Damon Young: A bidet changed my life! Why don’t I have a bidet?

The reason for this relatively late introduction to my palate is simple: I just didn’t get the exposure. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t use it in our meals. Also, I’m from Pittsburgh. And if you’ve never been there, know that “I’m from Pittsburgh” is an acceptable response to anything from “Why can’t you say ‘hallelujah’?” to “Why is your La-Z-Boy in that parking spot?”

But once I became aware of it and loved it, it became a part of my life. Which tends to be the way life works for most people. And that’s why it’s disconcerting that I do not currently has a bidet.

I first met one on a week-long trip to Rome the summer after my freshman year. We were staying in a campus-style villa with a few other college-age sports teams, and I was amused by the weird second toilets in each bathroom. I just assumed it was an Italian custom to poop in company. (They are very loving people!) But then one of our trainers told us how it felt.

Of course, the first reaction from me, 19, was, well, ignorant and shamefully homophobic. It had a “suspicious” function (to clean his buttocks), a “suspicious” function (to spray water in his buttocks to clean them) and whoever dared to use it would be the victim of an avalanche of jokes. But one day I decided to use it. And it was like (stay with me) the time in third grade I saw the Crayola 64 box for the first time. I thought there was only one shade of blue. But then I saw cadet blue. Blue green! Mother fucking periwinkle! And yes, if that’s not self-explanatory enough, the bidet experience—the drastic coldness of the stream between my cheeks, the utter bliss of spot-free booty cleaning—changed my life as an 8-year-old discovering turquoise .

Now, when there is a bidet available, I bidet. I bide hard. I bidet like the bidet owes me money. I bidet like this is the latest bidet today. I own T-shirts that say “I bidet”. (I don’t really know. But I would if someone gave me one.) I even pre-bid once, you know, before anything happened. Who felt evolved. But it was just messy. Certainly, my affinity for the bidet isn’t just about function and pleasure. It’s also just a fun word to say. You haven’t lived until you’ve asked a hotel concierge to recommend the best bidets in town. What if they ask “What is a bidet?” and you explain, you have just added another member to Team Bidet. Big Bidet should really give me royalties now.

Now, when there is a bidet available, I bidet. I bidet strong. I bidet like the bidet owes me money.

That’s why it’s confusing that I can’t walk into one of the bathrooms in my house and bidet all night. I have no reason not to own a bidet. I haven’t always been able to afford a bidet. I mean there were times I couldn’t afford toilet paper. (Those days were dark!) But now I can. There are three bathrooms here, which means one of them could be the designated bidet depot. We could have a family bidet. What would make us the bidet family.

I wonder if my kids could handle the bidet. It’s like we don’t give them a lot of candy, because we don’t want them to get addicted and then have to wean them off. And bidet addiction is real. I should put them at ease there. Ask them to watch tutorials. Maybe even testimonials from people who got so deep into the bidet that they came back soaking wet, shivering and lost. But I think the best way is to tell them it’s like riding a bike. Except instead of a seat, you ride a jet of water up your butt. (Maybe I need to workshop this introduction some more.)

I think I don’t think bidets are something possible for someone like me. It’s as if buying one meant some sort of performative metamorphosis. Or would make me a poser, as if I had decided one day to wear leather pants. Nothing prevents me from buying the bidet of my dreams. I denied myself too long.

As Langston Hughes once said, “Hold on to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. I think he wrote that on a bidet.