I don’t know how interesting this might be to you people. I may have to be vague about some stuff (what country etc) for security reasons, just given my situation and how everyone from my area is being stalked by the IDF, sorry about that. My head’s still in vacation mode and I’m mostly surrounded by (nice! Well meaning! I can’t talk about everything important with them!) libs.

I always found it interesting that, the internet still being US-Eurocentric for the most part, most writings is from people with similar vantage points that I have no experience with. Even in lefty spaces, I find some stuff to be oddly taken for granted or at face value about the different places we all live. My lived experience is somewhat detached from the Western fascination with the theater of polite liberal democracy.

Realistically based on what I’ve shared on this account I could plausibly be expected to visit one of like fifteen countries across Europe + its buddies (and the US had it not been a comically bad time to visit), so I feel somewhat safe talking about it. Sorry if the paranoia is seems ridiculous, I spent four months under daily MK drone buzzing for no fucking good reason recently, I make my own rules.

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[–] 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)
  • [–] [S] 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    This entire post is an excuse for this. You caught me.

    The bowl itself was not a concern. The disposal of paper into the bowl was easy to get used to. That’s fine.

    Filling your drinking water 25 cm away from the crapper? I didn’t like that conceptually. But it’s running water. I get how people can be used to that.

    The problem was the lack of bidet.

    CW: peepee poopooThe first few times I had to evacuate my bowels there was a genuine experience of IRL body horror. I felt so dirty and kept washing my hands very long every time I went for it. I had to prepare myself psychologically to shit for 5 minutes and then go through the grueling process of cleaning myself with nothing but flimsy paper. Wetting the paper didn’t help and only made it more fragile. My relationship with the biological concept of excreting solids is forever changed and not for the better. I felt like I was shitting in the woods.

    And none of the food has as much fiber as I’m used to.

    The toilet situation is the single thing I will miss the least. Every bathroom I am willing to use here has a handy little handheld bidet. You power wash the shit off, obviously?

    When I got back with a bag of laundry I didn’t know if/feel like it was sanitary to put that stuff in the washing machine. That’s how bad it is for me.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago

    This is so real. I live in the US and before I ever traveled I had no concept of what using a bidet was like. Then I spent two weeks in Japan. When I got home I immediately bought a Toro bidet lid for our toilet and never looked back. Now I dread the idea of having to use a bathroom outside the house when it comes to dropping a duce. If I do, the first thing I do in most cases when I get home is use the bidet. I genuinely don't understand how anyone lives without one, let alone refuses to use one. Hell, I've known people who won't even get between their cheeks in the shower! The west is a nasty place and no one should visit here.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    michael-laugh

    truly we are an uncivilized people

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Being able to flush the paper (and the entire concept of a drinkable tap water grid) is nothing to sleep on. The bidet thing is just a nightmare though. I’m somehow much more comfortable with the idea of throwing out bathroom trash every few days and being extorted for bottled water than the concept of not being able to clean myself after going to the bathroom by default.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Folks, is it unsanitary to have an anus?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    But do you really get it clean if you don't use a soapy water bidet?

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