Monday 22 December 2008

Dear Dorothy Dix #2


This is the second in an occasional series where I ask readers to answer questions about matters that have puzzled me.

In case any readers are in doubt, I am a gay man. I have always been a gay man, except for when I was a gay boy. I always knew I was gay even before I knew what being gay meant.

I am an only child and lived in a household where there was only me and my mother and my father. For my first twenty years the only things I knew about living in a household with a female were what I observed about my mother. Everyone knows that mothers don't count as far as lessons about living with females are concerned.

So it is only in my adult years that I have observed a phenomenon about living with females (for however short a period) that has me puzzled.


Why do females use so much toilet paper?

Whenever males stay with me I notice no change in my household toilet paper usage. Now I'm sure it can't be that no male who has ever stayed/lived with me has ever used toilet paper and yet household usage when one has stayed/lived with me doesn't seem to change from when I am alone.

But let a female in my home, even for a five minutes visit, and the toilet paper usage is not only noticeable but extraordinary. Reams of paper disappear in the wink of an eye. Telltale toilet paper leaves remain in the bowl after every flush and what is left on the roll trails across the bathroom floor almost to the door; a quite different sight from the neat untrailing roll evident when only males are present in the home.

Now I know that there are certain biological explanations to account for female toilet paper usage but, still, why do females use so much toilet paper? What do they do with it?

10 comments:

  1. Thought provoking indeed, but Victor I have to say, in the past I've lived with ladies numerous times and indeed am living with one right now, and to be honest I've never noticed any difference between their rate of usage and anyone elses. Maybe it's the ladies you know or perhaps your toilet paper is so nice that the bundle a heap of it into their handbag to take with them?

    In other words, I can't help you out I'm afraid.

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  2. Its biology - they wipe the front of themselves after pissing. Especially noticeable on camping trips, buts of paper blowing everywhere as they dont bother to dig a hole for pissing.....

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  3. I've noticed this phenomenon also, and while I'm sure that urination has something to do with it, I also wonder whether women have to a bit of wiping to do when they......menstruate?

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  4. Michael/Evol - I'm sure both explanations are relevant.

    Kezza - yes maybe its just the ladies I know!

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  5. And why are they leaving trails of it on the floor? Or are you just enhancing the story a bit?

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  6. Victor, I can only imagine why this would be the case...and these imaginings are scaring me, so I'm stopping now.

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  7. wcs - I haven't embellished too much. Maybe it is only my female friends but they regularly leave a trail of paper onto the floor, something I don't see my male friends doing.

    travelling - my posting was probably unwise; it is dangerous territory to venture into.

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  8. R uses three rolls to my one. I don't know why and I don't want to ask. Perhaps it is a scrunch or fold thing?

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  9. Andrew - Perhaps if R reads this blog he might answer that question for you?

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  10. I too live with a female but don't notice any great excess usage of toilet paper. However when she was in Houston, Texas last year she and her female travelling companion managed to block their US hotel room twice. The plumber who came blamed "Aussie women who use too much paper".
    Make of that what you will.

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