Using the bathroom has come a long way from when ancient Greeks used stones and pieces of clay for personal hygiene.
Ancient Romans were a bit more sophisticated than the Greeks when it came to cleansing: They opted for a sponge on the end of a long stick that was shared by everyone in the community. When not in use, that stick stayed in a bucket of heavily salted seawater in the communal bathroom. The public facilities were also equipped with a long marble bench with holes carved out for—well, you know what they were carved out for—and holes at the front for your sponge on a stick to slide through. Romans didn’t have dividing walls, either, so you sat right next to that cute girl from the insulae down the road.
By the era of Colonial America, things weren’t much more advanced. After the rebels had left Great Britain for the colonies, the best things they could find were corncobs. Ouch. It wasn’t until later that they realized they could use old newspapers and catalogues. The whole reason there was a hole through the corner of the Old Farmer’s Almanac was so people would be able to hang it on a hook in their outhouses. (It makes you look at your current bathroom reading material a little differently, doesn't it?)
While Thomas Crapper is commonly given credit for inventing the first flushing toilet in the late 1800s, the first version can actually be traced back to 1596. At this time, a British nobleman, Sir John Harrington, first engineered and invented a valve that could release water from the water closet (WC) when pulled. Sir Harrington, who was also the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, recommended pulling the valve (“flushing” the toilet) once a day for sanitary purposes. Commercially produced toilet paper didn’t begin circulating until 1857.
One culture today still doesn’t want anything to do with toilet paper; it’s widely known that many in India (except for Westerners who visit) use the left-hand-and-bucket-of-water method. Most actually argue that using water is cleaner than using tissue paper, and consider using anything but water to be filthy.