How disgusting it is not being able to wash your ass after shitting
The inevitable question that assails us when the toilet paper is finished.
You are at that festival that is held every summer in your city. The sun shines and a reggae band gently rocks the crowd with its melody while you return to buy a round of beers in plastic cups for all your friends. Nothing could spoil this wonderful moment ... But then your guts start to roar ostensibly.
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It seems that the combination of beef tacos, fried sweet potato with guacamole sauce and hazelnut latte that you bought at the food stand three hours ago wants to go out. You stand for four minutes lining up next to the portable toilets and, as soon as you get into one and close the door, you sit down and unload. You enjoy a brief moment of relief before you realize, horrified, that there is no toilet paper. Oh shit! Also, really.
You have no choice but to put your shorts back on and go back to your friends, with the embarrassment of knowing that you have not completed one of the basic points of the protocol they taught you at four years of age.
How bad is it not to cleanse?
A gram of faeces can contain about 10 million viruses, a million different bacteria, a thousand cysts of parasites and a hundred worm eggs, according to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations . So now you go around, walking with all those possible threats attached to the ass and separated from the outside world only by a thin layer of denim and another cotton.
Sometimes, and imperceptibly, particles of faecal matter from the clothing or body can end up in the hands, the environment and even back to your own body - the transfer of germs from your hands to your mouth is very common of acts such as eating or drinking.
"In terms of hygiene, it's absolutely unacceptable" not to cleanse yourself, says Aaron Glatt, a professor of medicine at South Nassau Communities Hospital and a spokesman for the American Society for Infectious Diseases. "Find something to clean yourself with," he implores. "Use water or plant leaves, whatever."
The risk is greater for women. In your case, the dirty anus is dangerously close to the vagina, which can cause bacteria to enter the urethra and cause an infection
The situation could get worse depending on the type of poop, adds Phlip M. Tierno, a professor of Microbiology and Pathology at the NYU School of Medicine. "If you go loose, the particles can be dispersed even more," says Tierno. And it is that the liquid feces would remain impregnated in the clothes and would cross the barrier of the pants and the underwear with much more facility.
The risk is greater for women. In your case, the dirty anus is dangerously close to the vagina, which can cause bacteria to enter the urethra and produce a urinary tract infection.
That is one of the reasons why Tierno recommends that, when we foresee the possibility of having to go to a toilet in worse conditions than usual, take at least one package of tissues and an alcohol-based disinfectant. Come on, we have to be cautious if we go to a festival, a place in the middle of nature or a rest area on the highway in the middle of nowhere.
What do feces contain?
Stools are waste expelled by the body, so all infectious diseases and bacteria that we could carry in our body are "packaged" in them before expelling them. Bacteria such as E. coli , enterococcus , or parasites that cause diarrhea or other germs whose effects can range from annoying to deadly spread through droppings . Norovirus , which in countries like the USA is one of the main causes of diseases and outbreaks due to eating bad food, is also lodged in our intestines.
Perhaps it will be a comfort to know that you can consider yourself lucky if in the near future you have access to a hole to bend over and a shower.
"Four out of ten people in the world do not have access to a latrine, a toilet, a bucket or a box, nothing."
In her 2008 book, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters , the journalist Rose George mentions statistical data from the UN, according to which 2.6 million people in the world do not have access to a system of sanitation. "And I'm not saying they do not have a washbasin at home and they have to use a public one, or a separate one from the house or even a ramshackle hut with a primitive drain," he says.
What George means is that "four out of ten people do not have access to a latrine, a toilet, a bucket or a box. Nothing. Instead, they are forced to defecate next to the tracks of the train or in the forest, in plastic bags that they throw in an alley ".
Public health problems resulting from a lack of a sanitation and waste disposal system can be truly alarming. Lack of hygiene and water contamination by faeces are responsible for one out of every ten diseases in the world, according to WHO researchers who Georges cites.
Although the poop presents very serious risks, in areas with more advanced sewerage and sanitation facilities, our immune systems fight a constant battle against a flood of lower-level germs scattered by fecal particles and, in general, emerge victorious.
So, although you do well to worry when you run out of toilet paper, fortunately, and thanks to the way our body fights fecal germs, it ends up being more of an inconvenience than a real risk factor, according to Tierno.
How extended are the fecal particles?
"As a society, we swim in faeces," says Tierno. "People do not wash their hands well, even when they have access to a sink, so they end up spreading the fecal particles to other areas of the body."
A simple Google search reveals that it is quite common to find faecal remains on objects such as yoga mats , coffee cups or kitchen faucets . As it was once said in an old book, everyone defecates, creating a degree of bacterial nuisance that societies and individuals are able to fight with more or less success.
This means that going for several hours without having cleaned your ass is just a level of discomfort over the fact of holding the fecal load that is hidden in your hands and on the surfaces that you touch on a daily basis.
A small portion of stool attached to the body simply intensifies that fight, but the guarantees of success are probably present in any way
"Obviously, that person will be irritated," says Tierno. However, it is a "mild" discomfort in terms of public health. In the developed world, our body is constantly fighting germs and microorganisms with relative success. A small portion of stool attached to the body simply intensifies that struggle, but the guarantees of success are probably present anyway.
On the other hand, the chances of contracting E. coli or norovirus by contact with fecal matter in a public event are even lower, because "people who are sick have stayed at home," says Tierno.
Therefore, although it is not exactly good to spend a couple of hours dirty at the bottom, the safest thing is that nothing happens to you either. As soon as you have the chance, clean yourself well and ready.