for urinitory purposes only
February 1, 2022 5:27 AM Subscribe
"The funnel-like device that is is shared by everyone using the urinal also proved not to be a popular feature. Because of those reasons, not more than 700 'She-inals' were sold before Urinette, the company that manufactured it, sold the manufacturing rights."The Dairy Queen in Port Charlotte, FL. Thailand's Hat Noppharat Thara at Phi Phi Islands National Park. The Victorian fixtures at the pierhead at Rothesay, Isle of Bute. And the remaining Top Ten Urinals in the world.
More from Urinal.net:
Piss and Moan: The following are some of the more memorable items from the Urinal Dot Net mailbag (Pour one out [piss one out?] for Ryan Russel still wandering the Mall of America in vain I'm sure.)
Top 1,000 Urinals: Other fantastic installations
Career Opportunities page is unfortunately 404'd
[Originally posted to MF by adamrice on August 1, 2003]
"You have accidentally sent photos of your child to Urinal Dot Net"
posted by Ickster at 5:48 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ickster at 5:48 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
My top two experiences: Rothesay, and the super deep trough urinals at the bus station in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. At completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
posted by joeyh at 5:50 AM on February 1, 2022
posted by joeyh at 5:50 AM on February 1, 2022
Was going to have to make a submission if this amazing website didn't already contain it but they've got us all covered with the bizarre double urinal at the incredible House on the Rock in Wisconsin. (scroll to the bottom) I can't imagine many strangers have used this thing together.
posted by sewellcm at 6:03 AM on February 1, 2022
posted by sewellcm at 6:03 AM on February 1, 2022
Make sure to check out what was the world's largest public bathroom complex in Chongqing, part of the incredibly bizarre Foreigner Street "non-theme" park (there were some oddly translated signs calling it a "non-theme park"). Looks like it's number 2 (haha) on the Top 10 list. This NBC News article about their application for a world record says that there were 1000 toilets, but I seem to remember the count was closer to 5000 when I went.
I visited in about 2010 first, after reading about it in a Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon, and the urinals looked like what you see in the pictures; some were weird or fancy, but then there were hundreds of run-of-the-mill urinals. About half were fully outdoors, and some of those had walkways above so people could be looking down at you. Went back in 2014 and the toilet area was mostly closed and overgrown, though the rest of the park was really busy.
Looks like it might have shut down in 2015.
posted by msbrauer at 6:04 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I visited in about 2010 first, after reading about it in a Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon, and the urinals looked like what you see in the pictures; some were weird or fancy, but then there were hundreds of run-of-the-mill urinals. About half were fully outdoors, and some of those had walkways above so people could be looking down at you. Went back in 2014 and the toilet area was mostly closed and overgrown, though the rest of the park was really busy.
Looks like it might have shut down in 2015.
posted by msbrauer at 6:04 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
the bizarre double urinal
That reminded me of some open-air multi-person urinals that I thought I'd seen in pictures of large European events. I thought France, but found what I'd seen when google image searching belgium street urinals. Not just close quarters like the Wisconsin example, but out in the open!
posted by msbrauer at 6:08 AM on February 1, 2022
That reminded me of some open-air multi-person urinals that I thought I'd seen in pictures of large European events. I thought France, but found what I'd seen when google image searching belgium street urinals. Not just close quarters like the Wisconsin example, but out in the open!
posted by msbrauer at 6:08 AM on February 1, 2022
I searched both the top 10 and the top 1000 posts, and while the latter lists 10 locations in Belgium, somehow none of them are the public urinals set up on the exterior wall of St. Catherine's in Brussels. Sure, they are not very prettied up, but that lack of infrastructure is part of the charm - it's really just a pipe running water down the wall and some external dividers, which makes it (as far as I know) the only place in the world you can legally walk up to a church and just take a piss right on it.
posted by solotoro at 6:11 AM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by solotoro at 6:11 AM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
As a friend noted years ago re: She-inal, HER-inal was RIGHT THERE
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:25 AM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:25 AM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I can't find any hint of the greatest urinal I have ever seen here, which only underscores the degree to which the experience of using it borders on fantasy, and makes me struggle to rectify the memory of it with reality. To be sure, when I encountered this thing, I paused and carefully glanced around a bit to try to confirm that there were other people actually peeing on it.
It was 2013 somewhere near the Xin'anjiang Reservoir in inland China, at a very modern rest stop along a major expressway. In the men's room I found a cascade of water flowing down a wall of plate glass around 40 feet wide and 12 feet tall. The procedure, as I came to know it, was to pee into this flowing water, which disappeared quietly into the floor. Visible through the flowing water, beyond the sheet of glass, was a forest diorama of real trees.
