LaShaun

by LaShaun
(Brooklyn, NY)

I experienced squatting toilets when I was traveling throughout Ghana at 16. I didn't think much of it and just thought different country, different pooping style.

At that age I also thought of it as a limitation of the less fortunate (oh my colonized mind!). Little did I know how fortunate and aware Ghanaians were. In my 30s I traveled to parts of India, East Asia and China; the part of China I visited had more sitting toilets than squatting.

All of these countries shared the same method of moving their bowels and I began to notice that my body felt different upon encountering a sitting toilet (places that saw more tourists went with sitting) after a long streak of squatting toilets. I struggled to move my bowels, fecal matter didn't ease out the same way, I had to wipe more and I still felt a little full.

The sitting experience was not nearly as gratifying as squatting. When I returned home from my trip to India I purchased a bidet because I had become accustomed to that wonderful, fresh feeling, but it wasn't exactly the same and I couldn't figure out why.

Some years later I took my trip to East Asia (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam for a number of months, I became a pro at the squat) and upon returning home I began to realize that the bidet wasn't the only piece of the fresh feeling puzzle, it was the squatting!

When I came back to the states I began lifting the toilet seat, squatting on the bare bowl and leaning my back against the raised seat. It has changed my bathroom experience a great deal and I'm researching squatting potty installation in my downstairs bathroom.

I came across this site when I started feeling silly for going through the whole process of taking off my pants, lifting the seat, climbing up, etc. This site taught me the science behind what I was experiencing and I stopped feeling like a weirdo.

I'm so appreciative!

Thank you for taking the time to share this information. All that glitters isn't gold, all that is western shouldn't be sold.