Pondering Putolical: Turkish Tuvalets (Toilets)

Jeanne and I love potty humor, literally. I'm not talking about base-level dirty jokes in general (though I certainly appreciate those as well), but jokes that are about or closely related to potties. I guess it's not always humor - sometimes it's serious potty analytics with no need for laughter - so I hereby dub the umbrella term for this activity "putolics" (potty humor and analytics). Anyway...

The Turkish have provided us with quite a bit of ammunition for this line of inquiry. First, there is the squat toilet. I've seen these in India and Azerbaijan, Jeanne in China. They've always scared me. Even if I really gotta go, I won't do squat (get it? get it?).

Apparently, Jeanne has seen squattors' footprints on modern toilets in China. I guess that's why there was an instructional sign in this bathroom in Goreme.

And now a serious matter: why do Turkish toilets have this little spigot in the back?

Nearly every sit-down toilet we've seen has one. It looks like it's meant to spray water, but I've never seen it on. Is it for cleaning the toilet?

I must admit that a couple of these things have given me an unwanted peck on the cheek during the deed. Ugh. Well, it beats squatting.

Hey look - I got brave enough to turn one on.

THIS JUST IN - a Turkish friend told us that the spigot is for cleaning the "special places"! It's like a bidet integrated into the toilet. This friend told us that they only have these in Turkey and that he feels very uncomfortable when he leaves the country and is unable to clean his special places in this way.

My only question - there appears to be a similar spigot in this urinal. Is that for cleaning special places too? Ewwww.

And that's all the putolics for today!