When I got back to the car I asked my wife what the women's room was like. Normal, she said.
posted by rlk at 6:38 AM on February 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
It was 2013 somewhere near the Xin'anjiang Reservoir in inland China, at a very modern rest stop along a major expressway. In the men's room I found a cascade of water flowing down a wall of plate glass around 40 feet wide and 12 feet tall. The procedure, as I came to know it, was to pee into this flowing water, which disappeared quietly into the floor. Visible through the flowing water, beyond the sheet of glass, was a forest diorama of real trees.
When I got back to the car I asked my wife what the women's room was like. Normal, she said.
posted by rlk at 6:38 AM on February 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
There are some great urnials in here, but it is missing my all-time favorite
Cima Road Shell a must stop on the way between LA and Vegas. if you find;t relieve yourself at the work's tallest thermometer in Vegas.
That Chinese one sounds great. In Costa Rica I recall a white tile wall with water dripping down that you just had to pee in the stream.
posted by CostcoCultist at 7:13 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Cima Road Shell a must stop on the way between LA and Vegas. if you find;t relieve yourself at the work's tallest thermometer in Vegas.
That Chinese one sounds great. In Costa Rica I recall a white tile wall with water dripping down that you just had to pee in the stream.
posted by CostcoCultist at 7:13 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I got back to the car I asked my wife what the women's room was like. Normal, she said.
I went to a public bath in eastern Jiangsu with my wife and some friends and we were split up into the men's and women's side. My side had a giant hot tub that looked kind of like a huge barrel cut in half. You could've fit 100 people in it. There were attendants everywhere. It felt really fancy.
I asked my wife what her side was like. There were a couple shower heads and some rusty lockers, she said.
posted by msbrauer at 7:18 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I went to a public bath in eastern Jiangsu with my wife and some friends and we were split up into the men's and women's side. My side had a giant hot tub that looked kind of like a huge barrel cut in half. You could've fit 100 people in it. There were attendants everywhere. It felt really fancy.
I asked my wife what her side was like. There were a couple shower heads and some rusty lockers, she said.
posted by msbrauer at 7:18 AM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I went to a bar in Greenwhich, England that had these along the mens room walls.
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:21 AM on February 1, 2022
posted by Liquidwolf at 7:21 AM on February 1, 2022
This is how astronauts pee in space, Shannon Corbeil, We Are The Mighty, September 02, 2021:
posted by cenoxo at 9:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
“Let’s talk about peeing in space.” — Mary Robinette Kowal, Hugo-Award Winning AuthorMore (or less) in the article.
During the space race of the Cold War, NASA scientists were so excited to get a man into space, they failed to come up with elegant means for him to relieve himself. As a result, the first American in space, Alan Shepard, was forced to pee in his spacesuit.
At that point in time, NASA wasn’t even considering female astronauts. In fact, women weren’t admitted into the astronaut program until the late 1970s — and it wasn’t until 1983 that Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. “By this point,” observed Robinette Kowal, “the space program was built around male bodies.”
This exclusion wouldn’t be comical except for the fact that male astronauts literally lied about their penis sizes, causing failures in early pee-sheath engineering.
That’s right, our early heroes of space exploration refused to use “small” condoms and would instead pee all over themselves. I don’t blame men for this. I honestly blame toxic masculinity, penis shaming, and lazy men who refuse to learn how to give sexual pleasure to their female partners — but I digress….
posted by cenoxo at 9:17 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Walworth County Fairgrounds in Elkhorn Wisconsin has urinals oriented in a circle like these ones, which are mildly creepy since you're halfway facing everyone else standing at the other urinals.
The "best of" mentions Kohler, WI; someone above mentioned House On The Rock's urinals...Wisconsin, being a big beer-drinking state, must just have an affinity for interesting ways to get rid of that beer when you're done with it.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:22 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
The "best of" mentions Kohler, WI; someone above mentioned House On The Rock's urinals...Wisconsin, being a big beer-drinking state, must just have an affinity for interesting ways to get rid of that beer when you're done with it.
