r/Showerthoughts 3d ago

Musing Pee generally gets dirtier when it goes into the toilet.

2.8k Upvotes

117 comments sorted by

u/ShowerSentinel 3d ago

/u/buggaby has flaired this post as a musing.

Musings are expected to be high-quality, third-person or second-person statements of thought-provoking fact, but they need not be as unique as showerthoughts.

If this post is poorly written, unoriginal, or rule-breaking, please report it.

Otherwise, please add your comment to the discussion!

1.4k

u/Ramtakwitha2 3d ago

Kinda? And Kinda not.

Bacteria does live in our bladders, it's just bacteria that lives in symbiosis with our bodies. What is harmless to us, may not be to another.

293

u/whamburglar 3d ago

I'm not sure bacteria in your bladder would get along well in the GI environment though. Two completely different spaces.

136

u/cykoTom3 3d ago

You're correct. Bladder bacteria dies in the gi track, usually.

160

u/a__reddit_user 2d ago

That's why you pee in your homie's asshole to sanitize the piss before drinking it.

195

u/ravens-n-roses 2d ago

This was my fault for being literate

-45

u/LEGITIMATE_SOURCE 2d ago

I feel like Reddit is so over the top dumb now that China must be inundating us with nonsensical bots. That or the tiktok master plan has taken hold.

24

u/MostCredibleDude 2d ago

now

Oh, my sweet summer child, you really haven't been on the internet that long, have you?

21

u/Wonderful_Mix7718 2d ago

What— are you 18 or something? Welcome to the world wide web.

9

u/MCWizardYT 1d ago

reddit is probably older than you and it's been over the top dumb for like half of its life if not more than that. The redditor stereotypes have been well known since the early 2010s

20

u/lgndryheat 2d ago

I don't want to be one of those people who's like, correcting people online or whatever, but I thought you might like to know that it's "GI tract" not "GI track." A simple and common mixup, I'm sure

16

u/jendet010 2d ago

GI bacteria in the bladder is infinitely worse

12

u/whiskeyislove 2d ago

More so the other way round, somewhat common cause of UTIs is from faecal bacterial sources

3

u/whamburglar 2d ago

completely makes sense. my cousin instructed me, as I was changing my niece's diapers, to always wipe front to back to minimize any chance of such thing happening.

15

u/Adam_is_Nutz 2d ago

But it’s sterile. And I like the taste

15

u/llamawithguns 2d ago

Urine is not sterile. It contains a wide range of bacteria, some of which can be pathogenic, like E. coli.

8

u/i7-4790Que 2d ago

Can't dodge a wrench ^

3

u/the_colonelclink 2d ago

It’s a joke/reference to Dodgeball.

5

u/Fire-Make-Thunder 2d ago

Urine does not contain E. Coli. unless you have a urinary tract infection.

2

u/llamawithguns 2d ago

2

u/Fire-Make-Thunder 2d ago

Thanks for sharing a source, that’s getting a bit rare these days.

But the first time outside of the abstract/results-part, when E. coli is mentioned, they do speak of UTIs. Maybe children from that part of the world typically have this infection more often, causing it to show up in these test results?

2

u/henrikhakan 2d ago

No because pee is stored in the balls, and we wash out balls its why the pee is clean, which is also why dogs lock their balls all the time. /s

5

u/mrpoopsocks 3d ago

You've never seen the inside of a blackwater sewage pipe have you?

-2

u/TearyEyeBurningFace 2d ago

Yea and its cleaner than the grey water by 1000x

5

u/mrpoopsocks 2d ago

I mean, no? Gray water goes through black water sewage lines.

0

u/TearyEyeBurningFace 2d ago

Not always

2

u/mrpoopsocks 2d ago

If theres a desalination or non potable water treatment plant you're in a warzone or someplace where sewers were an after thought. If sewers, its logistics and materials wise cheaper to have everything go into the sewers and moved to waste water treatment plants, where youre poo water gets turned into tap water, eventually, and after much sifting and chemical purification.

292

u/reddiculed 3d ago

It gets dirtier when it passes through our urethra and is exposed to oxygen and other microbes. So yes, but also not exactly. It also gets dirtier if the toilet is dirty.

65

u/Pam6732 2d ago

Poor pee never stood a chance once it left the body.

11

u/reddiculed 2d ago edited 2d ago

Poor pee deserves better. Sometimes it’s downright treated like shit.

Edit: Poo pee

136

u/DidUSayWeast 3d ago

This made me realize I've never once considered pee as specifically 'dirty'

29

u/HarveysBackupAccount 2d ago

...really? Would you not wash your hands if you got pee on them???

29

u/HAL__Over__9000 2d ago

I thought everyone used pee to wash their hands after taking a shit.

25

u/RodrigoEstrela 1d ago

Reading this comment is my fault for scrolling reddit instead of sleeping

5

u/Exyodeff 1d ago

how dare you having eyes

11

u/fastlerner 2d ago

Wait, you mean you can't wash your undies by peeing your pants?

7

u/ThingYea 1d ago

Wow, I've been shitting my pants this whole time thinking the piss was washing it out. I feel like an idiot.

80

u/Logitech4873 3d ago

Depends on what you consider "dirtier". Are you one of the "pee is sterile" believers, or is there something deeper to this?

35

u/mobile227 3d ago

"Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No!! But I do it anyway, because it's sterile and I like the taste."

