{"id":2190,"date":"2013-11-05T15:05:04","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T14:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2022-02-05T15:00:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T14:00:13","slug":"bidet-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/bidet-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Italians Use the Bidet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Napoleon Bonaparte, on the way back from one of his many campaigns, famously wrote ahead to his wife Josephine who was awaiting him back in Paris.\u00a0 The letter was brief and to the point: \u201cI\u2019ll be home in three days.\u00a0STOP<\/em>\u00a0washing up!\u201d<\/p>\n

We all know Napoleon as being a principal figure from French history, but in fact he was born to Italian parents on the island of Corsica, a year before it was ceded to France.\u00a0 And anyone who has traveled to France during the summer months knows that the French seem to have retained the famous general\u2019s taste for \u201cnatural\u201d body aromas.<\/p>\n

Yet the word \u201cbidet\u201d comes from the French for \u201cpony,\u201d clearly a reference to the correct mounting position.\u00a0 So why has this handy little innovation of modern plumbing become a fixture in Italian households (97% have them) while having lost popularity in the country where it was named?<\/p>\n

\"bidet<\/a>
Classic French Design<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before you tune out, let me assure you right away that this is not going to be an instructional guide<\/strong> for the proper use of a bidet in Italy.\u00a0 (Besides, it\u2019s fun to let people struggle to figure this out for themselves.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sort of hazing tradition among expats in Italy and we all have to suffer through it).<\/p>\n

Italy vs. U.K.<\/h2>\n

The inspiration for this post came from a recent article in The Local website which stated some of the ways that British culture annoys Italians.\u00a0 These two opposite poles are perfect for demonstrating the differences between Anglo-Saxon societies and Latin ones<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, Americans are somewhat neutral in this debate: perplexed by the Italian obsession with hygiene (especially given the total lack of care given to public places) and equally confounded by the sloppy conditions inside most British homes (given the quite orderly nature of their public places).<\/p>\n

My wife often recounts horror stories of her four months in England with a trembling voice and sweaty palms.\u00a0 The memories still haunt her ten years later.\u00a0 There was butter sitting out on the table for weeks at a time, dogs being served off of the family dinner plates, and\u2026gasp! \u00a0Carpeting around the toilets!\u00a0 Is there no limit to the British disregard for standard sanitation practices?<\/p>\n

In Italy, the criteria for good housekeeping are much more stringent.\u00a0 The internal living space must be kept spotless at all times<\/strong>. \u00a0No clothes hanging over the chair, no dishes in the sink, and no wet towels on the bathroom floor. \u00a0I live in fear of forgetting to put the toilet seat down.\u00a0 I must clutch my glass of wine<\/a> firmly at all times, because if I look away for a moment it will be whisked off, cleaned, and put away before I even realize that it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

Again, in the U.K. they tend to postpone these mundane tasks while addressing more important issues like showing up for work on time or operating a functioning government. \u00a0Not so in Italy\u2014a clean house and personal hygiene are given top priority. \u00a0So you see, this idea of \u201cil dolce far niente\u201d (“the sweetness of doing nothing”) is total nonsense as it relates to the domestic realm.\u00a0 If you\u2019re doing \u201cniente\u201d around the house, you’ll certainly hear about it sooner rather than later. \u00a0And Italians have dozens of these little worries and obsessions<\/strong> concerning hygiene and cleanliness<\/a><\/strong> that never even occurred to me before living in Rome.<\/p>\n

The bidet in Italy<\/h2>\n

However, I maintain that the use of the bidet in Italy provides the clearest example of this phenomenon\u2014BUT we should denounce a couple of myths<\/strong>. \u00a0First, many people around the world wrongly associate the Italians with their malodorous French neighbors, believing that Italians might also lack personal hygiene because they\u2019d prefer a quick rinse in the nether regions to a proper shower. \u00a0False. \u00a0The accepted philosophy is that you shower, on average, once daily and use the bidet two or three times \u201cas needed.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ll spare you a detailed definition of \u201cas needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another false myth about the bidet is that it\u2019s an immoral accessory for promoting excessive erotic activities. \u00a0I\u2019ve come across people who believe that Italians are a nation of sex marathoners, and therefore, during their \u201csex-de-force,\u201d they use the bidet to make the chore of cleaning up faster, hence allowing more time to move on to their next erogenous pursuit. \u00a0Again, false. \u00a0But while this is not the modern explanation, it might very well have been true at some point in history, when high class courtesans needed to speed up client turnover to maximize their profits.<\/p>\n

\"nunsSo then, perhaps not surprisingly, these myths also find some roots in the Church<\/strong>. \u00a0Yes, Catholic culture, and its sense of morality as it relates to the human body, once played an important role in bathroom protocol<\/a>. \u00a0Saint Jerome, for example, recommended that young girls never (yes, never) take a bath, so as not to risk seeing their own bodies naked.<\/p>\n

It is said that Saint Agnes died at the age of thirteen without ever having taken a bath. \u00a0(If the lack of soap played a part in her death, I cannot say, although it isn\u2019t hard to imagine.)<\/p>\n

When the popular thinking became more \u201cprogressive,\u201d apparently it was OK for young girls to take cold\u00a0baths\u2014wearing a heavy frock the entire time, and in the presence of a nun.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure how things changed so much in Italy to the point where it is now; which is to say at the limit of obsessiveness over germs<\/strong> and such. \u00a0But it\u2019s true that in the country most influenced by Catholic traditions, the bidet has found its only place as an index of civility.<\/p>\n

For myself, I\u2019m not totally against it, but nor am I entirely convinced of its merits.\u00a0 However, I will say that I have already given my newborn daughter more bidets than the average American will take in a lifetime, so I guess it\u2019s slowly winning me over.\u00a0 And the truth is, she loves it!\u00a0 You should see her smile and laugh when she\u2019s getting her little culetto washed.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to argue with the unprejudiced reactions of an infant.\u00a0 As the saying goes, \u201cOut of the mouths of babes comes wisdom and truth.\u201d\u00a0 Well, my baby can\u2019t talk yet, so not much wisdom is coming out of her mouth at this point.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean that other parts of her don\u2019t have some wisdom to share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Napoleon Bonaparte, on the way back from one of his many campaigns, famously wrote ahead to his wife Josephine who was awaiting him back in Paris.\u00a0 The letter was brief and to the point: \u201cI\u2019ll be home in three days.\u00a0STOP\u00a0washing up!\u201d We all know Napoleon as being a principal figure from French history, but in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,5],"tags":[177,173,52,351,48,15,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11887,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/11887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}