It’s important to establish first that there’s no single answer, but rather a series of contributing factors: first and foremost, the bidet, invented between the 17th and 18th centuries, had very little success at Versailles, which immediately led to its almost complete rejection. Why almost? Because those bidets were installed in French brothels, where prostitutes used them to wash themselves after performing their duties.
The noblest segment of French society therefore decided to completely snub the bidet, a symbol of degradation and the less wealthy segment of the community.
Thus, the association of the bidet with the work of a prostitute arose among our French cousins. In Italy, on the other hand, the Queen of Naples, Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine, required one to be present in her personal bathroom, and from there the use spread throughout the court, and then throughout the entire country.
A perfect example of how trends dictated “from above” can influence the social habits of an entire population, and even their personal hygiene. The Queen of Naples’s decision can therefore be considered the determining factor in the now indispensable presence of the bidet in our bathrooms.
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The history of the bidet can therefore be considered one of the first examples of how the choices and habits of a given society’s elites can significantly impact the lifestyles of an entire nation.
While in Versailles this sanitary fixture was degraded and considered rather vulgar, in Naples, on the contrary, it became an essential tool for the personal hygiene of the upper middle class. The economic and cultural hegemony of the wealthiest segments of society is, ultimately, evident even in the most intimate spheres of each of us.
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