Latest / Privycast / Ep. 108 Bidets Part 1: A Bedroom Origin

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Ep. 108 Bidets Part 1: A Bedroom Origin · Privycast

0:00
>> Speaker A: We need to normalize saying. Hi,
0:03
my name's hunter, and I have diarrhea
0:06
today.
0:12
Welcome back to privy. Privy
0:15
is a podcast about bathrooms
0:18
recorded from my home bathroom.
0:21
I'm your host, hunter hoover, and I
0:24
love bathroom rooms. Um, at the
0:27
day of recording, it is the first
0:29
day of the fall rains. Uh,
0:32
I want you to know, and I promise you this
0:35
is the first time I've said this today, but
0:38
I mowed my lawn
0:41
at the exact right
0:44
time. I helped a
0:47
buddy, uh, and former guest of the show, friend of the show,
0:50
chris luckman, uh, with a bunch of wood,
0:54
uh, and then got home, and I'm already gross. And I'm
0:57
looking at my lawn and I'm going, I'm doing it. Hit that lawn,
1:00
and 2 hours later the rain comes.
1:02
It makes you feel like a master of time
1:05
when that happens. It feels so good.
1:08
It's as if everything is right
1:11
in the world when that happens.
1:14
Also, I want to share, uh, here, in a few weeks, I'm
1:17
going to be stepping back into the custodial role,
1:19
so stay, uh, tuned.
1:22
Hopefully there's not. I'm only going to
1:25
be doing it for a couple of weeks. I'm filling in for
1:28
Michael wall, and, uh,
1:33
I'm only stepping in for a little bit. So
1:36
I doubt that there's going to be an opportunity to
1:38
see anything that terribly Randy
1:41
during that amount of time. Um, but we'll see.
1:45
But it almost feels like, you know, in those superhero movies,
1:48
whenever they have the superhero that
1:51
retires and then in the
1:53
one episode he comes back in,
1:56
gets called out of the thing. That's how this
1:59
feels like Michael.
2:02
He's very concerned that I'm going to put
2:05
the recycling bin in the right
2:08
spot for pickup day. Um,
2:10
and so it'll be fine.
2:13
Also,
2:16
lots of non bathroom related updates
2:19
for you. A
2:22
couple of things. Number one, pumpkin spice madness
2:25
has descended on us, and I
2:27
don't want to get into too much detail,
2:31
but if you have not already consumed the
2:34
pumpkin spice frosty, you need to get
2:36
yourself to Wendy's and go ahead and get you one of those. Slurp
2:39
that down. Uh, but it is the
2:42
most white girl thing I have done is I'm definitely
2:45
three or four, uh, pumpkin spice
2:48
frosties in this season
2:51
also right here at the top.
2:54
And I promise this is probably going to be our last
2:56
tangent. Uh,
2:59
it's fixing to be spookkey season here on the pod.
3:02
And what that means for you is
3:05
coming up, you're going to hear some spooky episodes,
3:08
but it also means that it's
3:10
fixing to be twist season. Now,
3:14
as much as it has nothing to do with toilets, I need to
3:17
explain twist season. This
3:19
is my soapbox, if you will, to explain to
3:22
you twist season. So,
3:25
twist season runs, for lack of a better way
3:28
of saying it, from October 1 to November
3:31
1. Um, and it
3:33
culminates in Halloween day,
3:36
wherein we see if
3:39
truly the efforts of the twist season
3:42
have paid off. Um, twist season is
3:45
where we push for justice for the
3:48
twist. Uh, during twist season,
3:50
please use hashtag justice for the twist.
3:53
Um, and what this is is it is an endeavor
3:56
to get the song
3:58
incorrectly named the monster mash, to be
4:01
renamed Transylvania Twist.
4:04
Now, this injustice is
4:07
brought to us by the song itself, wherein
4:10
the crypt keeper wakes up from his slumber and
4:13
finds out that his
4:15
original Transylvania twist has been
4:18
ripped from him and credited to
4:20
another as the monster mash. So,
4:24
to have justice for the twist, it
4:27
is a month long endeavor to push for
4:29
people to realize, one, that it is the
4:32
Transylvania twist, and two, call for
4:35
the correct naming and reference to the
4:38
song as the Transylvania twist.
