In Modern Japan, Toilet Cleans You.

[abracanabra]

Japan has better toilets than we do. That's the general gist of the Scientific American article, "From Thrones to Robo-Commodes: The Pitfalls of Inventing a Better Toilet". The article holds this gem about how they made a toilet that, er, washes your bits after you're done:

This is a 48-page TOTO history published by Weekly Sankei magazine in 1985, five years after the company had relaunched the Washlet. Its heroes are Mr Kawakami, a TOTO engineer, and his portly, cheery colleague, Mr. Ito. Kawakami and Ito are entrusted with improving the Washlet. The nozzle has to be accurate, and to make it so, they need to know the average location of the human anus. Facts like this are not easy to find, so they turn to the only source material available, which is anybody on the company payroll. Their workmates aren't impressed. "Though we are colleagues," one says with politeness, "I don't want you to know my anus position."

But Kawakami and Ito eventually prevail. Three hundred colleagues were persuaded to sit on a toilet—in private—and to mark the positions of their anuses by fixing a small piece of a paper to a wire strung across the seat. The average is calculated (for males, it comes to between 27 and 28 centimeters, or 10.5 and 11 inches, from the front of the toilet seat), but that's only the first hurdle. Mr Kawakami is now tasked with improving the Washlet's ability to wash "the female place". He needs to know how many centimeters separate a female's two places, and is initially at a loss. Obviously the best place to research female places is in a place with females, preferably naked ones. That's where the strip club comes in, though most strip club clientele are unlikely to react as Mr. Kawakami does, by shouting, "Three centimeters!"