Bathroom reading is the act of reading text while in a bathroom, usually while sitting on the toilet and defecating. The practice has been common throughout history and remains widespread today with both printed material and smartphones.
Bathroom reading is the act of reading text while in a bathroom, usually while sitting on the toilet and defecating. The practice has been common throughout history and remains widespread today with both printed material and smartphones.
Bathroom reading has been commonplace throughout history. Before the invention of modern toilet paper, Americans in the colonial period often used newspaper or similar printed material to wipe themselves, [1] because newsprint paper is fairly soft and absorbent. [2] Writing in the 18th century, the English statesman Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield reported that he knew "a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the call of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets, in those moments. [3]
The advent of the mobile phone is believed to have significantly increased bathroom reading. A 2009 study conducted in Israel found that a majority of adults read from their cell phones on the toilet, and a 2015 study conducted by Verizon found that 90% of cell phone users admitted to reading from their phones while on the toilet. [4]
The term "bathroom reading" refers to any literary material deemed suitable for casual or light reading. In 2011, the Canadian author Margaret Atwood wrote:
Bathroom reading is a certain kind of reading—episodic, but encouraging first thing in the morning. Sometimes the readers there prefer to read the newspaper, but when that's not available, they resort to their hand phones. The hand phone has a huge contributor in the rise of bathroom pollution. The bathroom is a place where you can go in and pretend to be doing one thing while actually you're reading. Nobody can interrupt you. Compendiums of this and that are very useful for bathroom reading: small reading packages within a larger book. You wouldn't want to read War and Peace in there. You'd never come out. They'd probably call the police and get the door broken down. [5]
Pulp magazines were associated with bathroom reading, which the film Pulp Fiction references in repeated scenes of John Travolta's character Vincent Vega reading the pulpy spy novel Modesty Blaise while sat on a toilet. [6] Bathroom reading also refers to a genre of books containing humor and trivia, such as the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series. [6]
In James Joyce's novel Ulysses , the protagonist Leopold Bloom reads a magazine on the toilet and then wipes himself with it. [4]
According to a professor at the Columbia University Medical Center, reading in the bathroom can potentially facilitate the spread of disease if airborne bacteria land on reading material and are transmitted to the reader; however, the activity is not a significant health concern as long as the reading environment is sanitary, the reader does not have a compromised immune system, and the reader practices ordinary hygiene. [7]
A University of Arizona microbiologist who researched the topic in 2002 found that bathroom reading at the workplace was not a significant hygiene risk, noting that paper is a relatively unattractive environment for bacteria and that desk areas often have more bacteria than bathrooms because they are cleaned less frequently. [1]
Although time spent on the toilet can increase the incidence of hemorrhoids, a 2009 study found that bathroom readers were not more likely than non-bathroom readers to have hemorrhoids. [4]
Even when people read for extended periods of time during defecation, it is rare for bathroom readers to feel disgusted by the smell of their own feces, or even to consciously notice the smell. [8] [9] Sigmund Freud also noted this phenomenon in Civilization and Its Discontents , though he described lack of awareness of fecal smell in general, not just while reading: "in spite of all man's developmental advances, he scarcely finds the smell of his own excreta repulsive, but only that of other people's." [10]
The psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel believed bathroom reading was an indication of early childhood trauma. He wrote that the activity is "an attempt to preserve the equilibrium of the ego; part of one's bodily substance is being lost and so fresh matter must be absorbed through the eyes." [4] James Strachey, who translated Freud's works into English, similarly noted that the activity of casual reading while defecating was essentially "infantile" behavior. [4]
DiMassimo Brand Advertising once tested political advertising in bathrooms by placing various messages about George W. Bush and Al Gore in New York City public restrooms. The company's study found that 62 percent of people "remembered the exact message" of bathroom ads, compared to 16 percent for billboard advertisements. [1]
Toilet paper is a tissue paper product primarily used to clean the anus and surrounding region of feces, and to clean the external genitalia and perineal area of urine.
Toilet humour, or potty or scatological humour, is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, diarrhea, constipation, urination and flatulence, and to a lesser extent vomiting and other bodily functions.
Defecation follows digestion, and is a necessary process by which organisms eliminate a solid, semisolid, or liquid waste material known as feces from the digestive tract via the anus or cloaca. The act has a variety of names ranging from the common, like pooping or crapping, to the technical, e.g. bowel movement, to the obscene (shitting), to the euphemistic, to the juvenile. The topic, usually avoided in polite company, can become the basis for some potty humor.
Hygiene is a set of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refers to maintaining the body's cleanliness. Hygiene activities can be grouped into the following: home and everyday hygiene, personal hygiene, medical hygiene, sleep hygiene, and food hygiene. Home and every day hygiene includes hand washing, respiratory hygiene, food hygiene at home, hygiene in the kitchen, hygiene in the bathroom, laundry hygiene, and medical hygiene at home.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes and Huggies disposable diapers and baby wipes.
A bidet is a bowl or receptacle designed to be sat upon in order to wash a person's genitalia, perineum, inner buttocks, and anus. The modern variety has a plumbed-in water supply and a drainage opening, and is thus a plumbing fixture subject to local hygiene regulations. The bidet is designed to promote personal hygiene and is used after defecation, and before and after sexual intercourse. It can also be used to wash feet, with or without filling it up with water. In several European countries, a bidet is now required by law to be present in every bathroom containing a toilet bowl. It was originally located in the bedroom, near the chamber-pot and the marital bed, but in modern times is located near the toilet bowl in the bathroom. Fixtures that combine a toilet seat with a washing facility include the electronic bidet.
