you know what, And then I'm never gonna let that boyish,
3:49
Speaker 1: potty mind die. Heck yeah, bang errang, that's what I said.
3:54
Speaker 1: So we started investigating the history of this and just
4:01
Speaker 1: at the very front of the episode, we want to
4:03
Speaker 1: point out the following. Although it can seem very hilarious
4:09
Speaker 1: and silly, I would argue rightfully so to talk about
4:12
Speaker 1: these kinds of these kinds of gadgets and the techniques
4:17
Speaker 1: people used to stay clean across the world. The truth
4:20
Speaker 1: of the matter is that sanitation is a tremendously important
4:23
Speaker 1: thing throughout history and in the modern day. Have we
4:27
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that today UM in San Francisco specifically,
4:30
Speaker 1: I saw an interview with the head of their sanitation
4:33
Speaker 1: um it costs something like a million dollars a month
4:38
Speaker 1: or something like that just to clean out their sewage system. Yeah,
4:42
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people and those those costs
4:44
Speaker 1: aren't really going to go down. Well, it's because of
4:47
Speaker 1: this thing. If if you heard of this, it's called
4:49
Speaker 1: a fat berg is it's the collection of like grease
4:54
Speaker 1: and dirt and hair, toilet paper, toilet paper especially wipes
4:58
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to flush, sanitary products, condoms, absolutely,
5:02
Speaker 1: just all the stuff that you're not supposed to flush
5:04
Speaker 1: um and that's a huge infrastructure cost. I actually saw
5:08
Speaker 1: an article about one of these fat bergs that was
5:12
Speaker 1: so massive in London. It was the size of like
5:15
Speaker 1: a double decker bus. They removed it and they put
5:18
Speaker 1: it under glass in a museum. Yes, yeah, and it
5:23
Speaker 1: looks just as disgusting as you might imagine. You can
5:26
Speaker 1: find it. You can find this article online and you
5:30
Speaker 1: don't have to take our word for it. Uh. The
5:32
Speaker 1: only recommendation we would make before you read the article
5:35
Speaker 1: is to be sure that you are not eating as
5:38
Speaker 1: you peruse it. They call it the White Chapel Monster,
5:42
Speaker 1: which is such a cool name. And in England London
5:45
Speaker 1: rather a Thames Water, which is the company that operates
5:48
Speaker 1: the water system there in London. It spends a million
5:51
Speaker 1: pounds a month just to clear these kinds of blockages
5:55
Speaker 1: and it's a constant battle. It's not like they're getting
5:59
Speaker 1: ahead of the problem. It's strange because we spend so
6:04
Speaker 1: little time thinking about how important sanitation is, especially in
6:10
Speaker 1: a world where the majority of people now officially live
6:14
Speaker 1: in urban areas. So this fat berg stuff, this problem
6:19
Speaker 1: with sewage infrastructure, it's not going to go away for
6:24
Speaker 1: most of our listeners here in the US. A bid day,
6:27
Speaker 1: which you've probably heard of before, sounds like a very
6:30
Speaker 1: you know, fancy pinkies up European thing, right, would you
6:34
Speaker 1: would associate it with an upper crust lifestyle for good reason.
6:39
Speaker 1: And there's a great reason for that. So let's let's
6:43
Speaker 1: turn back the clock. Let's let's travel to France century.
6:48
Speaker 1: Maybe that's right, the sixteenth century. You see, in the
6:51
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, uh, bid day was a word referring to
6:57
Speaker 1: a specific type of pet, a pony to be, to
7:01
Speaker 1: be absolutely specific about it, and these ponies were kept
7:04
Speaker 1: by French royalty. The the word bidday itself originates from
7:09
Speaker 1: an old French word which I graphically mispronouncing, bidare, which
7:15
Speaker 1: means to trot. And these, um, you know, I'm picturing
7:20
Speaker 1: these fancy frenchmen and women in their finery trotting around
7:25
Speaker 1: on these dainty little ponies, perhaps with ringlets in their mains,
7:30
Speaker 1: you know, flowing lots, flowing locks, bedecked with little little bows.
