Lemons(?) of Lemmy, what is something that feels so obvious to you that you just get lowkey pissed at the world for not knowing?

Do you really wash your hands, or, do your hands wash each other while you watch?

Listen, 'Stoner Rick'... not everything you think and say is mindblown, earth-shaking facts or perspectives. And this is coming for a dude who used to get high and once thought that I and my friends (who were not high,) were in an atom accelerator going down the highway. My mind was blown away but everyone in the car thought It was a dumb thing to say.

After COVID this is the only way I greet anyone.

Family gatherings get a little awkward.
I mean… I’m not totally against this.
- Imagine non sexual genital touching.

Every time I see one of those "employees must wash hands" signs, I think about getting some custom made "and everyone else should too" signs made up to start posting below them in public bathrooms everywhere I go.

I wish it was only after urinating that I'd seen my fellow man just walk straight out of the toilet, beyond disgusting.

Trans woman here, I've seen both sides.

A small percentage of the men's room washes their hands and a small percentage of the women's room DOESN'T wash their hands. It's a night and day difference.

A small percentage of the men's room washes their hands

Not my experience. Where have you seen this?
- I mean, decades of using one? And the mockery I received by men I got for washing my own hands? I have had family members and numerous classmates tell me that washing your hands is just admitting you peed on them.
  
  Of course my experiences are anctedotal, but for me, it was a quite noticeable difference when I started using the ladies room. I'm not trying to make a definitive statement, absolutely there are men who do reguarly wash their hands, but there is also a very large majority of men who don't. From my experience, that's not the case with people in the women's room.
  
  I mean, decades of using one?
  
  I said where. What part of the world do you live in? I’ve lived mostly in the USA, and most of the public bathrooms I’ve used have been at restaurants, museums, bars, and gyms.
  
  In those places, it’s rare to see a man leave the bathroom without washing his hands.
  
  So where did you see that?
  
  US, lived mostly up and down the west coast.
  
  restaurants, museums, bars, and gyms.
  
  And these are literally the examples I would've given. To be fair, it's been years since I've been in a mens room. But, I know it's common for most guys to walk straight out.
  
  That's wild. Maybe I'm not observant but I haven't ever seen someone leave the bathroom without washing their hands
Is this the real reason why we have longer lines in the bathroom? In addition to having to finagle several layers just to pee?

This guy says otherwise

That is so fucking cursed, hell naw 💀

Don King had an alternative thesis:

https://youtu.be/o4qo161MRNE?feature=shared

You should probably do it twice, before and after. Just to be on the safe side.

In the very first episode of House M.D. we establish that House washes both before and after.

We then watch him go to the bathroom at least a dozen times throughout the series, and not once does he wash before. Worst. Series. Ever.
I'm not interested in getting your 'pickle juice' on my hands. I don't care if you washed your hands before. 'Pickle juice' splashback happens when you've got your hand down there. So wash after the fact, Jack.

This grosses me out so much. Some men claim they don’t want to get germs on their penis, and that’s their justification. Just walk straight from the urinal snd leave, or they laughably just splash some water on their hands and leave calling it a day. So fucking gross.

I’d love to tell those men just how many droplets of urine bounce from the urinal and directly onto the front of their pants, lower shirt, on their arms, and all over their hands and penis. That shit ain’t clean, and you’re putting urine droplets on your face, eyes, and mouth less than 30 minutes later.

Fucking disgusting.

Farside_Didnt_Wash_Hands_Comic.PNG

Some men claim they don’t want to get germs on their penis

How does that make any sense? What... how... I just... ?! Do they believe one washes their hands BEFORE peeing? Well OK, let's imagine that, then then would have... cleaner hands so... less germs? Do they imagine that one "reverse wash" theirs hands before? Like... rubbing their hands on the floor itself THEN pee? It makes absolutely 0 sense. I don't get any of it.
- Im thinking they unzip, pull underwear out of the way, amd piss hands free?
  
  Ohhh... that actually makes sense, thanks!
- they must keep a pair of tongs handy.

Eh i know people who drink their own urine, I'm not that worried about pee. I don't want to drink my own pee, let alone a stranger's pee, but I'm more concerned about the shit in shit when taking about hand washing.

What % of kitchen sponges in the US were found to contain fecal matter? I don't remember, but it was high enough for me to switch to Swedish dish clothes immediately. Eurgh.

Eh i know people who drink their own urine,

Who are these people?
- A whole bunch of friends from the town I used to live in. One started peeing on his skin as an eczema treatment, which seemed to work, and somehow this progressed to drinking it. It spread, and became a thing in town. Last I heard there were about 10 pee drinkers, but obviously it's not something people talk about openly.
  
  Apparently morning pee is relaxing because of the melatonin content?
  
  Edit: Apparently it's a very old and widespread practice. Here's a Healthline article on it: https://www.healthline.com/health/drinking-urine

Same here. Was out with my mother and brother once, went to a fast food restaurant, grabbed some shakes. Well, we happened to go inside and use the restroom, and so did an employee.

My brother witnessed that the employee did not wash his hands, annnnnd they made our shakes.

We didn't want to make a scene, we just didn't drink them, fuck that shit.

Well, urine is sterile, and if only touch the door in and out of the bathroom, washing doesn't always seem necessary. If you get pee on your hands, then by all means. But if the only option is air blades for hand drying, you're better off not washing. Those literally lace your hands in fecal matter when used in a public restroom.

Urine isn't sterile. While it's true that paper towels are better than dryers, drying your hands (even with a dryer) is better than not drying. Washing your hands is, obviously, better than not washing your hands.