4:41
I would like also to note here that
4:44
from henceforth and forevermore, the
4:47
monster mash will refer only to
4:50
the general Mills monster cereal, wherein
4:53
all the monsters are, quote, mashed
4:55
together to form a party in your mouth,
4:58
if you will.
5:01
But we're not there yet. We have a few days at the point
5:04
of this episode's release. We're staring at about a week
5:07
from, uh, twist season. So, everybody hold on.
5:10
Don't get your jumbles in a twist.
5:14
But summer has been a time of hands on learning
5:17
for us here at privy. We've done a lot of hands on learning.
5:20
We've done on location recording and lifelong
5:23
change.
5:26
Stay tuned. But now it's
5:28
fall. At the point of recording this, it is the
5:31
first day of fall,
5:34
and it's time to talk about 400 year
5:36
old butt washing technology.
5:43
You, my wife, has brought me the
5:46
most bodacious sized hot
5:49
cocoa. I'm going to go ahead and take a picture of this,
5:52
uh, if you would like to see it, check
5:55
out the privy cast social. Um,
5:58
but it's just a monster of a.
6:01
It's really quite a bowl of hot cocoa.
6:04
Like, at this point, we're talking bowls of hot cocoa,
6:07
I say as I lean away from the mic to take the
6:09
picture. Today on privy, we're going to talk
6:12
about bidets.
6:15
And in the 14 hundreds, the
6:18
French would ride bidets.
6:21
I know what I said.
6:23
Bidets were used. And
6:26
outdoors in the pasture,
6:29
bidets would often be made
6:32
into a fake play structure for
6:35
small children. You might
6:37
stick, uh, a bidet, uh,
6:40
on the end of a pole and pretend to ride him around in the
6:43
field.
6:47
One might say they watched the television show
6:49
my little bidet.
6:52
Bidets originally were not
6:55
buttwashing sprayers, as we know and love
6:57
today. In times past,
7:00
hygiene was much less important.
7:03
People would bathe often, once a week
7:06
if they were lucky. If even this
7:09
often, it was a smelly world. And we've talked about that
7:12
smelly world at length here on the show.
7:16
I'm trying to m, uh, imagine
7:18
16th century teen stank. I'm back
7:21
to work at the high school, and I have gotten
7:24
to feast, um, my nostrils, if you will,
7:27
on the just abysmal teen stank that is
7:30
the end of summer. Uh, armpit
7:33
sweat that they bring to my classroom. It's
7:36
just very ripe. Um,
7:39
modern day teens stank is pretty ferocious.
7:42
But if the expectation of
7:44
teens in the 16th, 17th
7:47
century and earlier is to
7:49
bathe but once a week, if less than
7:52
that, probably bathing less. Like you tell a teen
7:55
to bathe every day, they're going to bathe less than that. That's just kind of how
7:58
it goes. Unless you know what, romance is the thing
8:01
that gets teens clean. They start to want
8:04
to impress some lady or some little
8:07
guy, and they're like, m, I better make my
8:09
armpits not spell like a dumpster. And then
8:12
they use that axe body
8:15
spray. They just hose that stuff down. That's a middle school
8:18
thing. They've figured that out for the most part by high school, I
8:20
think. But if everyone is bathing
8:23
less often, the reality is
8:27
the world is going to be a stinkier place.
8:30
That's just facts. Human
8:32
people have zones on
8:35
their body that tend to be
8:38
concentrated stink spots, pits and
8:41
crevices. They're like little stink hiding
8:43
spots. It's like the stink is playing hide
8:46
and go seek in your nethers, in your armpits.
8:49
Armpit classic. In between the toes, of course.
8:52
But apparently the private
8:55
zone was a real stink problem.