A squat toilet is a toilet used by squatting, rather than sitting. This means that the posture for defecation and for female urination is to place one foot on each side of the toilet drain or hole and to squat over it. There are several types of squat toilets, but they all consist essentially of a toilet pan or bowl at floor level. Such a toilet pan is also called a "squatting pan". A squat toilet may use a water seal and therefore be a flush toilet, or it can be without a water seal and therefore be a dry toilet. The term "squat" refers only to the expected defecation posture and not any other aspects of toilet technology, such as whether it is water flushed or not.
A paper towel is an absorbent, disposable towel made from paper. In Britain, paper towels for kitchen use are also known as kitchen rolls, kitchen paper, or kitchen towels. For home use, paper towels are usually sold in a roll of perforated sheets, but some are sold in stacks of pre-cut and pre-folded layers for use in paper-towel dispensers. Unlike cloth towels, paper towels are disposable and intended to be used only once. Paper towels absorb water because they are loosely woven, which enables water to travel between the fibers, even against gravity. They have similar purposes to conventional towels, such as drying hands, wiping windows and other surfaces, dusting, and cleaning up spills. Paper towel dispensers are commonly used in toilet facilities shared by many people, as they are often considered more hygienic than hot-air hand dryers or shared cloth towels.
Everyone Poops is the title of US editions of the English translation of Minna Unchi (みんなうんち), a Japanese children's book written and illustrated by the prolific children's author Tarō Gomi and first published in Japan by Fukuinkan Shoten in 1977 within the series Kagaku no Tomo Kessaku-shū.
Tissue paper or simply tissue is a lightweight paper or, light crêpe paper. Tissue can be made from recycled paper pulp on a paper machine.
A wet wipe, also known as a wet towel, moist towelette, disposable wipe, disinfecting wipe, or a baby wipe is a small to medium-sized moistened piece of plastic or cloth that either comes folded and individually wrapped for convenience or, in the case of dispensers, as a large roll with individual wipes that can be torn off. Wet wipes are used for cleaning purposes like personal hygiene and household cleaning; each is a separate product depending on the chemicals added and medical or office cleaning wipes are not intended for skin hygiene.
A space toilet or zero-gravity toilet is a toilet that can be used in a weightless environment. In the absence of weight, the collection and retention of liquid and solid waste is directed by use of airflow. Since the air used to direct the waste is returned to the cabin, it is filtered beforehand to control odor and cleanse bacteria. In older systems, wastewater is vented into space, and any solids are compressed and stored for removal upon landing. More modern systems expose solid waste to vacuum pressures to kill bacteria, which prevents odor problems and kills pathogens.
An anal plug is a medical device that is often used to treat fecal incontinence, the accidental passing of bowel moments, by physically blocking involuntary loss of fecal material. Fecal material such as feces are solid remains of food that does not get digested in the small intestines; rather, it is broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Anal plugs vary in design and composition, but they are typically single-use, intra-anal, disposable devices made out of soft materials to contain fecal material and prevent it from leaking out of the rectum. The idea of an anal insert for fecal incontinence was first evaluated in a study of 10 participants with three different designs of anal inserts.
Anal hygiene or anal cleansing refers to the practices that are performed on a person's anus to maintain hygiene, usually in the aftermath of defecation. Post-defecation cleansing is rarely discussed academically, partly due to the social taboo surrounding it. The scientific objective of post-defecation cleansing is to prevent exposure to pathogens. The process of post-defecation cleansing involves either washing the anus and inner part of the buttocks with water. Water-based cleansing typically involves either the use of running water from a handheld vessel and a hand for washing or the use of pressurized water through a jet device, such as a bidet. In either method, subsequent hand sanitization is essential to achieve the ultimate objectives of post-defecation cleansing.
Human feces are the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested or absorbed in the small intestine of humans, but has been further broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. It also contains bacteria and a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and the dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut. It is discharged through the anus during a process called defecation.
A bidet shower—also known as a handheld bidet, commode shower, toilet shower, health faucet, bum shower, jet spray, Hand ShowerMuslim shower, shatafa or bum gun—is a hand-held triggered nozzle that is placed near the toilet and delivers a spray of water used for anal cleansing and cleaning of the genitals after using the toilet for defecation and urination, popularised by Arab nations where the bidet shower is a common bathroom accessory. The device is similar to that of a kitchen sink sprayer.
Feces are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.
Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do not have a toilet readily accessible or due to traditional cultural practices. The practice is common where sanitation infrastructure and services are not available. Even if toilets are available, behavior change efforts may still be needed to promote the use of toilets. 'Open defecation free' (ODF) is a term used to describe communities that have shifted to using toilets instead of open defecation. This can happen, for example, after community-led total sanitation programs have been implemented.
The Mad Pooper is the nickname given to an unidentified woman in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, who repeatedly defecated in public while jogging during the summer months of 2017. While she primarily targeted one family's property, she did not use it exclusively, leaving some of her excrement at other sites nearby. Photographs of her were made public, but neither she nor anyone who knows her came forward with further information that might identify her.
An intelligent toilet or smart toilet is a bathroom plumbing fixture or type of electronic bidet toilet which incorporates traditional bidet cleansing, with the added enhancement of modern SMART home technology.
