Swiping up, I recently came across a clenched fist with the thumb and index finger facing the camera and the interstices they formed full of a brown viscous mousse that the other hand repeatedly attempted to wipe away with tissue paper as it quickly became oversaturated and ineffective.

I know. It’s off-putting. Nauseating.

Unfortunately, intrepid surfers like myself (and you who have come hither) often end up on beaches fouled by the sewers of netizens we would prefer to avoid. Alas the world is one and each day must be won. So we battle on.

Wading through these shoals I found a lot floating around that treats the matter with elaborate, though similarly euphemized, detail.

If you’ve read Nail as Tool you will immediately grasp that this line of inquiry oversteps boundaries established by adequacy and sufficiency.

Anal hygiene has never, ever (i.e. since 2004 when google began tracking trends), registered sufficient interest. And for good reason. The potty trained among us are managing that area of our lives well enough for it to warrant no further discussion, dramatized reenactments or indirect demonstrations.

Yes the Romans royally screwed things up when in their enthusiasm for institutionalizing they established multiuser public toilets and fitted them with a shared sponge on a stick. Pause to gag. That was a time when the subject certainly would have merited further discussion.

Today, wipers are not showing up in hospitals with related complaints. Their households aren’t infested with fecally transmitted diseases.

So what’s the point? Washers have a cleaner anus between showers? Not a position that would elicit strong disagreement. So why then? Why pucker up your hand into an anus and smear it with marmite?

OVERCOMPENSATION. Plain and simple.

Washers are debating with themselves. Wipers aren’t firing off rejoinders touting the benefits of wiping and sharing their misgivings about bidets and toilet sprinklers. They’re shrugging their shoulders and moving on.

Promoters of washing are in it for vain self-aggrandizement or, at best, to feel better about themselves in a sad world of skewed priorities.

Now there are those advocating against wiping on environmental grounds. Scientific American tells us that it takes 37 gallons of water to make a roll of toilet paper while a session with the bidet is estimated to use 1/8th a gallon. An eighth of a gallon seems low, but let’s take it to be true – that would mean that after 296 washes a washer will have used the water it took to create a roll of toilet paper. Assuming a 500 sheet roll, and a modicum of restraint when pulling sheets, it’s not a resounding win for the bidet. Tree to STP compost is certainly not a zero carbon cycle, so the ecological angle is not without merit.

But this is not the debate at hand. The clenched fist full of tarry molasses wasn’t about the planet. And even if it were, washers would need to come clean about their toilet paper consumption. I reckon most washers are also wipers – an ecological travesty.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.