8:58
In 1415 and 16 hundreds,
9:01
France in
9:04
the 16 hundreds, the French came up
9:06
with a stool. You would straddle
9:10
and take a bowl of water
9:13
and wash your downstairs. While you sat
9:16
straddling this stool, you
9:19
straddle the pony and you scrub your
9:21
nethers. Hence,
9:24
they used to ride bidets, which is
9:27
the french word for pony, as they
9:30
straddled them to wash their fiddly
9:33
bits. This is where the name
9:36
for bidet comes from. It is for the term
9:39
of a pony or a small horse, because these
9:41
early bidets were like small
9:44
horse looking contraptions you would straddle to wash
9:47
yourself. In my brain, I don't know.
9:50
I'm thinking of, like, one of these wood rocking
9:53
horses or, like, saw horses. Like a rocking horse
9:56
that you'd have for a little kid. Or, like, a saw horse that you would do
9:59
some carpentry work upon.
10:03
And you just sit just
10:07
spread eagle on this bad boy and just
10:09
wash your downstairs. Really get up in there. Now,
10:12
I don't know if they had some sort of stretching
10:15
and flexibility problem. That they had to sit
10:18
across this thing to properly wash their
10:21
no no zone. But
10:24
it seems excessive. What's
10:27
fascinating is we don't know who invented the
10:29
bidet, but we know it's french.
10:33
Wee wee monsour. I had to. I had
10:36
to. We can't talk about Frenchmen without
10:39
saying weewee monsour. It's almost like we're contractually
10:42
obligated to do so.
10:49
The earliest mention of a bidet is in
10:52
1710 in a french
10:54
dictionary. And while they are not sure, many
10:57
credit french furniture maker Christopher Day
11:00
Rosier. For creating the first
11:03
bidets. It is noted
11:06
the device was primarily used by
11:09
the aristocracy. To stay clean in between
11:11
baths. Over time, having a
11:14
bidet became a status symbol. And I would argue
11:16
that in some ways it can be thought of as this.
11:19
Today, imagine
11:22
you go over to someone's house. And they display this
11:25
wooden rocking horse type thing with a bowl
11:28
under it. And you're like, wowie zawie.
11:31
How am I going to keep up with the Joneses?
11:34
Look. Did you see their
11:37
nether washing station? It's so
11:39
good.
11:43
The bidet took a
11:45
while to catch on. It remained in
11:48
little to no use until about
11:51
1726. During this
11:54
early period in France, the bidet did
11:56
become associated with going to the bathroom.
12:00
More so than it originally was. Prior
12:03
trials of the bidet included, as noted, uh,
12:06
a way to clean yourself. But they also viewed
12:09
it as a contraceptive. You do the deed,
12:12
you bidet yourself, and you won't get
12:15
pregnant. Not how it works.
12:18
Trial and error. Eventually we're going to get these
12:21
things right. That's what you got to hear. While the bidet
12:24
is French, the
12:27
first mention of it in writing outside of that french
12:30
dictionary. Is in 1726 in
12:32
Italy. With this mention, we can see
12:35
how words about this device began to spread.
12:38
And it isn't until the mid 17 hundreds. That the
12:41
addition of something called the bidet
12:44
syringe appeared. Now,
12:47
generally speaking, a, uh, syringe
12:50
needs to stay very far away from anything that's going
12:52
near my digit or
12:55
my boring holio. But this
12:58
bidet syringe was a small device
13:01
attached to a hand pump that would allow the
13:04
water to be sprayed upward, directing the flow of traffic,
13:07
if you will, into your brown zone of destiny. And
13:10
it should be noted, the bidet zone, uh, or the
13:13
clamshell, or the bidet at this point in
13:16
history is still used
13:18
primarily in the bedroom.
13:21
That's right, bedroom. Not bathroom, bedroom.
13:24
This is a bedroom technology.
13:27
The idea being you skeet your stink
13:30
into the chamber pot. Pass that to the piss boy.
13:34
More on what he does with it next week because there's
13:37
a step in there that some people went to. And then
13:39
you straddle your bidet spray. The nethers
13:42
new syringe coming soon to
13:45
a home pony straddle near you
13:48
and you were fresh as a spring daisy.
13:51
Like maybe one next to a pig sty.
13:54
All in your bedroom. It's wild.
