Ugly bidet?
If from Japan to Italy one appreciates it, his homeland of origin denies it. Appeared in France in the eighteenth century, he was rarely in the odor of sanctity.
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It's still a shame. France, a country where the bidet was born, which gave it its most intimate secrets - and little by little an official place in bourgeois comfort - now only feels contempt, even condescending to his view. It's all right if the bidet is now used as a footbath for children. And even. His presence is cluttered and disconcerted. It is filled with a jumble of bathroom: newspapers, hair dryer, brushes. As much to evacuate it, estimate the architects. Only a few renowned designers still draw elegant lines. For the bathrooms of the luxury hotels and especially for the export.
Technoïde. The French Bidet has indeed spread throughout the world. Why is this radiation not more celebrated? In the Middle East, it is still appreciated at its fair value, just as in the countries of southern Europe (see opposite), where there are almost as many bidets as WC. Japan, it knows a growing success. There, the bidet became technoid, combining with the toilet bowl in one block, with adjustable thermostat for water as for the breath of air that comes to dry the sitting of its new users.
France did not know how to spare him such a destiny. Roger-Henri Guerrand, historian of intimacy, was deeply saddened. But rather than let the bidet decline in the indifference of his native homeland, this researcher, now gone, made a point of rehabilitating him. Her inquiry (1) covers more than two centuries, inspecting both brothels and royal houses. We learn that the bidet was long named "confidant ladies" or "close friend" because it was unthinkable to pronounce his name in society. It's embarrassing to access honors. And his presence on a multitude of erotic engravings seems to have aggravated his case.
Would there have been a misunderstanding? Born in the age of libertinage (first written mention in 1739), the bidet remains hidden in aristocratic wardrobes, well out of sight. Too bad, because it is often a beautifully crafted object - mahogany, rosewood or porcelain ornate, more or less violin-shaped - with a folder in the eighteenth century, he lost in the nineteenth e. The shameful is its use. Although nothing predestines it more for women than for men, the bidet is quickly suspected of being used as a disastrous contraceptive practice. Straddling her bidet, the light woman would start postcoital ablution and, equipped with syringes filled with vinegar or other astringent lotion, would remove all traces of sin. In fact, men's glutes also benefit: the bidet is a long time part of the equipment of any cavalry officer. But since he seems well established in brothels, his reputation is second to none.
Apogee. We seize moreover to insult. To tell someone that he has "bidet water in his veins" is like treating him as a coward. A "bidet knight" is nothing but a mackerel because he "finds his bread in the bidet". In short, it is the opprobrium, until the twentieth century. With a peak in the nineteenth century, doctors reluctant to extol the merits of personal hygiene for fear of giving bad ideas to girls. Yet nobody has known for a long time that "pubis, perineum and between-fessons" little maintained emit unpleasant odors. But the toilet of "indiscreet jewels", described as "secret" since it cleans the "dirtiest dirty parts", hardly ever appears in hygiene treatises all stamped with prudishness. The bidet is simply denied.
It is a container that reassures at a time when water terrifies people. Everyone thinks twice before immersing their whole body in a bathtub, preferring a local and fragmented toilet. Hence the practice known as "dry cleanliness" that will last until the generalization of running water. A boon for the bidet, which manages to sneak through the ages. Of all the instruments of partial ablutions, note that he is the only one to have reached the twenty-first century.
But it is still too connoted "cocotte" at the threshold of the twentieth. It was only after the Second World War that he gained access to a form of recognition, even of public utility. One ceases then to grasp on one's deeply immoral or simply practical side. Entering the bourgeois lavatories, he remakes a virginity and becomes simply honest. And even social when it is given its place in the bathrooms of low-rent housing in full construction. 1970 marks its peak: 95% of bathrooms in France have a bidet.
Summum of luxury. All in all, the improvement will have been only of very short duration. During the 70s, the bidet decline began in France as the shower is gaining ground and the size of bathrooms is shrinking. Without him, the relationship to the body is no longer the same. To measure such a loss, it is enough to hear the desolation of Portuguese or Italian friends visiting France. We hear them swear through the bathroom door, trying to reach the sink from the buttocks. British citizens, whom the use of the bidet has always exceeded, have recently made a fuss, running the flea markets of our villages to dig up, and writing practical guides about it, like the famous Can We Afford the Bidet? attests (2).
Not so long ago, in Poland as in Czechoslovakia, Party dignitaries did not miss an opportunity to ostentatiously display their bidets. And in the United States, it remains considered the pinnacle of luxury and refinement. So, how is it that everywhere else in France, people do it if not worship, at least a real consideration? Admittedly, the ideas received have a long life here. Perhaps he still evokes in the collective unconscious "the flesh of an old courtesan marinated in a bidet". The historian Roger-Henri Guerrand would have dreamed that the bidet integrates the national heritage, such as the baguette and the beret. Abroad, no one knows that the bidet is a chic French invention. But his homeland is not grateful to him. By misplaced pride?