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Shit moves: The cultural history of the toilet and ideas of cleanliness

23.3.2018

Translation: machine translated

Our loo is a taboo subject. That's why the loo is also known as the quiet place. Nobody wants to know exactly what is being discharged behind a closed door. But why is that?

Few people in our Western society probably don't like to talk about what goes on behind the closed toilet door. This is actually surprising, as it is a natural process. Everything that goes in upstairs has to come out downstairs. And we don't spend very little time on the toilet. Depending on the method of calculation, we spend about a year of our lives excreting fluids and other things. In the process, we leave an average of 100 kilograms of faeces behind every year. The approximately 8.5 million inhabitants of Switzerland therefore excrete around 850,000 tonnes of dark matter every year. That's the weight of 85 Eiffel Towers! And faeces are not exactly harmless: they can contain pathogens and toxins. If these enter the groundwater, there is a risk of outbreaks of typhoid and cholera, for example. Admittedly, faeces can also be used as fertiliser, but it must first be freed from pathogens.

The weight of 85 Eiffel Towers is excreted by the inhabitants of Switzerland every year.

Who invented it?
The British poet Sir John Harrington is considered to have invented the modern toilet in 1596, but it was not patented until almost 200 years later, in 1775, by Alexander Cummings. Incidentally, he also invented the siphon. However, the first toilets were not installed until even later, namely in the 1960s. In the early days of the modern toilet, faeces were still channelled into rivers, streams and lakes via the sewerage system. This polluted them. It was not until about 100 years ago that wastewater began to be treated in sewage treatment plants. Today, Europeans are familiar with three main types of toilets: the deep flush, the shallow flush and the vacuum toilet. With the low flush toilet, you can say goodbye to your poo before it is pushed forwards by the flush and flushed down. Most people living in Switzerland are probably familiar with the deep flush toilet. Then there is the American vacuum toilet, which creates a vacuum through a very narrow siphon. In contrast to the two models mentioned above, however, the American model requires four times more water.

In our part of the world, we have a toilet to prevent our excrement from entering the water cycle unfiltered. It is therefore considered a lifesaver. In parts of the world where people don't have access to clean sanitary facilities, a child dies every 20 seconds. It is therefore imperative that our poo is made more of a topic so that the rest of the world can also enjoy clean toilets. But even here in Europe, toilets were not a matter of course for a long time.

The latrine: Around two and a half billion people have no access to clean toilets.

A brief cultural history of the toilet

According to current knowledge, the history of the toilet probably dates back to 2800 BC. Seven adjacent holes were found in the North Palace in Mesopotamia. Researchers assume that this is a precursor to the toilet. The Greeks also had similar facilities. It was not until the Romans that defecation was better documented. For them, the latrine was anything but a quiet place. It was a meeting place for games, business, etc. Latrines could hold up to 60 people relieving themselves at the same time. Some magnificent latrines even had underfloor heating. The rubbish was transported from the latrine into the cesspit via a ditch. At home, too, people simply defecated in the pot during conversations. The slaves then removed the waste. As the latrine could not be cleaned, diseases spread anyway. After the latrine was dug, the dirt usually ended up on the field and thus in the stomachs. Historically speaking, however, latrines were a great achievement that the Middle Ages undid.

In the countryside, dung was defecated directly in the field or at home over a hole in the ground. The faeces sometimes ended up in the barn below. In the city, it depended on where you lived as to how publicly you did your business. In elegant town houses, there were privies, also known as "secret chambers". In these, you could do your business in a somewhat quieter atmosphere. As there was no system for disposal, all the rubbish was simply emptied onto the street. Incidentally, this was also where the lower classes did their dung. The upper classes therefore shifted the business more into the private sphere and how the dung was disposed of became a status symbol.

Aborterker: The excrement plopped out at the bottom.

In the 18th century, public defecation became more private. In towns and cities, so-called "defecators" walked up and down, wrapped in wide cloaks. Underneath were buckets in which ordinary people from the street could leave their water or more. But even at the beginning of the 20th century, public urination or pooing was still the order of the day. Women also simply let it flow under their long skirts. However, bourgeois society then shifted going to the toilet more into the private sphere. Defecation became increasingly associated with feelings of shame and embarrassment and the toilet became a quiet place.

Documentary about the loo

Impurity vs. purity

This brief historical outline shows that ideas about hygiene and cleanliness, and therefore about defecation, are subject to constant change. They are dependent on social and historical conditions. Our current ideas first emerged with bourgeois society and its standardisation of our bodies. The concept of hygiene emerged in the 19th century. It is the result of the Enlightenment and advances in medicine. Diseases are no longer God-given, but people can protect themselves from them through cleanliness behaviour. The body became a place of dirt and personal hygiene became widespread among the population. With the discovery of bacteria, hygiene also becomes a moral obligation. In order not to jeopardise the social order, the body is subjected to increasing control. This control goes hand in hand with an increase in ideas of shame and embarrassment. As a result, bowel movements are increasingly pushed into the intimate sphere.

Cleanliness and hygiene are linked to ideas of purity. According to Bergler, cleanliness is associated with ideas of symbolic significance. Cleanliness also stands for honesty, innocence and morality. It is a socially desirable behaviour. An absence of cleanliness or a lack of hygiene can cause social aversion and antipathy. The anthropologist Mary Douglas has analysed cleanliness in depth in her work. In her analysis, she identifies impurity as a danger. A danger that only threatens where society has clearly defined purity. This means that ideas of cleanliness and dirt must be part of the social order, part of socialisation. Because impurity is never an absolute. It only exists from the point of view of the observer. The polluting person is always in the wrong. Through his actions/behaviour, he has put himself in a situation that the social order does not accept. His action puts other people in danger because it upsets the social balance. If a person is outside the social norm, this can certainly have subversive potential. According to Douglas, the concept of purity is based on a notion of unity and seclusion in society. This idea is based on commonalities but also on the exclusion of everything that is impure or contaminating.

This can be applied very well to the cultural history of the toilet. Our society has moved bowel movements to private cubicles. When we do our business, we do it in specially designated rooms. In public toilets, there are also cubicles. Not only do we have to physically go to the toilet in the periphery, but we have also marginalised the toilet in our discourse. We don't talk about our poo or call it that, or at least not in conversation with the boss. However, the historical outline above has shown that this is strongly linked to the respective zeitgeist and social circumstances. For the Romans, for example, going to the toilet was a social act. However, the Romans drew the line at defecating in the street. This went against their ideas of purity. Things went in a different direction in the Middle Ages. The higher classes used the toilets to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. The lower classes were considered unclean because they defecated in the street, while the higher classes were considered clean because they defecated in the privacy of their own homes. Those who could afford a lavatory were clean and could distinguish themselves from the unclean who defecated in the street. Purity norms are therefore by no means innate, but rather an expression of social negotiation processes. These norms are used to demarcate oneself from others. If the norms are adhered to, membership of society is affirmed. However, these norms are constantly being negotiated and can change again. This happens, among other things, through subversion, which can become the norm over time.

In view of how many people die due to poor toilet hygiene, a little more subversion would do us good. Because when we talk more about poo, we are also more aware of the underlying problems.