Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

On a recent trip to Berlin, Miss Poubelle stayed in a lovely apartment in the heart of the gay neighborhood around Nollendorfplatz. She was surprised, however, to go to the bathroom and discover a sticker on the toilet seat. On the left was a red-slashed scene of stick figure pissing into the toilet and the word Bitte 'please' underneath. On the right was the same stick figure sitting on the toilet with the word Danke 'thank you.' Though Miss Poubelle's German is weak, it was clear that the sticker asked men staying in the apartment not to stand up while urinating. Miss Poubelle did not comply with what seemed an unreasonable request. But every time she visited the toilet, she wondered why the sticker was there in the first place.

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The most obvious motivation for asking men to sit while urinating is a concern with cleanliness, given the fact that some splashing is a pretty common side effect of standing up to piss. And Miss Poubelle feels fairly confident that the gay man who owns that apartment put the sticker up because he wanted the bathroom to stay cleaner.

In fact, observant Muslim men are instructed not to stand while urinating, largely for reasons of cleanliness. Urine is considered unclean (najas), and the concern is that a drop of piss might splash on the clothes, rendering them unclean. Prayers said while wearing such clothes are invalid. Despite the religious prohibition, friends who have travelled in the Muslim world say that pissing while standing is not at all uncommon in many of these countries.

Outside the Muslim world, standing appears to be the normal and accepted male position for urinating, and with good reason. It's quicker, it doesn't require you to remove or lower your clothes, it can be done in nearly any place, and you don't have to touch a toilet seat itself of dubious cleanliness. This last point, in particular, carried some force with the men Miss Poubelle questioned. For many men, contact with something nasty on a toilet seat seemed far likelier than splashback.

Could there be another, more sinister, motivation? A bit of information circulating around the Internet claims that feminist groups in Sweden, Germany, and Australia are campaigning to make pissing while standing a crime, and are calling for the elimination of urinals. One widely cited story says that "A man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity and by extension, demeaning women" and quotes an unnamed source as saying that urinating while standing is "a nasty macho gesture."

But to Miss Poubelle's jaundiced eye, this looks very much like an urban myth. The tell-tale signs here are the fact that the exact same language is used in every post, that the groups supposedly leading the campaign are never identified, and that the quotes attributed to the unnamed spokeswoman are hard to believe. Swedes who were asked about this at one bulletin board had never heard of such a campaign, and Miss Poubelle can't find any evidence of an identifiable feminist group anywhere that makes such a call.

The story also plays nicely into stereotypes about feminists. Conservative columnists in many places cited the supposed pissing ban as an example of feminism out of control, and rose to thunder their defense of male privilege. And as much as Miss Poubelle hates to agree with the conservatives, if there is in fact such a feminist campaign, then they are right to oppose it. Those of us who want the government out of our bedrooms will hardly welcome its intrusion into our toilets as well.

But while the existence of a group of women devoted to ending the privilege of upright urination is doubtful, there is no doubt that many women would like to have the privilege for themselves. The idea of making female urinals unfortunately seems to have faded (though a noble attempt can be seen at http://www.urinal.net/dairy_queen). However, many web pages are devoted to instructing women in how they can learn to stand and piss into a standard toilet or a men's urinal with only a little practice. One method involves using the fingers to point the urine stream, but this seems to be too tricky for many women. Apparently growing in popularity are little gadgets for this purpose, which are generally made up of a funnel and some tubing.

Miss Poubelle wishes the best of luck to those sisters who have decided to experiment with pissing standing up. Perhaps a generation of women who stand to pee will help to remove the 'nasty macho' taint from this honorable and most convenient practice. In the meantime, she intends to continue to triumph in her masculinity and remain upright in her toilet.