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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
Downvoted: This is potentially harmful advice if you have a vagina.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5805108/which-direction-should-i-wipe
And the rest of the article says that there is no conclusive evidence either way.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
Maybe we could ask Andrex to run one!
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,