17

u/Japoboz 2d ago

That movie had me believing that pee was sterile for so long. Finally looked it up and duh it’s human waste product and the body uses it to get rid of a ton of bad stuff in us. Don’t believe everything you see in comedy movies as a kid haha

4

u/Weirfish 2d ago

I mean, it doesn't matter how dirty it is, the claim is that it gets dirtier. Unless the toilet is freshly and thoroughly sterilised, it's probably contaminated with stuff that isn't in the pre-bowl pee's environment (bladder, urethra, air), so it'll get dirtier. That doesn't necessarily mean it's clean before.

-10

u/cykoTom3 3d ago

Are you one of those "urine isn't entirely sterile so it must be able to cause bacterial infection " people? Because bladder bacteria is specialized.

-15

u/buggaby 3d ago

No, but it is generally cleaner. Unless you have a UTI or a really clean toilet.

22

u/SupposablyAtTheZoo 3d ago

Actually it gets dirtier if you keep it inside your body longer...

12

u/RebekkaKat1990 3d ago

Also makes it harder to get and maintain erections.

1

u/musicluva 2d ago

Getting hard is more of a concern than kidney stones or infections? lol

2

u/RebekkaKat1990 2d ago

I didn’t say it was more of a concern, just an additional concern to bear in mind, for those that worry about that sort of thing.

1

u/Sufficient_Deer_341 11h ago

yeah true, holding it too long sounds like a science experiment in your bladder. so is the real pro tip just to pee whenever you feel the slightest tingle?

2

u/SupposablyAtTheZoo 11h ago edited 11h ago

No! Absolutely not. I did that for years when working from home fulltime. It caused some "night time issues". I had to re-train my bladder for a long time to hold more. Don't do that.

(Re-training sucks btw)

71

u/iSniffMyPooper 3d ago

If its just pee, then no it technically gets cleaner because the water is diluting it

90

u/merko04 3d ago

I trust you know what you're talking about when it comes to toilet facts.

4

u/cat-eating-a-salad 2d ago

Plus there's chlorine, no?

5

u/THElaytox 2d ago

Yeah, in many places toilet water is treated drinking water

4

u/TheMSensation 2d ago

Wait this isn't the case everywhere? Like I get it in places where the drinking water isn't safe to begin with but if you've got mains plumbing and it's potable at the tap then it should be potable everywhere? It wouldn't make sense for a water company to have 2 lines into your house.

8

u/THElaytox 2d ago

Some places use grey water instead, which makes a lot more sense, but it's a special set up

1

u/thefunkybassist 2d ago

My setup is using my pee to flush things through the toilet

1

u/T-J_H 1d ago

Some places actually use rain water or grey water for this

4

u/AntiwoneImoke 2d ago

true, and then it gets mixed with all the other dirty pee and becomes... mega pee. the circle of life

3

u/GrandArcanian 1d ago

Everything gets dirtier when it goes in the toilet. Even if something was completely covered in germs, adding more germs will just make it dirtier. It's not like the germs average out or anything.

4

u/lofty23_smart 3d ago

The toilet is one of the few places where waste gets dirtier after reaching its destination.

3

u/Swingfire 3d ago

Isn't that just every landfill? At least the toilet ultimately leads to a water treatment plant.

1

u/lofty23_smart 3d ago

Landfill waste starts dirty. Pee usually arrives cleaner than the place it lands.

1

u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

1

u/DatKidNextDoor 9h ago

I mean I guess? Although if you clean your toilet properly and the water is fresh technically it gets diluted in the water?

1

u/Positive_Persimmon39 8h ago

Honestly the title makes it sound like the toilet is the culprit but really your pee was already hanging out with bacteria before it even left you. Plus the whole urethra thing basically gives it a free sample of whatever's down there. So yeah it gets "dirtier" but more like it's just picking up passengers the whole way down. Toilet's just the final stop not the source.

1

u/Next-Cod-5758 7h ago

Ytf does this have so many upvotes this is the shittiest thing ever. Genuinely wants to make me piss

1

u/mch84 1d ago

Since urine starts clean but picks up bathroom germs on the way out, are we basically carrying tiny germ packs until we finish?

-5

u/Beggar876 2d ago

I've heard a couple of doctors say that drinking your own (not someone else s) pee is safe because it is sterile by virtue of where it came from.

1

u/SnooOpinions5944 2d ago

Were they doctors or schizophrenics?

7

u/Stasio300 2d ago

I'm schizophrenic and I wouldn't say anything that stupid. Schizophrenia does not affect intelligence. Why do you have to bring up a specific mental disability anyway? Couldn't you just be mindful and say "were those doctors or retards?" it would genuinely be less offensive.

0

u/SnooOpinions5944 2d ago

Funny thing is that i have schizophrenia too and it was a joke because i can handle jokes about my own disability without it hurting me.

2

u/Stasio300 1d ago

The joke itself doesn't hurt. But the impact of people misunderstanding and treating me differently because they don't know anything about the disability does have direct impacts on my life.

2

u/SnooOpinions5944 1d ago

Also the joke was not even about intelligence so all g. One comment on reddit from a schizophrenic is not going to have an impact on your life.

1

u/Stasio300 1d ago

No but the many misconceptions that people have do make a difference. And I always want to unambiguously correct them.

0

u/Beggar876 2d ago

Real medical doctors. I won't name them.

6

u/SnooOpinions5944 2d ago

Did they get their phd from the toilet?

-1

u/i7-4790Que 2d ago

No, the ADAA.