7:34
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, white stockings whatever. Man I'm at
7:36
Speaker 1: a tour, were editorializing here, but I'm just paying a picture. Okay,
7:39
Speaker 1: it's for effect. But it wasn't until the sixteen hundreds
7:44
Speaker 1: that the Biday as we know at the b day
7:47
Speaker 1: whatever was kind of came to to into fruition. But
7:51
Speaker 1: it wasn't what we know today. Today's bidday. It wasn't
7:55
Speaker 1: today's day, it was the bid day of yesterday. Uh.
7:58
Speaker 1: And it was really just like a sink that looked
8:01
Speaker 1: like a chair. So what, Yeah, let's let's take a
8:03
Speaker 1: closer look at these days of yesterday. The apparatus itself
8:09
Speaker 1: was resembled in some ways an ottoman, an ornamental ottoman.
8:14
Speaker 1: The basin was set within wooden furniture, and the days themselves.
8:21
Speaker 1: You will hear different contradicting claims about whether there were
8:25
Speaker 1: was a single inventor or whether there were multiple people
8:27
Speaker 1: to whom the idea occurred around the same time. But
8:31
Speaker 1: one thing for sure we know is that they were
8:33
Speaker 1: furniture makers, because these things were set into wooden furniture.
8:38
Speaker 1: And the thing about that too is there's a reason
8:41
Speaker 1: for that, ben because these were not in bathrooms, because
8:45
Speaker 1: they didn't have indoor plumbing. The idea of a bathroom
8:48
Speaker 1: would be more likely would be like in your chamber
8:50
Speaker 1: pot it was just a bucket under your bed and
8:53
Speaker 1: in two or in your dressing room or what have you,
8:57
Speaker 1: your your what do you call your boudoir? Right, and
9:00
Speaker 1: the um the b day would just be this little
9:03
Speaker 1: I'm look I'm thinking of as like a nightstand kind
9:05
Speaker 1: of with short legs, and this inlaid basin of water
9:09
Speaker 1: that would just be filled up and you'd squat over
9:11
Speaker 1: it and literally splash yourself manually, right, And this would
9:16
Speaker 1: be I love the point you bring up about their
9:18
Speaker 1: not being a separate bathroom or restroom. So this would
9:20
Speaker 1: be either in the dressing chambers or in the bedroom itself.
9:24
Speaker 1: And to keep it classy, would often be a lid,
9:28
Speaker 1: something made of wood or wicker or leather, and a
9:31
Speaker 1: lot of this, you know. You these furniture makers would
9:34
Speaker 1: inlay these little basins into these wicker furniture, like you
9:36
Speaker 1: were saying then, and it was almost to like disguise
9:40
Speaker 1: the function of the device. Yeah, because it's it's a
9:44
Speaker 1: very intimate thing. You're already in someone's bedroom and then
9:47
Speaker 1: you see how they handle some very personal business. But
9:54
Speaker 1: I feel weird every time we say, but I'm gonna
9:56
Speaker 1: get over this, I promise. However, I like it. There
10:00
Speaker 1: we go, good substitute, Thank you, thank you. However, in
10:05
Speaker 1: the origin story of the bid day, it is inherently
10:12
Speaker 1: intertwined with the story of class in France, and that
10:17
Speaker 1: is why, as as we alluded to at the top
10:19
Speaker 1: of the show. That is why bid days even today
10:23
Speaker 1: are scene. Is this more upper crust fancy thing. And
10:27
Speaker 1: you start to see why this might not have taken
10:30
Speaker 1: off in the United States quite as much because of
10:34
Speaker 1: that association with almost hedonism, right, because soldiers would see
10:40
Speaker 1: these when they were traveling around Europe during World War two. Yeah,
10:44
Speaker 1: and we want to give a shout out to the
10:45
Speaker 1: Atlantic because there is a fantastic article we found called
10:49
Speaker 1: the Bad Day's Revival. In this article, author Maria Teresa
10:54
Speaker 1: Hart explores not just the somewhat murky origin of the biday,
11:00
Speaker 1: but I would argue even more importantly the social role
11:04
Speaker 1: it played. It occurred in culture, It was found in paintings,
11:08
Speaker 1: It was referenced by the most wealthy, successful people of
11:12
Speaker 1: the time. Even Marie Antoinette as she awaited her uh
11:16
Speaker 1: there had to be chopped off by the guillotine. Um
11:20
Speaker 1: was able to get her gold encrusted b day in
11:25
Speaker 1: her cell because she was that was like one of
11:28
