Many Westerners take morning showers, toilet tissue and sitting toilets for granted. But in much of the rest of the world, these habits are rather strange – and may be less hygienic.

“As Arabs we have to make sure we have three things when we pack: our passports, a bunch of cash, and a handheld portable bidet,” joked Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef during his debut UK performance in June. He waved around a portable spray hose, also known as a shattaf or “bum gun”, as a prop. “I don’t get it: you guys are one of the most advanced countries in the world. But when it comes to the behind, you’re behind.”

Plenty of people would agree with Youssef. The penchant in many Western countries for wiping after using the toilet – rather than rinsing off – is a source of puzzlement around the world. Water cleans more neatly than paper: at the risk of inspiring an “ew!”, imagine trying to remove chocolate pudding from your skin with tissue alone. Plus, while toilet tissue may not be as harsh as pieces of ceramic (used by ancient Greeks) or corn cobs (used by colonial Americans), we can all agree that water is less abrasive than even the softest five-ply.

Residents of many nations have long been ending a toilet visit with water. And that isn’t just true of the non-Western world. The French of course gave the world the word bidet, and even though the devices are fading away from France, they remain standard in Italy, Argentina, and many other places. Meanwhile, Youssef’s beloved “bum gun” is commonly found in Finland.

Still, much of the West relies on toilet tissue – including the UK and US. And compared to anywhere else in the world, these two nations have had the greatest influence on modern bathroom culture, notes architectural historian Barbara Penner in her book Bathroom. In fact, Anglo-American bathroom trends became so widespread that, in the 1920s, they were even dubbed “sanitary imperialism”.

Even so, those trends didn’t penetrate everywhere. Water is preferred, for example, in a number of majority-Muslim countries, as Islamic teachings include the use of water for cleaning. (Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs did however issue a fatwa in 2015 specifying that Muslims can use toilet paper if water isn’t available.) And the famously whiz-bang modern Japanese toilets, which simultaneously reflect technological ingenuity and shame about bodily functions, offer both wetting and drying options.

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One person who’s been interested in the water-or-paper debate is Zul Othman, a project officer for the Australian government who has researched cultural and historical attitudes towards toilet facilities. [As Othman’s research shows](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095263516300322#!), some Muslim Australians have adapted to Western-style bathrooms by using both toilet paper and then showering, filling a jug of water, or installing handheld bidets next to their toilets.

This is the case for people of non-Islamic religious backgrounds too. Astha Garg, a data scientist from Navi, Mumbai who has been working in the San Francisco Bay area for the last two years, says she looked high and low for a bath mug for her toilet. (To the uninitiated, this resembles a plastic measuring jug used for baking, with a handle and a spout for pouring water onto one’s nether regions.) Eventually she had to go to an Indian-owned store.

“Some Indians do adapt to toilet paper, but a lot of us like to stick to water whenever possible,” she comments. “Whenever visiting an Indian friend in the US, I can almost always count on them having a plastic water bottle or a mug beside the toilet.”

It may have been the French who gave the world the word bidet, but water is also preferred in many majority-Muslim countries, among other places (Credit: BBC/Alamy/Getty)

Othman has witnessed the stubborn Western insistence on using some form of paper. One of his classmates in Sheffield, UK ran out of toilet paper and ended up using a £20 note to wipe.

Meanwhile, the family of podcaster and metal guitarist Kaiser Kuo have adopted a hybrid solution. Three years ago they moved from Beijing to the US – where, like many new arrivals, they retained some Chinese habits and picked up some American ones. Kuo was shocked at how much loo roll his kids started going through in keeping with Americans’ status as, by far, the world’s foremost consumers of toilet paper.

Garg found toilet paper baffling as well. “It was not at all obvious that it was to be thrown in the toilet bowl,” she says. In addition to the financial and environmental costs, “it chokes toilets. It seems to me that every one in four toilets has plumbing issues”.

Toilet paper also is commonly used in China, where, after all, paper was invented. But US manufacturers and advertisers were the ones who aggressively pushed toilet paper use in the 20th Century, especially certain kinds. For instance, Brits were still mostly using hard toilet paper in the 1970s, as they distrusted the soft paper being purveyed by Americans.

Kuo’s family now use less toilet roll, followed by flushable wet wipes. It’s a kind of American acknowledgement of what people in other countries have known for centuries: that moisture cleans better.

Sit or squat?

Kuo’s family have also compromised on that fascinatingly divisive topic: sitting vs squatting. Both types of toilets were used during the Han Dynasty (206BC–220AD), and there have been regional differences within China in this preference, although the squatting variety now predominates in public toilets nationwide.

Even today, it’s estimated that [two-thirds of the world squats](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095263516300322#!). Yet many Westerners remain resistant to a model that’s arguably more logical and more convenient than the porcelain throne. Consider that a majority of British women have admitted to crouching or hovering in public toilets in order to avoid direct contact with the seats. The squat toilet neatly avoids excessive bum-to-seat intimacy.

Anatomically, squatting is the better posture too, as the angle allows for smoother passage. Bowel movements are faster and less straining is involved. This doesn’t even get into the many health benefits of squatting in general – a practice (and display) of strength and flexibility where elderly Chinese generally put young white folks to shame.