I can't figure out this washlet thing. 

There might be such a thing as a "bidet person." It's like poly, frankly, and I don't want to hear about that either. Don't talk to me about it. I have a lot of friends who really want to talk about them and they do. If I ever encounter a polycule with a washlet, I'll have to fake my own death.

These devices engender a cult-like quality, based on a shared, asymmetrical intimacy. I know a statistically material number of people who have imported the Toto Washlet, so enamored were they after coming here to Japan that that they could not conceive of a world where mere paper were sufficient for this breed of tender maintenance. They're bound together by this secret knowledge. And, in what I assume is a form of reproduction, they want to engulf you in that nimbus.

The one in this hotel isn't like anything I've ever seen. In comparison, the ones I'd observed in Italy were the kind of monstrous instrument you'd see in a museum exhibit concerning medieval torture. Twisted pipes made to sustain a proto-industrial, high PSI hydro-lance that augurs through some diagrammatical "point of ingress" and projects out the top of your skull, killing you instantly. A water-weapon. No, no. Not here. The Toto Washlet is a computer for your ass. 

There's a whole UI on a wall-mounted placque, in both Japanese end English. I opened the lid and pressed the button, and a curious thing peeked out of a hole like the bird-lie of a cuckoo clock. It was a perfect scepter and I immediately felt unworthy. And I think it agrees, because it doesn't want to do any of the things it was born to do. I pushed buttons like crazy, and remained utterly filthy. It was willing to forego its entire identity to deny me - and thus, it earned my respect.

(CW)TB out.