13:58
The bidet spray. The
14:01
idea that you have this essentially
14:04
medieval super soaker designed
14:07
to super soaker your bornhole.
14:10
And this is a device that we said, yeah, let's
14:13
stick it in the bedroom. I think we needed
14:16
another pass at this. I just think we needed one
14:19
more pass to make sure that this is
14:22
where we wanted to go with it.
14:26
It just gets a significant amount of spray,
14:31
if you know what I'm saying.
14:33
The orange vanilla polar seltzer is winning it again.
14:38
Had one in the shower today.
14:40
Um, as I said,
14:44
we hauled a significant amount of wood
14:46
and there's something about
14:49
just that hot shower after just
14:52
a good, honest afternoon's work.
14:56
But eventually, the bidet did move
14:59
its way out of the bedroom. Thank God. Um,
15:04
I'm so glad that it did. I don't know if
15:07
I could tolerate if the bidet was a
15:10
bedroom technology. It's just not
15:12
right. I do everything I
15:15
can to keep as many liquids as I can out
15:18
of the bedroom. Just
15:21
bodily, non bodily, non
15:24
edible, all of them. The liquids don't generally need
15:27
to even be in the bedroom.
15:34
The first mention of a bidet in the
15:37
bathroom is from Maria
15:40
Carolina of Austria. We've
15:43
moved again. Who was the queen of Naples.
15:46
She asked for a bidet to be
15:49
installed in her bathroom in the royal palace
15:52
in the early 17 hundreds.
15:55
Now, it should be noted, she was kind of
15:58
viewed as, like, weird for doing this.
16:02
It being in the bathroom eventually did catch
16:05
on, but at first they were like, what in the flipping
16:08
heck are you doing? You don't put that in the
16:11
bathroom. That's bedroom
16:13
activities. I'm sure
16:17
Miss Carolina added the
16:20
spray on attachment and hand pump when it became a thing.
16:23
I like to think that these early bidets,
16:26
which were, I think, pretty big, I think they were straddling something
16:29
pretty hefty. Check out privy's socials. I
16:32
think we'll have some pictures of this in there.
16:36
But I like to think that they are kind of like these
16:39
modern cars where you can add the fancy
16:41
attachments and heated seats. Ooh,
16:44
heated seat bidet. Stay
16:47
tuned. Um,
16:50
bidets
16:52
were technically
16:55
portable and in one case,
16:58
somewhat famous. And I will speak at a future
17:01
date, but I will share. My wife. My
17:04
wife has purchased me a
17:07
portable bidet, and it's pretty nifty. Um,
17:10
now, it definitely looks like
17:14
a suggestible, a toy anyway.
17:17
It doesn't look like it should be put anywhere near
17:20
your backside. Um, but it gets
17:23
the job like it does. Hose it down back there. You know what I'm saying?
17:26
But they were technically portable,
17:29
and in one case,
17:32
the bidet became somewhat
17:34
infamous. Napoleon
17:37
Bonaparte. Bonaparte,
17:40
more like French, um,
17:43
military commander and leader, rose
17:46
to prominence in the french revolution.
17:48
Napoleon led a number of
17:50
campaigns against european powers after the
17:53
French Revolution, during which, and during these
17:56
campaigns, it is estimated that three to 6 million
17:59
people died.
18:01
Napoleon was a military
18:04
leader. He traveled with one of his
18:06
favorite things. And every time I think of him, I
18:09
imagine Napoleon dynamite dressed
18:12
up as Napoleon Bonaparte.
18:15
But he was a military leader, and he traveled with
18:18
one of his favorite things.
18:21
Napoleon had
18:24
a silver bidet. Imagine
18:27
the front lines. They go into the tent to
18:29
talk to the commander about tomorrow. The cool
18:32
breeze of the autumn air is just brisk on their
18:35
nostrils as they wake up. We got to go talk
18:38
to Napoleon before we go out to
18:40
campaign. They go in, uh, to
18:43
talk about tomorrow's conflict. And here's Napoleon,
18:46
stout little guy that he was sitting astride,
18:49
his silver bullhorse combo thing.
18:53
What a sight.
