What's a bidet?
 

We have travelled the world, including Asia and Arabia..everywhere there is the "bidet". Aside from the obvious use, what creative uses have you'all put them too. We have iced our beer, washed our socks, soaked our feet, stored our stuff, etc. Wonder why American hotels don't have them. Are we untidy, or what? or less than squeeky clean? We laugh at the French, who don't use much soap, but why don't we need a "bidet". Now it will be interesting to see how many people don't know what it is. This is a test in Eliteism.

Very interesting uses for the bidet, I will have to remember them!! I don't think you people are not clean we don't need bidets because if we really need to wash our arses we can do it in the shower!! What a waste of porcelin!!!

Bidets are for lands where there is less hang-up about grabbing a "nooner" - - but where there isn't really enough hot water to support the additional mid-day shower, and no hair dryer availability to deal with getting your hair wet either!

Once, a long time ago, I had a three-day pass to Paris and was put up in a small hotel in the Faubourg Montmartre that has since disappeared to urban redevelopment. A couple other guys from our unit bought a case of beer and brought it to our rooms which had an adjoining toilet, including a bidet. We took our 24 bottles of beer and found an excellent cooler: the bidet. The chambermaid had hysterics when she saw those bottles with the cold water swirling around. The hotel's management was not amused. <BR> <BR>

I don't have a story, but once my mother was trying to figure out the knobs on one in Holland and got sprayed in the face.

Well, there is one thing that you should remember, should you decide to try one of these contraptions--be sure which way the water is aiming,and how you position yourself--test the water too...I am told that carelessness when using the bidet can result in nasty burns, and not much fun if you are sitting in airplanes, busses, etc. You see how fraught with danger the world of travel is!

OK. I admit it. I know nothing about bidets and never touch the thing. What is it for, really? If mine is untouched, is the maid thinking horrible things about me? Do men use them, or only women? How about kids? Please help me.

A bidet is what European women use for a douche after engaging in sex. Its purpose was originally more contraceptive than hygienic, but today its purpose is just the opposite.

Totallyunsophisticated: <BR> <BR>Your maid probably just figures that you're a typical tourist - - way too obsessed with museums and sightseeing - - and not getting any nooners. Don't bother turning it on, just to get it wet, to pretend. She knows the truth from the sheets, you know?

And to think all these years I thought Bidet wrote the operas Carmen and the Pearl Fishers; and L'Arlesienne Suite. <BR>Live and learn. <BR>

My first trip to Europe was when I was in 11th grade. My Latin class went to Rome. Upon our arrival, 4 seventeen year old boys had their first encounter with a bidet in their hotel bathroom. "What's it for?" I asked. My roommate responded " I think they wash babies in them." <BR>Our middle aged, female Latin teacher explained the correct and much more embarrassing answer for us that night at dinner.

Carrie: The best part of this was all of the answers you've received. <BR> <BR>I've seen them in Europe of course, but I was surprised to see them when I was in Brazil on a recent business trip. <BR> <BR>It would appear that either sex could use them for hygenic purposes, but mainly women and I have to admit, I gave it a whirl myself. It felt weird! The bidet probably has it's place, but we Americans shower or bath so frequently that it may not be much use for us.

To all your plumbers out there: why put in a bidet and put the toilet down the hall? Isn't the plumbing the same? Why do Europeans find washing the naughty bits more important than having a terlet in their room? <BR>The weirdest contraption I ever saw was a bidet with a shower attachment - all ON WHEELs. It rolled under the in-room sink; so I sat on the bidet - nekkid - and held the shower attachment over my head for a mini-shower. Whole nuther set of gymnastics from the usual tub/no shower curtain/cobra-headed shower attachment with which we're all familiar. <BR> <BR>We usually put a board or the like across the bidet and put our radio on it.

Elvira, <BR> <BR>I do believe that there is some logic behind this; toilets have to have ventilation "pipes" or something like that, hidden in the walls, to prevent sewer gas build ups; bidets only require the same kind of vent as a sink so that water drains better. Improperly ventilated toilets are actually an explosion risk (or at least a century or so ago, I think they were). All this may be more historically true than nowadays. I am by no means an "expert" on construction, plumbing or home improvement arts - - past or present.

I think bidets are wonderful to keep people tidy - both women and men - particularly at our most intimate moments. In addition, to the uses mentioned above, they also come in handy for ladies during those times of the month when a little freshening up can come in very handy... <BR> <BR>My biggest surprise was finding them in each of the ladies room "toilet areas" in an upscale New York City restaurant. I have 2 questions - 1) does the men's room have them also and 2)I want those kind of lunches where you would even need one!! <BR>

Several years ago we had some very unusual neighbors, who were wealthy but it was new money, from oil. They didn't know a bidet from a Monet! The grandmother was a female physician, who used the bidet to make her own "remedy." Her beautiful but naive granddaughter, Ellie, used the bidet to bathe her many "critters." And don't get me started on that rocket scientist/secret agent/ brain surgeon cousin named Jethro. <BR> Despite my husband's love for this family, I formed a neighborhood group, hired an attorney and sued to enjoin Granny and her kin from any further manufactor of home-made medicine and lye soap. After several years of litigation, the family moved back home. All went well until some short, obnoxious dry-cleaner from New York and his wife Louise moved in.

Please bear in mind that my experience in these matters is less than complete, but from what I have seen there are no bidets in any men's rooms I have ever visited. However, a number of years ago in London I came across something that was all new to me. The urinals rose from the floor to the height of one's head. Built into the floor, just ahead of one's feet, was a plate-glass shield, tilted at an angle, which apparently was to keep one's shined shoes undefiled from any backsplashing. How clever, how veddy British.

To contrast Al's posting immediately above: On two different occasions in visiting mens' rooms in Grinzing, a Viennese neighborhood, I encountered identical types of urinals. Conventional in shape and positioning on the wall, they had an open ended downspout at the base that emptied into a sloped, tiled trough that ran to a catch basin. I found this intriguing but much in need of Al's veddy British splashguard. Just one other point. After encountering my first bidet I entertained an idea that I've never materialized. Perhaps one of you Fodorite's will. I think it would be neat, in addition to packing all the stuff recommended by various folks here, from bungee cords to flashlights, to pack a ping pong ball. Just prior to leaving my quarters in the morning, I'd like to balance a ping pong ball on a bidet's "fountain" in hopes of catching a maid off guard.

I suppose this lot is one step up from Turkish toilets! ;-) <BR> <BR>has anyon read Graham Greene's "A Burnt Out Case"? <BR>Find out what a missionary Catholic priest thinks a load of bidets is for. <BR> <BR>

A fine lot of travellers you guys are, for all your input, to not know what a bidet is. They are in every toilet or WC everywheree in the world, except in the good old USA, and they definitely have their function. This is one reason that european folks think we re barbaric, that we assume we "are cleaner" than others, and therefore, have no use for such a handy piece of porcelin.