Culture technique of wiping: barbarians with brake strip

Why are we holding on to the toilet paper, instead of us – of the Eastern wisdom, inspired – gently water the Anus and to blow-dry.

problems that you wouldn't have, would to the with warm water to clean photo: imago/Westend61

Who wants to reliably meet the people, see their cultural self-assurance that put into question the should go to a sanitary exhibition. There are the so-called shower Toilets have for some years. Be buzzing around you of people that present with a stony face, as well: the ass not using paper to wipe, but instead of a water nozzle spray and then blow-dry the car in a car wash.

The success of this toilet vending machines through our bathroom will inevitably start at some point, the manufacturers claim, at least for years. You have reasonable reasons on your side: Old people remained so independently for longer, without the nursing staff, the course helps you to use the toilet. Of warm water is apart tender Spots, once you get used to only time, quite a great.

Also can not make us go to the forests on all the time on all value over: at The moment we wash it down whole tracts of land to tropical wood in the bathroom, because eucalyptus fiber from Brazil is so super velvety and soft, that less and less people are able to recycling the toilet paper rings. Environmental organizations criticize the for years. Shower Toilets consume energy, but much less than for the Transport of wood and the production of toilet paper is necessary.

The sales of bidet toilets is picking up slowly, the market is growing, but at a low level. Only one to two percent of German households you have installed. In order to prevail, it need a cultural change, says Margit Harsch from the plumbing manufacturer Geberit. "It's almost as if the people would have to be for a second Time housebroken." So a change of culture in the genital area is apparently a complicated matter.

we note, first of all, what is clear to anyone who has stared once in the holidays in a fly umschwirrtes hole: toilets are literally entrances to the underworld. Only a ceramic separates the superstructure as an achievement of civilization to us. Without him, we are not otherwise accustomed to, fear that something penetrates from down there in our apartment, maybe even in our bare body.

The toilet is like a door guard on the threshold between the piece of furniture and object of use, the Conscious and the unconscious. This makes them as a cultural object so interesting. The artistic Modern began, with a commercially available Urinal was here only briefly. Marcel Duchamp submitted it in 1917 for the annual exhibition of the New York Society of Independent Artists. He called the work "Fountain".

In Japan is already more than half of all households with a shower and toilet

The limits, the repeal of art and society, have now become other. They no longer extend in the first line between the artistic and the profane reality, but between different cultural spheres. Also the shower toilet is a cultural hybrid, a globalisation phenomenon par excellence.

to Be the epicenter of it in Japan, where already more than half of all households with a "Toto". The Name of the market leader, and is often used interchangeably with the product. The Japanese have no Problem with high tech in the toilet, on the contrary, they are on their advanced hygiene culture so proud that Toto in the southern Japan kita-Kyushu has even set up a private Museum.

the development history of the bathroom and kitchen culture told. On the half-way of what we Europeans understand by the normal toilets. There, you are already in the Museum. However, a shower can be referred to WCs in Japan as a "Western" toilets, i.e. in contrast to the Stehklos, Toto began to replace about a hundred years ago gradually, with "Water Closets" and find themselves isolated even today.

unlike in this country, but the technical development of the toilet went on, the water remained in the bowl. Starting in the eighties, today's high-tech models began to prevail – and with it the post-modern in the toilet culture.

The philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes about the Modern, you gesture to a from traditions added to the picture of the world in an "appreciation of the Transitory, the Fleeting, the Ephemeral, the Celebration of the dynamism", but also "the longing for an immaculate, conservative present wish".

In this sense, the Western toilet classic Modern pur is The Old, Corrupted is hassle free and with a lot of Power washed away. The Japanese models from Toto, in contrast, are already a step further. Invite you to first sit down and make use of the heated glasses comfortable. Toilet paper there is usually still, but not necessarily for cleaning, but for the Nachtupfen, if a the takes with the hair dryer for the butt too long.

As a European, it's like being on Board a space station: The Japanese high-tech toilets are massive and powerful, a proper Throne with a myriad of control surfaces. They suck up odors where they originate, on request, the music is loud and unseemly noise. The toilet is for "personal Spa Moment" in which the wonders of technology as dissolve a snug and warm on the Anus around.

So we scoff in the West. At least for now. Because maybe we do this because we feel foreign high-tech hygiene as a provocation. Our Western WC, on the throne, we are so condescending about people with the nose, the empty holes, come back, now, with a far-Eastern technology, souped up, as a cultural re-importation to us.

a violation of the European self-understanding is as the navel of the world, which should not be underestimated. As the G7 in Schloss Elmau met, where previously a shower-Toilets were installed, said the Japanese Prime Minister Abe at a round table, supposedly: Now here you have finally some decent toilets. The anecdote is told in Japan. It proves – whether it's true or not – that is the civilizational standards are now being set elsewhere. All of a sudden we are the unwashed barbarians with the brake strip in the pants.

we notice This in other areas anyway, but the question of how to wash themselves after using the toilet, caught us this knowledge with their pants down. Something is going on under our ass, when the cleaning nozzle extends, something ultra-modern, Alien, we lose control, so we pinch.

The Arab culture, before in this country, so many people are afraid of washing in the toilet with water – and Yes, of course, the underneath is a lot more hygienic. We had to stick feces anywhere else on the body than where they are exiting, we would not wipe them, finally, only with a paper towel.

so It would be high time, just go with the flow. Then all is served: The forests can remain standing, rather than cutting down them, across the world transport with a lot of electricity, the water and the chemical bleaching process the fabrics and then down the toilet and the sewage disposal company offers, because the toilet-moist wipes no longer collect down there to be huge clumps and clog the drains; and when we are really old, we are pleased that our children don't have to wipe the butt, if until then, the pension Fund and the foster care system are permanently broken.

So that's why we allow ourselves to be, until it is so far, not a bit of the warm water massaging?