18:56
Napoleon took his
18:58
bidet on all his battles and
19:01
campaigns. And, um, before he
19:04
died, he put in his will
19:07
what to do with this device. And I want to
19:10
read briefly from Napoleon Bonaparte's last will and
19:13
testament. In the section, he describes what they
19:16
should do with his silver
19:18
lined bidet. The will
19:21
says, quote, the small gold clock which
19:24
is now in my bedchamber, my hand washing
19:27
stand and its water jug, my night
19:29
tables, those used in France. And my
19:32
silver guilt bidet he leaves
19:35
to you, his son. Here you
19:38
go, son. Um, here's. I broke it in for
19:40
you. Spread far and
19:43
wide, the use of the bidet,
19:46
perhaps the most famous bidet, was passed on in
19:49
a will and the use of the
19:52
bidet became even more widespread as time
19:55
went on. It moved
19:58
beyond Europe into China and other
20:00
parts of the, uh, asian
20:03
world.
20:06
The Bidet continued to be
20:09
adapted and change hand
20:11
operation, foot operated pumps to control the
20:14
water heat and cooling.
20:17
So much so that it wasn't until
20:20
the 19 hundreds with updates to plumbing
20:23
and bathroom fixtures that the bidet moved
20:26
from the bedroom to the bathroom.
20:30
I would argue where it should have been the whole time. It took
20:32
far too long. It's a terrifying
20:35
thought to think that it's only in the last
20:38
120 years that people said, you
20:41
know what? Bidets should be in the
20:44
bathroom. Really? They should.
20:47
Like,
20:50
who's. This was
20:53
200 years. Maria Carolina
20:55
got it right. She had it figured out.
20:59
She requested one in her bathroom. She was a
21:01
trendsetter and bidet sitter,
21:04
but more importantly, she just had some gosh dang
21:07
common sense. What in the
21:10
world would you need to put a bidet in the bedroom
21:13
for? That's laziness.
21:16
As the bidet makes its way out of the bedroom,
21:19
m we
21:22
find that we need to leave you
21:25
ready for part two
21:28
as we make our way out.
21:30
Well, sort of of this episode, it's a
21:33
cliffhanger like that. I'll throw you a
21:36
bone. Unfortunately, someone crapped their pants
21:39
real hard in the last few weeks and so we need to
21:41
talk about it. We'll come back to the bidet
21:45
one day, but for now, it's
21:47
time for poo in the news.
21:56
This episode's poo in the news is brought
21:59
to you by
22:01
literally every online news
22:04
agency because they've got to have
22:07
something to talk about. You know, they have to.
22:10
That's the thing.
22:13
Sometimes you get on the news, uh, I'm going to flip
22:16
and slurp this hot cocoa. It's so big.
22:22
Oh, yeah. But this poo in the
22:25
news is brought to you by literally
22:27
every online news agency because they all got to have
22:31
at the beginning of this month, September
22:34
2023 of our Lord, a,
22:37
uh, Delta Airlines flight was
22:40
forced
22:42
to reverse its flight. And, uh, by that, I mean,
22:45
they turned around. They didn't fly backwards. Planes don't do
22:48
that. Although.
22:51
But they were forced to turn around and head back
22:54
to Atlanta on their way to
22:56
Barcelona.
22:59
The report sent to the ground station
23:02
was there was a health emergency on board
23:05
the flight. The flight contained
23:08
336 passengers
23:11
plus staff
23:14
and they didn't make it far. They left Atlanta and
23:17
they were forced to about face somewhere
23:20
over Virginia. The
23:22
passengers had about an eight hour
23:25
delay on the ground in Atlanta and later
23:28
arrived in Barcelona about eight to 10 hours
23:31
after they were scheduled to have arrived the first
23:34
time.
23:36
And all are just fascinated in a
23:39
buzz at this health
23:42
issue, quote unquote health issue.
