Anal cleansing
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Anal cleansing is the hygienic practice of cleaning the anus after defecation.
The anus and buttocks may be cleansed with toilet paper or similar paper products, especially in many Western countries. Elsewhere, water may be used (using a jet, as with a bidet, or splashed and washed with the hand). In other cultures and contexts, materials such as rags, leaves (including seaweed), corn cobs, sponges or sticks are used.
The 16th century French satirical writer François Rabelais, in Chapter XIII of Book 1 of his novel-sequence Gargantua and Pantagruel, has his character Gargantua investigate a great number of ways of cleansing oneself after defecating. Gargantua dismisses the use of paper as ineffective, rhyming that: "Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his ballocks leave some chips." (Sir Thomas Urquhart's 1653 English translation). He concludes that "the neck of a goose, that is well downed" provides an optimum cleansing medium.
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