Speaker 1: the comforts that she was used to. Apparently she used
11:30
Speaker 1: to travel around with one, had one made that would
11:32
Speaker 1: go in her coach. Um. So this was very much
11:35
Speaker 1: associated with like kind of the upper crust. But then
11:38
Speaker 1: it filtered down to kind of everyone eventually, right, well everyone,
11:45
Speaker 1: you're everyone eventually, Asia, um and elsewhere, everywhere except the
11:52
Speaker 1: United States. And with this article does a fantastic job
11:55
Speaker 1: of doing is kind of exploring why that might be. Okay,
12:05
Speaker 1: real quick timeline. The first written reference to the bidet
12:09
Speaker 1: itself is in seventeen twenty six in Italy. But as
12:14
Speaker 1: we know, the first written reference doesn't mean it wasn't around,
12:18
Speaker 1: of course, It just meant that we have surviving documentation,
12:22
Speaker 1: someone writing about it. And by those days been it
12:24
Speaker 1: was a fancier version. It had like a pump with
12:26
Speaker 1: the water that would squirt, you know, the more like
12:30
Speaker 1: that seems very messy and ineffective. So around this time,
12:35
Speaker 1: from the seventeen hundreds on Europe experiences what we can
12:39
Speaker 1: only call a bidet boom, a boom of bidets. It
12:43
Speaker 1: sounds like a just an explosion of bidets going everywhere.
12:47
Speaker 1: Watch out, they're flying through the air to a home
12:51
Speaker 1: near you. And it's spread to other social classes in France,
12:55
Speaker 1: as you said, Noel, to other countries in Western Europe,
12:57
Speaker 1: and then Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, but not
13:02
Speaker 1: the US. And there's a weird. There's a weird reason
13:04
Speaker 1: for that, and we we should explore that. You know,
13:07
Speaker 1: while we're here at this point in space and time,
13:10
Speaker 1: how did the US not jump on the biday train?
13:13
Speaker 1: How did they not straddle the bidet train? Then it's
13:17
Speaker 1: a good question because everything we've set up to this
13:19
Speaker 1: point makes it sound like a pretty appealing train to ride, right,
13:24
Speaker 1: you know, it helps the environment, um and we can't
13:26
Speaker 1: even to talk about how much water and resources are
13:29
Speaker 1: used in making toilet paper and paper products in general, right,
13:32
Speaker 1: and how much money it costs some local and state
13:36
Speaker 1: governments to clean up these disgusting blobs of congealed TP
13:43
Speaker 1: and crap that are clogging up our source systems. And
13:46
Speaker 1: as a Bidet user myself, I can tell you, sir,
13:50
Speaker 1: it leaves you feeling fresh as a daisy. Well, they're
13:52
Speaker 1: more hygienic, that's part of it. That's a big part
13:55
Speaker 1: of it. But despite this, despite these advantages and friends
14:00
Speaker 1: and neighbors, you can tell that we have our we
14:02
Speaker 1: have a pretty strong opinion about this stuff. But despite
14:06
Speaker 1: the advantages that were inherently present in the day technology,
14:12
Speaker 1: they were thought of as very dirty, filthy things us
14:18
Speaker 1: because in world War two. We've got allied troops, US
14:22
Speaker 1: troops stationed in Europe, right, and they are visiting There's
14:28
Speaker 1: there's no need to use the euphemism here. They are
14:31
Speaker 1: visiting bordellos. They're visiting houses of prostitution. And they saw
14:36
Speaker 1: the days in bathrooms, which was a normal thing, but
14:39
Speaker 1: because of the location they were at, they started to
14:43
Speaker 1: associate these with sex work. Interesting. I feel like it's
14:48
Speaker 1: a little crappy of them to judge, uh, to judge
14:54
Speaker 1: when they're they're they're hanging out in the bordellos, like what,
14:57
Speaker 1: they're good enough to pay for sex, but they're like
15:00
Speaker 1: freaked out by their strange cleansing implement and also the
15:04
Speaker 1: process by which the day cleanses someone after they have
15:09
Speaker 1: used the restroom right, or had intercourse or had intercourse. Yeah,
15:13
Speaker 1: it's associated with a sexual aspect because you're washing out genitalia, right,
15:18
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. In fact, it was even associated with
15:22
Speaker 1: birth control, and birth control in those days equals sin helen, damnation.
