A still from the movie Demolition Man in which some police officers prepare to confront a character played by Wesley Snipes.
Top Text: Demolition Man: A movie which depicts a horrifying dystopia…
Bottom Text:…in which food is too healthy, bidets are common, and cops literally don’t know how to assault a black man.
If the three sea shells discourse isn’t a stand-in for 90s Americans’ anxiety about bidets then I don’t know what is.
3 mysterious sea shells… you think 3 dry sea shells (which most people understand logistically would be impossible to clean yourself properly with) was a stand in for bidets?
I was also around when the movie came out and not a single human i interacted with imagined they were a bidet. In fact bidets were so uncommon in the US at the time that most Americans experience with them was from the movie Crocodile Dundee.
Everyone’s problem with the sea shells was that you wouldn’t be able to clean yourself properly when you imagine physically using them. But people in the future they imagined have extremely small and limited diets, they probably don’t produce an huge amount of waste. There’s only 1 fat guy in the whole movie, and you wonder how Otho from Beetlejuice got that way on taco bell protein pellets.
IF they had introduced the concept of a bidet system, it would have immediately removed the mystery from the sea shells and made them far less intimidating.
That’s… not the joke. Holy shit have people over-thought the three shells. It’s not supposed to make sense or have a physical utility that you can imagine. THAT IS THE JOKE.
User above was kind of right that it reflected an anxiety about change to personal habits for “environmentalism” and other things that were happening at the time like people pushing for saving water in the bathroom.
The joke is mystery, like duh, the conversations about how to use it were relevant. No human in the US had anxiety over bidets. When conversations about the sea shells were had, they involved the physical use of them specifically.
Bidets weren’t in the zeitgeist. When people engage with the sea shells (the literal and exact intention of the sea shells was to wonder how you use them), they thought about how they would physically replace toilet paper. The scene literally shows you the main character generating paper to use.
Like it’s crazy I even have to note this, when you hear hoofbeats in Wyoming, you don’t wonder if zebra are making them.
The anxiety about bidets is leaving the bathroom with a wet spot on my ass.
You still wipe with toilet paper, you just use far less, anyone who has a wet spot on their ass might have turned it in with their pants on. In which case the bidet isn’t the problem.
I already don’t use much toilet paper. Do Europeans have chronic diarrhea or something they need a hose every time?
It’s funny that people always answer like this “I’m already so perfect at wiping i can’t imagine it getting better.”
In a family of 4 the toilet paper usage in my house dropped by 90%. A purchase of toilet paper now lasted nearly 10x the length, a direct cost savings and reduction in waste into the sewer system.
Just cause you have this incredible mastery of wiping doesn’t mean the world does. I’m proud of you and how clean you wipe though, congrats. I just wish you could imagine a world where you didn’t get your pants wet ever time you use a bidet.
I just don’t see how it would use less toilet paper if it’s attempting to dry off a wet ass. Wet toilet paper sticks to everything, and barely takes away water.
Maybe if it was a paper towel it would get my ass totally dry without leaving bits of tissue paper on it, but that’s not flushable and would end up being more paper usage for me.
I can imagine a world where my pants aren’t wet. I just can’t imagine one where it uses less paper or doesn’t result in washcloths used only for drying anuses.
That’s why you’re not a full God though. Username checketh out.
The way you’ve described it isn’t how it works at all, they even have studies linking bidet use directly to something like a 2/3rds overall reduction in paper waste. Cleaning a little bit of water off your clean ass is ez!
You’ve literally constructed a reality which doesnt exist to avoid a bidet and you don’t realize that’s weird. It’s super weird.
But like… how? If I try to dry my ass with toilet paper I don’t get dry and get toilet paper flakes everywhere.
I would love to understand the mechanics of this. Is it different paper?
Listen I’m not here to explain to you how to properly clean your ass, especially when you are imagining a world where you can tell a bidet user by their wet ass mark.