23:44
And it is this. One of the passengers had
23:47
diarrhea. The
23:50
reports of this diarrhea
23:52
incident say that the diarrhea had,
23:55
quote, flowed all the way through the plane, end
23:58
quote. The pilot described it as a
24:01
biohazard to air traffic control. When asked
24:04
why they are turning around,
24:07
I wouldn't even be mad. I would be pretty
24:10
frustrated. I have my reason why I'd be frustrated. I would not
24:13
be frustrated at the actual act of the
24:15
diarrhea. Everybody gets
24:18
diarrhea. We've all had it. We've all had it this
24:21
week. And when you
24:24
get diarrhea, you just have to diarrhea. You can't just
24:27
not do it. That's why it's diarrhea.
24:30
Part of diarrhea being diarrhea is
24:32
that it demands to make its
24:35
exit. And they
24:38
totally just crapstormed this plane,
24:41
like, up and down the aisle.
24:44
The videos that you can see, you can't see
24:47
much of the diarrhea, but you can see that they have
24:50
laid these absorbent. It's
24:52
essentially like a giant maxi pad, but for,
24:55
like, turds, wet turds, but
24:58
they have, like, jumbo Maxi padded the entire
25:01
walkway of the aisle of the plane. It's like, all the
25:04
way. It's almost the entire length of the plane. And that's
25:07
an impressive amount of diarrhea. As a man who has
25:10
produced a significant portion of diarrhea in his
25:13
life, I'm here to tell you I'm impressed by
25:16
the amount of diarrhea I see in the video.
25:19
But the
25:22
person is, like, getting flak. And there's all sorts of people on the Internet, like,
25:25
oh, I'm the diarrhea princess who did this. Also, it's claimed
25:28
to be a woman. Um, I guess, good
25:31
on you. Uh, but the thing that
25:34
drives me absolutely bonkers here,
25:37
and I get there's pressures to not miss your flight,
25:40
but I don't think they were very long into this
25:43
flight. And unless
25:46
this diarrhea, it must have come on pretty strong,
25:49
because in my experience, when I
25:51
have diarrhea to this point,
25:55
I can see it coming from a mile away. Like, I know that
25:58
we are in diarrhea zone. It's not a
26:00
surprise. And so I'm sitting here going,
26:03
why didn't you just get to the gate, say,
26:06
excuse me, ma'am, I'm here.
26:09
I have to produce liquid Shaz if I
26:12
do not produce liquid shaz, I'm going to produce that
26:15
liquid shaz up and down the aisle of your
26:18
aeroplane. Would you
26:20
please hold the gate while I
26:23
go drop my liquid shaz in the bathroom
26:27
before boarding this plane?
26:30
Diarrhea happens, but just
26:32
communicate the diarrhea. It's okay.
26:35
We need to normalize saying,
26:38
hi, my name's Hunter, and I have
26:40
diarrhea today. It's okay.
26:43
It happens to everyone.
26:47
It's so bad that the plane had to turn around.
26:50
It's somewhat impressive, but it's also, I'm sure,
26:53
frustrating to any of these.
26:55
This has been another segment of
26:59
poo in the news.
27:04
And this brings us to the end of another
27:06
episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining
27:09
us. We love having you. Um,
27:12
thank you for listening to the show. The show
27:15
is over 100 episodes in.
27:18
Um, there's still
27:21
stuff to learn about bathrooms, but if you would follow
27:24
us on social media, we're at privycast. And feel free to
27:27
share the show. Share the show with three people. Word of
27:29
mouth is huge, but if you can share
27:32
episodes as they release with folks online,
27:35
as we grow this community of people who care maybe a
27:38
little bit too much about bathrooms, that would be super
27:41
helpful. Leave us a review. The five star options are
27:44
preferred, and we will donate a dollar
27:46
to the wounded warriors project for, uh,
27:49
reviews and ratings left there
27:52
reminding us to keep pooping in the free world. But
27:55
that free world was not always free.
27:58
Spookkey season is coming up. Don't forget twist
28:00
season. We want to thank Kevin McLeod and
28:03
Pottington Bear for the use of their music this week. Thanks,
28:06
Kevin and Pottington. Email us
28:07
privycast@gmail.com.
28:10
This m brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
28:13
Thank you so much for joining us. Own your
28:16
stank fart proudly. And
28:19
now, as always,
28:21
don't forget to flush.