A squat toilet (also known as an Arabic, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish or Natural-Position toilet; or Nile pan) is a toilet used by squatting, rather than sitting. There are several types of squat toilets, but they all consist essentially of a hole in the ground. The only exception is a "pedestal" squat toilet, which is of the same height as a sitting toilet. It is also possible to squat over sitting toilets, but this requires extra care as they are not specifically designed for squatting.
Proponents of squat toilets list many claimed benefits of their use. These claimed benefits often relate to the increase in the anorectal angle that occurs in the squatting position, whilst other claimed benefits appear to be based on weaker or theoretical evidence. For a discussion of the comparison between sitting and squatting, see Human defecation postures.
Famous quotes containing the words squat and/or toilet:
“The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
“When a daughter tries suicide
and the chimney falls down like a drunk
and the dog chews her tail off
and the kitchen blows up its shiny kettle
and the vacuum cleaner swallows its bag
and the toilet washes itself in tears ...”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)