If you don't wash your hands you're already in the worst case. It makes no sense to complain about the methods of drying available.
- Drying with air blower is better than not drying? Mhh but its not like that washing without drying is worse than not washing? Yeah i mean bacteria like wet areas but i dont see the point that drying is they key point about the hygiene. I sweat a lot and my hands take a big part of it. So even after drying they get wet really fast, so i think the most important part is Soap. These little mafuckers love it wet but more they hate it if its alcaline. So dont save up on the Soap :)
  
  Air dry after shaking off the excess.
  
  Or rub it all over you pants. The drying part isn't the most important... the washing is
- drying your hands is better than not drying
  
  First time I've ever heard that. Why would that be? I just squeegee the water off each hand using the other, give em a good shake, and they air-dry the rest of the way in maybe 30 seconds.
  
  I'm genuinely asking, I'm having a lot of trouble imagining why drying would matter.
- Other peoples fecal matter will contain many forigen bacteria, and these microbes are proven to coat the hands of people after using air driers. My apologies about the sterile urine comment. Nonetheless, you'd be in a better situation with bacteria on your hands from your own pee vs from a strangers feces. One's apart of your microbiota, while the other is entirely foreign. IDK, I've seen many cases where washing your hands after a piss made no sense due to cleanliness issues or a lack of a sink and never heard anyone around ever having any issues. Yet many pathogens are spread via the fecal oral route. So I'll take my chances of maybe having some of my urine vs having someone else shit on my hands everytime in that situation.
  
  I'm not sure I follow your logic here. You believe you'll come into contact with other people's piss and shit less often when people don't wash their hands?
  
  Air hand driers cover your hands in other peoples fecal matter. That's a massive biological risk, especially with how many pathogens are transmitted from poop to mouth. Using a urinal will most often result in no backsplash, keeping my hands pretty clean. To wash off that minor, if any, urine which got on my hands and end with others poop on my hands from the air drier has put me in a much worse position. That's all I'm saying, is there's 100% situations where washing you hands makes no sense after a piss. But it's good practice for sure, unless an air drier is involved.
  
  Using a urinal will most often result in no backsplash, keeping my hands pretty clean.
  
  Using a urinal definitely results in backsplash, and because your hands and body are right in front of it, there's even less likelihood of avoiding it vs a toilet. Just because you don't see or feel it, doesn't mean it's not there.
urine is sterile

Not by the time it exits your body, no. Urine is sterile when it leaves the bladder, but it picks up bacteria on its way through the urethra
I bet you also refused to use masks because you couldn't breathe.
- I told folks to start buying masks in March 2020 and found a new gig as the one I had didn't enforce any mask requirements. But I'm also a backpacker who knows bacteria and the immune system pretty well. I don't read much research on urine, so again, please forgive that oversight. But funny how people aren't easily categorized, ah?
  
  So you only trust science sometimes? There are contradictions on whether air dryers are more or less hygienic than paper towels. But there's no contradictions on whether you should wash your hands.
  
  This study from the American Society of Microbiology specifically demonstrates how air driers at least add 3 bacterial colonies, and up to 254 colonies, when using an air drier in a public restroom: https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aem.00044-18. In addition, a Harvard review of the research also identifies that the chances of picking up a serious pathogen in the bathroom are quite small.
  
  So, having little chance in general yet using the air drier, which has shown to add bacteria to your hands in every single test, doesn't make sense after understanding this data. I'm a man of science, and this involves assessing all available data regarding the topic at hand. This being the case, the data provided above highlights how just not touching your face and washing your hands at the next opportunity after leaving a bathroom with only hand driers is the most logical move. But to each their own, I know microbiologist and virologist who are much smarter than I that refuse to use air driers, so I took note and make moves accordingly.
  
  There are two important quotes I would like to point out from that paper:
  
  It is certainly clear that hand washing can reduce the risk of infections (39). However, the deposition of potentially pathogenic bacteria on the hands after hand washing to remove transient floras reduces the effectiveness of hand washing
  
  Note the wording: "reduces effectiveness" means you should still do it, it is still effective, just less so.
  
  These results did not differ significantly from those for bacterial colonies deposited by hand dryers from the same bathrooms when calculations of the colonies deposited by hand dryers and small fans were corrected for the times for air exposure and rates of airflow from these two sources
  
  In other words: moving the air around is the cause, so a bathroom with paper towels that also has an air conditioner or fan will produce similar results. You know what else moves air around similar to a small fan? You when walking around, your hands are moving air and contacting lots of it.
  
  I could reply with a study that finds air dryers to be safer and filter more bacteria, and we could go back and forth until one of us grows tired. Instead I'll leave you with a review of several papers published on the matter where you can see that it's not so clear cut, there is discussion around it and it doesn't help that the vast majority of papers out there are financed by either paper companies or air drying companies (btw, kudos for citing one of the independently financed studies)
  
  https://academic.oup.com/jambio/article/130/1/25/6726080
  
  If you don't want to read this, the long story short is that we don't have enough evidence to conclude whether they are more or less hygienic:
  
  The second question we sought to answer is ‘Are PT safer than hand dryers relative to human infection risks?’ We found no data to support any human health claims relative to hand dryers vs PT use.
  
  And finally I leave you with another quote from this paper:
  
  Of notable importance is the need to evaluate risks from hand‐drying activities in consideration of handwashing scenarios, given that the greatest uncertainty in hand contamination is associated with the handwashing method, and not the drying method.
  
  In short: not washing your hands is worse than any drying method.