15:28
Speaker 1: And we found a great quote from a birth control pioneer,
15:32
Speaker 1: Norman Hair in n six right. Yeah, that's right. He
15:35
Speaker 1: says that in Anglo Saxon communities where bathrooms are notoriously
15:41
Speaker 1: cold and joyless rooms, lacking any kind of warmth or
15:46
Speaker 1: decor um. The very presence of a bid day would
15:50
Speaker 1: have been regarded as like a symbol of sin, right,
15:54
Speaker 1: which is so strange because again we see this association
15:58
Speaker 1: with hedonism, debauchery, and uh obscene wealth carrying over from
16:05
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds to World War two. Do that this
16:09
Speaker 1: would have been way in like the forties. So we've
16:12
Speaker 1: got the evolution of the bidet kind of reaching its
16:16
Speaker 1: logical conclusion at this point where you've got indoor plumbing
16:20
Speaker 1: at this point, so the bidet has moved into the
16:22
Speaker 1: bathroom next to the toilet. It's still a separate implement.
16:25
Speaker 1: And that's why a lot of Americans when they see them,
16:28
Speaker 1: there's it's right for comedy and like you know, euro
16:31
Speaker 1: vacation or somebody someone ends up drinking from the bidet
16:35
Speaker 1: and then making a joke about how, hey, pretty cool
16:37
Speaker 1: you'll have water fountain in the bathroom here. They're kind
16:39
Speaker 1: of low though, weird. I forget what that's definitely in
16:42
Speaker 1: a movie and I can't remember which one rights and
16:44
Speaker 1: let us know, yeah, people getting squirted in the face
16:46
Speaker 1: and stuff there's there's another association that bidays had which
16:51
Speaker 1: worked against them, at least in the US, and it
16:54
Speaker 1: is tied to the misogyny of the time, and that
16:59
Speaker 1: is that they were helpful in the process of menstruation.
17:03
Speaker 1: That's right, because there were no sanitary products in these days. UM.
17:07
Speaker 1: There's actually a really amazing sounding book called Unmentionable, The
17:12
Speaker 1: Victorian Ladies Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners. So this
17:16
Speaker 1: is what we're going back a little bit, but this
17:17
Speaker 1: is still doesn't get much better than this um and
17:21
Speaker 1: it talks about how women to rid themselves of the
17:26
Speaker 1: product of menstruation the blood would use what they referred
17:30
Speaker 1: to as jelly rags and it was literally just a
17:35
Speaker 1: piece of fabric that they would use to physically wipe
17:38
Speaker 1: this area and that just sounds really unpleasant and messy
17:41
Speaker 1: in the mid day, would give you a nice little
17:43
Speaker 1: sprits clean you right off. We get to go for
17:46
Speaker 1: at least a little while, right right. And so it's
17:49
Speaker 1: strange now when we look back from eighteen that the
17:54
Speaker 1: ability to provide a more healthy alternative in the process
17:59
Speaker 1: of administruation was not seen as a selling point. It
18:03
Speaker 1: was placed on the same level as prostitution or unwanted pregnancy,
18:10
Speaker 1: to be delicate about it. And these all became hindrances
18:16
Speaker 1: for the bid day itself because they were inherently being
18:20
Speaker 1: linked in the American consumer's mind with a bunch of
18:25
Speaker 1: things that at the time people just did not speak
18:28
Speaker 1: of in public. We're kind of jumping all over the
18:30
Speaker 1: place a little bit, which is fine, what's what we do. Um,
18:33
Speaker 1: But if we go back to according to this um
18:36
Speaker 1: amazing Atlantic article, there was actually a patent for a
18:41
Speaker 1: design that's very similar to what we see in the
18:44
Speaker 1: days today by our buddy John Harvey Kellogg. You know,
18:48
Speaker 1: corn flakes and masturbation fame, corn flakes anti mascation. Well,
18:55
Speaker 1: he would, he would take exception. He's also a big
18:58
Speaker 1: fan of edemas, which we mentioned in an earlier episode,
19:02
Speaker 1: yogurt Enemas I believe. Yeah. Yeah, weird guy, but forward
19:06
Speaker 1: thinking when it comes to washing your butt. And he
19:08
Speaker 1: was American, Yeah, he was American, and his very particular
19:13
Speaker 1: beliefs about how one would pursue personal health obviously lad
19:18
Speaker 1: him to design this thing. Now, there's no two ways
19:21
Speaker 1: about it. Harvey Kellogg may have been really eccentric, but
19:25
Speaker 1: he was also a brilliant person, so he would have
19:29
Speaker 1: if the bidet had not already been invented centuries before,
19:34
Speaker 1: he would have invented it in the US. Oh dude,
19:37
Speaker 1: but I'm looking at this patent right now. It's a drawing. Yah.
