Men are from Mars,
women are from Venus.
Earth is complicated,
because men have a penis.
I came across an article from the Guardian that attacked the common male practice of standing while urinating. I was vexed by this, especially after it took a recent court order to confirm that German men weren’t legally required to become Sitzpinklers.
According to the author (who is a guy), the urinal is a symbol of the primitive male, and he thinks that we’ve been punished with the urinal in exchange for centuries of “male privilege.” Gimme a break. I’ve seen women squatting in urban bushes, so don’t start on this self-righteous line about the “male privilege” of urinary freedoms.
What an unimaginative choice of words for a writer on topics of gender. I can always rely on the most genteel and effeminate of men to sell me out for ratings, but I was shocked to learn that this was the same writer who wants us to stop writing thank you letters. Such conflicting positions for a guy living in Leamington Spa, and who probably has a lot of appearances to keep up.
“Male privilege” [yaaaawwwwwwwn] is a tiresome banality that will soon join a host of others that now mean nothing. Such culturally sensitive platitudes as “tolerance,” “ignorant,” “racism,” etc. have sufficiently conveyed frustration when imagination or vocabulary were lacking. That is to say, I think by “male privilege,” the author actually meant “the immutable fact that I possess an organ capable of sending excretory fluid away from my body rather effectively.” Forgive me if I’m not ashamed of having one.
And still, his charge is a personal one. The author projects his own urinary diffidence onto other men, assuming that we’re all as bashful as he is in the loo. I can think of only one time when I “couldn’t go” at a urinal. It was during the World Cup final last year, and I had cleverly run into the bathroom at the 45th minute. I failed to consider that my bladder was only half-full, so with a dozen hulking Germans crowding around me and waiting their turn, I gave up and walked back to my table to drink more beer. I went back in 15 minutes later among a larger crowd and performed marvelously.
It apparently doesn’t take much to set this guy off, either. He wrote his pissy little treatise in response to seeing an ad for a new invention called the MainDrain, a detachable repository that extends out from (and drains into) your toilet. It looks like more of a gag than anything, as it’s made from plastic and sells for just over 60 quid, but I’d rather lift the seat and save my money.
Regarding the urinal, he claims:
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.”
I beg to differ, me old china. You see, urinals exist for their sheer accessibility, simplicity, durability, and maintainability. A man can get to one within a few steps of the bathroom entrance, unzip his trousers in a matter of seconds, and do his business in under a minute. Meanwhile, the ladies are queued into the lobby, because their bathroom has been occupied for the last 8 minutes by a drunk 30-something on the rag who didn’t bring a tampon and is frantically texting her friend to bring her one.
The author goes on to assert that urinal usage encourages public urination, surely basing it on some half-brained conditioning theory. Let’s get one thing clear: As a man, I’m capable of peeing wherever I want. If you take away urinals, I’ll just piss all over the seat and bathroom floor out of spite, or worse, I’ll start tinkling outside again like my hairy ancestors. Urinals don’t encourage irresponsible urination, they prevent it.
In fact, the urinal is good for everybody, not just men.
Urinals cut down usage time in the men’s bathroom. Have you ever gone to a busy venue and seen women using the men’s bathroom? It happens a lot in America. Men get in and get out pretty fast, because no man in his right mind willingly evacuates his bowels in a public restroom. I’ve seen bars where women take all stalls in their bathroom, and spill over into the stall(s) in the men’s room, while men are relegated to the urinal only. That’s right, men and women can pee in the same bathroom, at the same time, different ways, and in perfect harmony.
Urinals also save a lot of water. Newer conventional toilets hold about 1.5 gallons of water, and can use anywhere from 2,190 to 4,380 gallons of water annually. Newer conventional urinals hold between 1 and 1.25 gallons, so you’re looking at a 17-34% conservation of water with every urinal flush. Moreover, the increasing popularity of the waterless urinal could see water usage decline to zero once prices for them decline and governments offer credits for businesses that purchase them.
Finally, for anyone interested, they make female urinals. Most people don’t realize that women can pee standing up. In fact, they can direct their stream of urine much farther than men, so don’t bet against a women in a pissing contest. If you’ve ever noticed urinals in a bathroom that are lower and wider than normal, those are unisex urinals (see below).
Instead of getting so bent out of shape by the invention of a convenient household urinal for men, the Sitzpinkler author should’ve attacked products on the market made for women aspiring to pee like men. In fact, if you Google “group standing at urinal,” you won’t get results on how hard it is to pee in front of people, or pictures of guys lined up in a restroom. Instead, you get adverts for the Pez “specially designed female urinal,” which is basically a glorified funnel. Save yourselves some money, ladies, and continue peeing behind bushes.
In a way, I hope the Pez standing portable urinal for women really takes off, and this guy is forced to watch women pee all over the place. Maybe then he’ll remember he has a penis, and actually use it the way it was intended.
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