The bidet: the artifact of more than two and a half centuries that the Rio de la Plata and Paraguayans use badly
It was invented in France for women to be intimate areas after having sex, but Argentines, Uruguayans and Paraguayans generally use it for other purposes and, in addition, badly. Sputnik tells you why.
Blue Bidet BB-20 Portable Bidet
The bidet or bidet means a small horse in French, and refers to the position that must be adopted to use it. It is a low artifact, with running water and drainage. Originally it was designed to clean the vulva, but now it is used to clean the perineal area and the anus, although there are also those who use it to wash their feet.
It was invented in France in the late seventeenth century, then it was mobile and had a wooden frame with a back, and a lid that concealed a basin. In the middle of the 18th century, an identical one appeared, but with a syringe that threw, from the basin, an ascending rain, the water was pumped by hand.
Old French Bidet
The bidet was perfected towards the end of the 19th century, when there was substantial progress in plumbing and sanitation.
According to Clarín , at the end of the Second World War the bidet was considered a key element for public health and there was one in every home in France. "The Parisians made fun of the English tourists who saw a bidet for the first time and used it to urinate, wash their feet or stockings," said Jorge Tartarini, the director of AySA's Water and Health History Museum. .
Bidet and antique porcelain toilet
However, Tartarini clarified to Clarin that there were few who actually used it because Catholicism discouraged it. According to San Francisco de Asis, you had to be dirty to have "an idea of the smell of hell".
This artifact is very common in some European countries (especially Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal), although in France, where it was invented, they are no longer used.
Also in the countries of the Middle East and some parts of Asia (particularly in Japan). In Japan, bidets are so common that they are often present in public washroom facilities.
In the American countries, mainly in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, there are practically all the houses. There people use it badly: instead of sitting facing the taps, they sit upside down.