GabrielDuquette comments on Boring Advice Repository - Less Wrong

56 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 March 2013 04:33AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 07 March 2013 06:00:14PM 5 points [-]

Buy the most forgiving toilet paper you can afford.

Moisturize.

Comment author: ThrustVectoring 07 March 2013 06:42:55PM 5 points [-]

Getting a bidet is better as far as pampering your sensitive regions goes. Especially if you easily get hemorrhoids.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 07 March 2013 07:27:11PM -1 points [-]

Wipe back to front, rather than front to back. Yes, it's more awkward. It's also more effective and requires less toilet paper, and fewer strokes.

Comment author: handoflixue 07 March 2013 08:46:22PM 13 points [-]

Downvoted: This is potentially harmful advice if you have a vagina.

The majority of cases of cystitis or urethritis are from E. coli, the normal flora that lives in your gastrointestinal tract. This helps you digest your food, but if you wipe from back to front you risk smearing it to your urethral meatus (pee hole). Then the bacteria get into a sterile environment [your pee hole] and cause a UTI. This was traditionally taught in medical school to be "Honeymoon cystitis" as many women would get UTIs after their vigorous honeymoon weekend and come back with this normal infection. Maybe we see less of this these days with premarital sex and living together.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5805108/which-direction-should-i-wipe

Comment author: shminux 07 March 2013 10:12:23PM *  0 points [-]

And the rest of the article says that there is no conclusive evidence either way.

Comment author: handoflixue 07 March 2013 10:21:50PM 3 points [-]

That feels a bit mis-representatative: There's no conclusive evidence, but there is weak evidence in favor.

The first doctor says it doesn't matter, the second says it does, and the three linked studies say (mildly harmful, no effect, no effect), with small sample sizes. The first doctor also explicitly states that he'd still wipe front-to-back if he were female!

I'd call that weak evidence towards harm, i.e. this is potentially harmful advice.

Comment author: maia 07 March 2013 07:53:58PM 7 points [-]

I'm told this is unhygienic, because there are bacteria that you don't want to move from back to front. This may only apply to females, though.

Comment author: wedrifid 07 March 2013 07:36:20PM *  1 point [-]

Wipe back to front, rather than front to back. Yes, it's more awkward. It's also more effective and requires less toilet paper, and fewer strokes.

I'm boggling. There are people who wipe front to back? That never even occurred to me. (And so) imagining that way now seems more awkward, not less.

Comment author: handoflixue 07 March 2013 08:47:15PM 3 points [-]

Like maia said, females get told this is unhygienic. Not the first time I've seen advice-specific-to-one-gender generalized to another, especially since OrphanWilde is generalizing the other way in recommending back-to-front :)

Comment author: FiftyTwo 08 March 2013 07:35:13PM 1 point [-]

I don't think I wipe in any consistent direction or pattern. But now I will be very self conscious next time I do so,

Comment author: OrphanWilde 07 March 2013 07:44:15PM 1 point [-]

I'm honestly not sure what percentage of the population does what. It's one of those pieces of information that gets completely uncommunicated in our culture.

...so tempted to start a poll... but no.

Comment author: satt 07 March 2013 10:59:33PM 0 points [-]

...so tempted to start a poll... but no.

Maybe we could ask Andrex to run one!

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