There was an old article reposted to HN recently <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/23210/toilet-paper-history-how-america-convinced-world-wipe" rel="nofollow">http://mentalfloss.com/article/23210/toilet-paper-history-ho...</a>
Lots of Europeans use a bidet. It seems to be mainly the Anglophone countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand) that find using water to wash the nether regions as something strange.