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For this week’s installment of “Everything’s F****ed:” Bathrooms

A typical American bathroom contains a toilet, sink, and shower or tub. Let’s look at each fixture.

The toilet is most problematic. First, the toilet is not designed for the natural squatting position. The use of sitting toilets is said to cause many health problems including hemorrhoids, constipation, and inflammatory bowel disease. Straining on a toilet may allow fecal bacteria to backflow through the ileocecal valve (IC) into the small intestine. (ref NaturesPlatform.com) Now for ADA compliance or “comfort” the height of toilets has been raised higher.

The second problem with toilets is from fecal matter. When a toilet is flushed microscopic particles of fecal matter are released into the bathroom. They can land on towels, toothbrushes, and anything else nearby. As brought up by the new Parasite Pill 2.0 pg124, if you share the bathroom then your toothbrush might be contaminated by someone else’s fecal matter. With new toilets designed to use less water I would expect that water velocity has been increased to maintain flushing power. That could increase the fecal plume velocity. The Japanese have traditionally used “toilet slippers” to reduce contamination of the rest of the house. And they used to keep the toilet separate from the shower. (Ref japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/do-you-really-need-to-wear-toilet-slippers-when-using-the-bathroom-at-home-1) Unfortunately, squat toilets are said to allow more fecal matter to be released into the air. Engineering trade offs, can’t win them all. Your toilet has a lid. Close it before you flush.

Something missing from most American bathrooms: a bidet. It cleans better than any toilet paper. Toilet paper might also aggravate hemorrhoids. Most (all?) “flushable” wipes don’t break down in a septic tank. They cause problems for waste water treatment plants too.

Toothbrushes are usually kept in bathrooms. It’s not an ideal place. One, the fecal particles. Two, the moisture. A toothbrush should be stored in an open air setting for quick drying. I would recommend separate AM and PM toothbrushes if there is a concern that a frequently used toothbrush won’t dry out completely.

Showers have transitioned from two or three handle controls to single handle controls. This means a loss of control over the water pressure. With a two handle shower I rarely ran out of hot water. With the single handle valve it runs full flow all the time. I often run out of hot water in the winter. My showerhead has a shutoff that can be used to restrict the flow. That feels much less satisfying than the two handle shower valve I remember. Taking a shower allows large amounts of chlorine to be absorbed through the skin and lungs. Most shower filters don’t remove fluoride. EDIT: If your water system uses chlorine dioxide, don't filter that out. https://greatawakening.win/p/16ZqKrPIE4/now-that-weve-seen-how-the-estab/c/ Tl;dr. The new one handle shower valves waste water but may prevent scalding.

I don’t think there is anything terribly wrong with sinks or tubs. At least for now. It’s getting late.

f****ed officially means flipped. I can’t get the words of Break Stuff out of my head. "Everything is f *cked, everybody sucks" Got a topic suggestion? Chances are most randomly chosen topics are f ****ed.