Time to take a stand against the urinal

[Sheilbh]

The Guardian.

It's time to take a stand against the urinal
Peter Ormerod
The act of public urination has become a trope of hairy masculinity. Why can't we just sit down?
Friday 6 February 2015 13.29 GMT

If you've ever wondered how men achieved their cultural dominance in the world, I'm pretty sure I know what happened. Long ago, the gods disproportionately granted to men positions of power in politics, business, science and the arts – power they still exercise to this day. But there was a cost: they would have their dignity affronted routinely and be expected to conduct one of their most delicately personal acts in public. Yes, that's right: we were lumbered with the urinal.

The thing is, I'd happily trade in my male privilege for a world without them. I'm 35 years old and have never knowingly used one. Now I find such matters phenomenally difficult to discuss, and struggle to utter even the gentlest euphemism concerning the expulsion of bodily waste. But all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to say nothing – and as urinals are evil in porcelain, I feel a duty to let it all out.

My desperation has been prompted by the invention of a urinal attachment to the standard domestic lavatory. It encourages the worst in us men: the indulgence of a certain Neanderthal instinct to consider ourselves different in every way from The Ladies. For the unspoken truth is that women could "enjoy" urinals too if they really wanted to. But quite rightly, they'd rather queue for months than use the things.

Whether trough or bowl, the urinal subjects a man to the most wretched of indignities, to which we have become so inured that any deviation from the norm is considered effete. The urinal is inconsistent with civilisation: there is something barbarous about expecting men to expose themselves and carry out such a tender operation before others, especially while maintaining conversations with ostentatiously unembarrassed neighbours. And don't give me that "it's just a natural bodily function" nonsense: you don't leave the door open when you're in the cubicle, do you? (Do you ... ?)

The act of public urination, a practice encouraged by the urinal, has become a trope of hairy masculinity: it forms part of a key scene in the putative board-sweeper Boyhood, and is something in my experience expected of full-bladdered men at barbecues and so forth. But it's surely the nastiest and grisliest way of affirming one's testosterone levels. Yes, there are times when going al fresco is essential to prevent further humiliation, but I've managed to avoid the eventuality on all but one occasion, our car having had to stop in the Northamptonshire village of, ahem, Weedon.

The existence of the urinal has nothing to do with biological necessity and everything to do with showy manliness. Men: you can do it seated, you know, which is a thousand times more hygienic and gets around the whole seat-up/down business. The Main Drain just encourages bad habits – and, not for the first time, the Germans are way ahead of us. Increasingly, the average boy is taught to be a sitzpinkler, the meaning of which can be inferred. In fact, so advanced are they that a judge over there has just had to consider whether it's even legal for men to do the deed upright.

Yes, it's time to take a stand against the urinal. In fact, the only suitable place for the urinal in the 21st century is behind glass in an art gallery. It's just got to go.

I think he would be horrified if he knew what happens when girls go to the toilets together.

[mongers]

Wow, talk about wallpaper journalism. 

[Admiral Yi]

What a fucking retard.  If you're scared of another dude seeing your weenie, go ahead and squat to take a pee, but leave the rest of us out of it.

[CountDeMoney]

Since when does taking advantage of biological efficiency in plumbing design become "a trope of hairy masculinity?"   What an asshole.

[DGuller]

Do you actually expose yourself when using a urinal?    In most bathrooms, I don't see my neighbor's wang until I lean right over.

[grumbler]

There's no link to this article like there would be if someone wanted their post to be taken seriously, so I'm guessing that this is actually The Onion.

[grumbler]

Do you actually expose yourself when using a urinal?    In most bathrooms, I don't see my neighbor's wang until I lean right over.

Well played.

[Sheilbh]

Do you actually expose yourself when using a urinal?    In most bathrooms, I don't see my neighbor's wang until I lean right over.

I once spoke to a gay American who said that our urinals are the sort that only very gay bars in America have. I don't know if that's true.

[Caliga]

I don't care if other dudes see my wang.  In fact I don't know how they couldn't... it's like an elephant's trunk down there.

[Admiral Yi]

I once spoke to a gay American who said that our urinals are the sort that only very gay bars in America have. I don't know if that's true.

The circular kind, where you're all facing one another?

[Ed Anger]

I don't use strange restrooms.

[Caliga]

When I was in Italy (or was it Switzerland?  ) there were a lot of men's rooms with like this long stainless steel trough thing and you just whizzed into that.

[Ed Anger]

Gross

[Caliga]

Now I want some espresso chased with a shot of grappa.

[Ed Anger]

And a gelato.