Is it safe to wash your anus with water and your (ungloved) hand after pooping, assuming (of course) that you don’t touch anything with your hand until you wash it with soap and water?
I’m currently traveling in India. It’s common here, instead of using toilet paper after deification, to pour water down your back and use your left hand to wipe your anus clean of feces. I googled to find information from medical professionals to understand if this is safe or not, but I (surprisingly) couldn’t find any information on the Internet about this.
Of course, let’s assume that we’re doing this properly:
- You only use one hand (typically your left hand), so feces only contaminates one hand.
- You don’t touch anything in the bathroom (eg pitcher, faucet, door knob, etc) with your soiled left hand until after you wash your hands
- You wash your hands properly, following best-practices: using soap and water, scrubbing vigorously for at least 20 seconds.
I’m less interested in your personal opinion, and more interested if any studies have been done analyzing the efficacy of safety in this scenario, using a proper scientific study.
Have any studies been done to analyze if it’s safe to wipe your ass with your hand (and wash your hands properly with soap and water after)?
It’s not as difficult as you are imagining. There’s usually a hose with a handled sprayer, so you have the ability to spray from different directions. Unless you end up with a bidet which has a nozzle that pops out and sprays up and at an angle to get you clean.
As for your point of knowing if your clean or not, you will know. If you don’t notice at first, you’ll know really quick when that itch hits lol. Realistically though I don’t think you will have too much of a problem, give it a week or so to get acclimated and you’ll have it down like the locals. Just wash your hands often and you should be fine.