Bristles were a mistake.

I wonder if there’s some kind of absorbent silicone foam you could boil, if you wanted to do a modern spin on xylospongium.

Also, I just looked up the Wiki page, and WTF:

In the middle of the first century, the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger reported that a Germanic gladiator died by suicide with a sponge on a stick. According to Seneca, the gladiator hid himself in the latrine of an amphitheatre and pushed the wooden stick deep into his throat.