19:40
Speaker 1: It's just called J. H. Kellogg anal douche. Yeah, I
19:43
Speaker 1: feel like it's his title. And it's a it's a
19:46
Speaker 1: it's like a nozzle. Sorry about John Harvey Kellogg anal douche.
19:51
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a it's a nozzle. It's a
19:54
Speaker 1: nozzle that it kind of splits off from the water
19:57
Speaker 1: supply that you would see. And it's the same as
19:58
Speaker 1: and hasn't changed much, right indoor plumbing um, And it
20:02
Speaker 1: goes up and kind of out from underneath the toilet seat.
20:04
Speaker 1: And there's just a little spitzer nozzle and you have
20:07
Speaker 1: a control with a valve, and its spritz is you
20:10
Speaker 1: and you you might ask, isn't it gonna go everywhere? No,
20:13
Speaker 1: sir or madam or whomever you're blocked by. Your butt
20:17
Speaker 1: goes in your butt. That's true. Now, of course, we
20:20
Speaker 1: should also point out that these things were not advertised
20:25
Speaker 1: as a complete replacement for the use of toilet paper
20:29
Speaker 1: they were in addition to so you use much less
20:33
Speaker 1: toilet paper because one of the questions people would have
20:36
Speaker 1: is how do you drive yourself off? Right? That's dab
20:39
Speaker 1: that's where that stuff comes into play. Yeah, and you
20:41
Speaker 1: use so much less toilet paper. But still as we're
20:44
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, early to mid twentieth century, the
20:47
Speaker 1: days are seeing as hedonistic European and I hope you
20:51
Speaker 1: can hear the italics when we say it that way. Uh,
20:55
Speaker 1: like pan and they seemed to remain a thoroughly un
21:02
Speaker 1: American thing, but that didn't stop people from trying to
21:05
Speaker 1: make bidet waves. There was a guy named Arnold Cohen
21:09
Speaker 1: who was the founder of the American Bidet Company because
21:13
Speaker 1: he created a specific type of bidet for his father
21:16
Speaker 1: who was having some health problems to mamorroids perhaps or rashes. Yeah,
21:21
Speaker 1: where you can get these like ant they call him
21:23
Speaker 1: fishers um that you can get from having, you know,
21:28
Speaker 1: being unclean down there. It's it's it's bad times and
21:32
Speaker 1: he uh, he ultimately had a very difficult time with this,
21:38
Speaker 1: even though he was an experienced veteran man in the
21:41
Speaker 1: advertising industry. No matter what he did, he couldn't really
21:45
Speaker 1: seem to get this off the ground, and in bathrooms
21:49
Speaker 1: across America were in the sixties at this point. We're
21:51
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Yes, thank you. In nineteen four and
21:54
Speaker 1: he he did some out of the box stuff. He
21:56
Speaker 1: went on his own initiative. He installed hundreds or thousands
22:01
Speaker 1: of these all over New York. Yeah, but unfortunately, this
22:04
Speaker 1: is one man going up against big toilet paper, which
22:08
Speaker 1: is a thing. It is when you can we hear
22:10
Speaker 1: some stats about how much toilet paper is sold, how
22:13
Speaker 1: much money is generated from toilet paper in this country. Ye, yeah,
22:16
Speaker 1: because we had the stats about how much is used,
22:18
Speaker 1: how much is Yeah, let's put some financial numbers on that. Dude,
22:22
Speaker 1: this is insane. Okay. So Sharmon Ultrasoft, which is you know,
22:25
Speaker 1: you know, you know Sharmon. They've been around for a
22:27
Speaker 1: long time. They got a lot of brand recognition. They're
22:29
Speaker 1: only the third most popular brand of toilet paper in
22:32
Speaker 1: sales there. Sharmon Ultrasoft variety UM made more than a
22:37
