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Current research doesn't support that.
Most likely, the sponge sticks were used as a toilet brush, and pieces of cloth were used to wipe.
Also "without privacy" is also in question, because you could use cloth partitions hanging from a rod; something known to be used in stadiums to separate class.
Afaik there's an original source that makes fun of a guy who hung out on the toilet all day, hoping to strike up a conversation that'll get him invited to dinner.
That would imply it was a social thing.
Source?
"Vacerra spends hours in all the privies, sitting all day long.
Vacerra doesn’t want a shit, he wants a dinner."
(Martial, XI.LXXVII)
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0506%3Abook%3D11%3Apoem%3D77
It would imply that guy thought it was a social thing. Y'never know, maybe he was a weirdo even then. He could've been the proto-creeper whose descendants haunt public restrooms to this day.
You can do that in a stall. My proof that there were no curtains would be the temptation to wipe an ass on them. My guess is most people wore enough robes to cover up their stuff while sitting
Uh, it seems I haven't kept up to date on butt wipe history.
Source?
I don't mean that in an "I don't believe you" way.
I literally mean that in an "I majored in Archaeology and would be interested in reading that since it's been more than 20 years since my knowledge was up to date."
Ask and you shall receive ☝️
Good to know, i had a hard time anyway believing that humans of any societal development stage would literally share a feces encrusted rag on a stick, to clean themselves. Certainly would be less nasty to just get up and leave without wiping at all.
They had running water there. My guess would be it was a rinse and share situation
i just assumed everyone is just grossed out by it regardless of whether they fucking cleaned it in bleach, there's simply no way to make a shared sponge feel acceptable
You feel this way because you know about germs... Back in the 1800s, surgeons would do brain surgeries with bare hands, wiping them in their pants and calling it a day
Except they didn't call it a day, they went and delivered babies, with surgery goo on their hands, and flipped the fuck out when some guy did experiments showing that fewer women died in child birth when the doctor washed his fucking hands first. Hard pass on the hand washing, pal.
The mistake is attributing modern social norms onto people from thousands of years ago.
We are all products of the conventions of our times.
less than 100 years ago, certain people were grossed out by sharing a diner counter with an African American. 300 years before that, some people thought that bathing was the cause of disease since it unclogged your pores and made you susceptible.
Just because you (and I....let's be clear) think it's gross today, doesn't mean we would have back then.
This so much. I would use virtually anything else before I would willingly go near a public asshole cleaner.
Where's the fun in that?
Cloth was not easy to make and what would they do with it?
you repurpose old fabric. same as with rags. as for what they'd do with it: likely wash and reuse them. same as with cloth diapers nowadays.
the alternatives would be leaves from certain plants or water and a hand.
"Family Cloth"
This is my interpretation: They'd use scraps left over from making clothes, collect them in a bin and have slaves boil and wash them to re-use.
And it was likely a thing for rich people, the poor would just use their left hand and eat with the right.