Speaker 1: billion dollars alone in the most popular private label made
22:44
Speaker 1: one point seven billion dollars in seventeen. So when we
22:49
Speaker 1: say big toilet paper, we are not kidding it's a
22:52
Speaker 1: billion dollar, booming business, but belligerently opposed to days. Yes,
23:00
Speaker 1: thanks man. Thanks. So we can tell from those statistics,
23:04
Speaker 1: which are are really recent, you said, right, sir, So
23:09
Speaker 1: we can tell that the battle between bid days and
23:12
Speaker 1: toilet paper did not work out for bid Days back
23:16
Speaker 1: in the sixties in the US. But you know where
23:19
Speaker 1: it caught on, You're Cohen did find success for the
23:22
Speaker 1: American Bidet company Japan. That's right, because the Japanese were
23:29
Speaker 1: importing a lot of American toilets because original Japanese toilets
23:34
Speaker 1: were really uncomfortable. They were super low to the ground.
23:36
Speaker 1: You had to squat, which now they've got these squatty
23:39
Speaker 1: potties and they say that it's good for you. But
23:40
Speaker 1: I don't know about all that. But the Japanese, being
23:43
Speaker 1: very innovative people, um kind of really took that bidet
23:48
Speaker 1: design that Kellogg patented so long ago and took it
23:52
Speaker 1: to the next level. There's this company called Toto that
23:55
Speaker 1: makes a product called the Washlet, which is a remote
23:58
Speaker 1: control biday with a heated seat that can be hot
24:03
Speaker 1: or cold. The bite stream can change directions you wanted
24:07
Speaker 1: to go counterclockwise or clockwise or give you a nice
24:10
Speaker 1: direct jet kind of water pick vibe, you can do that.
24:14
Speaker 1: And these things are like thousands of dollars, it depends.
24:18
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, luxury toilet seats, but the bottom
24:21
Speaker 1: line one is maybe five dollars, which is still very expensive,
24:24
Speaker 1: very expense in comparison to a regular commode or you know,
24:28
Speaker 1: the amazing product from our pals at there we go,
24:31
Speaker 1: There we go. So we see that this technology originates
24:42
Speaker 1: in France and proliferates throughout the world. But we also
24:47
Speaker 1: see that this partially because of the cultural associations, I
24:52
Speaker 1: think more and more frequently because of the price point.
24:56
Speaker 1: But days have been you know, a a distant second
25:01
Speaker 1: place in the story of sanitation here in the US.
25:04
Speaker 1: You know, how much toilet paper was sold in Europe,
25:08
Speaker 1: much less than the US relatively, Dropping the dropping the
25:12
Speaker 1: chamber bucket because we're talking there we go, dropping the
25:14
Speaker 1: chamber pike, because we're talking about a continent there, and
25:16
Speaker 1: that's not just the country, that's Europe entire. And so
25:20
Speaker 1: this catches us up to the modern day. And there's
25:24
Speaker 1: an excellent article on our website how Stuff Works dot
25:27
Speaker 1: Com by Alison Cooper called the Biday is it making
25:31
Speaker 1: a comeback. And it turns out, as you and I
25:35
Speaker 1: have been talking about off air, Noal, it turns out
25:37
Speaker 1: that uh, the bidet may actually have its time to
25:42
Speaker 1: shine here in the States, to shine up our butt holes. Yeah, man,
25:46
Speaker 1: that's that's the truth of the matter. And look, we
25:48
Speaker 1: know this can sound um, we we know that nine
25:54
Speaker 1: here we go, here we go. Well do we know
25:58
Speaker 1: this can sound a little little bit strange. But the facts,
26:02
Speaker 1: the objective statistics are on the side of this argument
26:06
Speaker 1: that the days are gaining ground here in the US.
26:11
Speaker 1: And I think a huge part of that is because
26:15
Speaker 1: for decades I assumed, and I think most everybody assumed
26:19
Speaker 1: rightly so, that you would have to remodel your house,
26:24
Speaker 1: you would have to install a new waterline to run
26:27
Speaker 1: into that to day, right, that's right. But now, thanks
26:30
Speaker 1: to our pals Tushi, he's got a super low profile
26:35
Speaker 1: but day attachment that has gained popularity. And it's actually
26:38
Speaker 1: very similar to that patent from from our buddy Kellogg
26:41
Speaker 1: from nineteen thirty. It just splits off from the existing waterline.
26:45
Speaker 1: And look, we know, we know they're they're sponsoring the show,
26:48
Speaker 1: but I I really do it's It's a great thing
26:52
Speaker 1: to have in your house. I'm a fan, and I
26:53
Speaker 1: really hope the bid Day revolution continues on full force
26:57
Speaker 1: and I'll be leading the charge of my friend, I
26:59
Speaker 1: don't know about you to brand new Biday in America.
27:03
Speaker 1: We got there, and all we did. Man, we hope that.
27:07
Speaker 1: I think it's fairly obvious to everyone that we we
27:11
Speaker 1: enjoyed ourselves so much on this episode. I'm Casey, I
27:15
Speaker 1: am sure that you have cut out several solid minutes
27:18
Speaker 1: of us just laughing at each other, just same. But
27:23
Speaker 1: but we thank however, we hope you enjoyed this episode
27:29
Speaker 1: as much as we enjoyed exploring it. And again, as
27:33
Speaker 1: funny and silly as it may seem, as taboo as
27:37
Speaker 1: it may feel to discuss these things, the truth of
27:40
Speaker 1: the matter is that, for multiple reasons, uh, the role
27:44
Speaker 1: of toilet paper, the role of personal sanitation of toilet paper. Oh,
27:49
Speaker 1: I just walked into that one. Oh man, thank you. No,
27:52
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have noticed that one. Uh. These these various
27:56
Speaker 1: factors come into play in a tremendously important way, not
28:01
Speaker 1: just environmentalism but also your own personal helit. I think
28:04
Speaker 1: those US versus European toilet paper sales stats, speak volumes
28:08
Speaker 1: m so let us know what your experiences are like.
28:14
Speaker 1: We have a lot of listeners from around the world.
28:17
Speaker 1: I'd also be interested to hear from folks in Australia
28:20
Speaker 1: because we didn't really explore Australia's sanitation in this episode. Yeah,
28:25
Speaker 1: and does the water really turn down the drain in
28:27
Speaker 1: the other direction? Let us know. You can write to
28:30
Speaker 1: us at Ridiculous at how Stuff Works dot com. You
28:32
Speaker 1: can hit us up on our Facebook page, or better yeah,
28:35
Speaker 1: join our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, where we get
28:38
Speaker 1: into all kinds of fun stuff. We'd like to thank
28:42
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram for yet again saving the show. We'd like
28:46
Speaker 1: to thank Alison Cooper and John Donovan over How Stuff Works,
28:51
Speaker 1: and Lori l Dove while we're at it, she didn't
28:56
Speaker 1: really write anything today, but just such a sound cue
28:59
Speaker 1: I'm are. We also want to thank Alex Williams who
29:02
Speaker 1: composed our track. And most importantly, as we as we
29:07
Speaker 1: love to say every episode, we'd like to thank you,
29:11
Speaker 1: specifically you. Why does she does? Oh? Subliminal? You like that? Yeah,
29:19
Speaker 1: you're proselytizing right now. That's it for now, but stay
29:22
Speaker 1: tuned for our next episode where we cover very strange
29:26
Speaker 1: stories of voter fraud. Oh yeah, um, we're talking election
29:31
Speaker 1: fraud in the eighteen hundreds that include stuff ranging from
29:35
Speaker 1: all kinds of bad behavior, kidnapping, forced intoxication, and my
29:39
Speaker 1: favorite one repeat, voting in disguise we were getting get
29:45
Speaker 1: a trench coat. You can't make this stuff up, and
29:46
Speaker 1: a fake mustache. Yes, we'll see then, ridiculous historians