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:22 AM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
An Explanation of Urinals and Urinal Culture, Medium.com, Chris Higgins, Sep 9, 2014 – “I recently learned that: a) my wife was unaware of the complex social and technical interactions associated with urinals; and b) there are sometimes couches in women’s restrooms. Knowing these two things to be, I guess, facts, I felt that I should share my knowledge of urinals and men’s restrooms in general, for the benefit of those for whom these rarified spaces remain mysterious.”
posted by cenoxo at 9:38 AM on February 1, 2022
posted by cenoxo at 9:38 AM on February 1, 2022
The Rothesay ones looks like you'd end up with pee on the floor. Are the bottoms of the urinals less flat than they look?
posted by tavella at 10:28 AM on February 1, 2022
posted by tavella at 10:28 AM on February 1, 2022
Is there a urinal anywhere in the world that the last guy before you has not found a way to piss on the floor of?
posted by flabdablet at 11:40 PM on February 1, 2022
posted by flabdablet at 11:40 PM on February 1, 2022
That’s right, our early heroes of space exploration refused to use “small” condoms and would instead pee all over themselves. I don’t blame men for this. I honestly blame toxic masculinity, penis shaming, and lazy men who refuse to learn how to give sexual pleasure to their female partners — but I digress
It never occurred to me that this anecdote ought to be taken as straightforward fact. I mean, it has a punchline? (that they changed the sizes to three degrees of “enormous”)
posted by atoxyl at 1:10 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
It never occurred to me that this anecdote ought to be taken as straightforward fact. I mean, it has a punchline? (that they changed the sizes to three degrees of “enormous”)
posted by atoxyl at 1:10 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
In college, my friend David changed the way that I pee.
I should point out that by college age, your excretory rituals are well-established and it's rare that you change your habits and any change is likely to be minor rather than major, barring injury that requires other approaches.
At any rate, we were standing before a 2-banger in a fast food place and he said something like "Sloan valve company - you see that on pretty much all of them." This is because the majority of flush mechanisms in public urinals in the US are made by the Sloan Valve company. The change was that now and forever more, I glance at the flush mechanism and check to see whether or not it's a Sloan and celebrate quietly when it is not.
Related: David's dad was a chemist. When David was younger, he and he dad went to a ball game and they went to the rest room together and his dad started talking to the guy next to him, leading with "are you a chemist?" and it turned out he was and so they struck up a conversation about various chemistry things. On they way out, David asked how his dad knew that the other man was a chemist. "Because a chemist washes his hands before and after he goes to the bathroom."
posted by plinth at 7:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
I should point out that by college age, your excretory rituals are well-established and it's rare that you change your habits and any change is likely to be minor rather than major, barring injury that requires other approaches.
At any rate, we were standing before a 2-banger in a fast food place and he said something like "Sloan valve company - you see that on pretty much all of them." This is because the majority of flush mechanisms in public urinals in the US are made by the Sloan Valve company. The change was that now and forever more, I glance at the flush mechanism and check to see whether or not it's a Sloan and celebrate quietly when it is not.
Related: David's dad was a chemist. When David was younger, he and he dad went to a ball game and they went to the rest room together and his dad started talking to the guy next to him, leading with "are you a chemist?" and it turned out he was and so they struck up a conversation about various chemistry things. On they way out, David asked how his dad knew that the other man was a chemist. "Because a chemist washes his hands before and after he goes to the bathroom."
posted by plinth at 7:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
My favorite urinal so far is in the bar at the Torre Latinoamericana in Mexico City. You pee onto a glass window looking out over the city from 200m up.
My least favorite is in a conference hotel in New Jersey, where every surface of the entire bathroom is mirrored. Every surface. There is literally no place you can look without making someone uncomfortable.
When I worked in a building with a two-banger, there was a culture of letting the last person to leave flush and waiting to populate the other station. But there were enough visitors that it often got muddled and speckled your pants with spray. I can't imagine who thought that was a good idea.
posted by eotvos at 8:22 AM on February 2, 2022
My least favorite is in a conference hotel in New Jersey, where every surface of the entire bathroom is mirrored. Every surface. There is literally no place you can look without making someone uncomfortable.
When I worked in a building with a two-banger, there was a culture of letting the last person to leave flush and waiting to populate the other station. But there were enough visitors that it often got muddled and speckled your pants with spray. I can't imagine who thought that was a good idea.
posted by eotvos at 8:22 AM on February 2, 2022
Well, actually maybe my least favorite, in principle, are the troughs built into the customer side of the bars in very old-timey saloons in central Mexico that allow you to pee without leaving your seat. But, I've never seen anybody actually use them in contemporary times. I wonder if anyone ever really did. It seems to be a joke. Or maybe I've just been going to the wrong bars.
posted by eotvos at 8:31 AM on February 2, 2022
posted by eotvos at 8:31 AM on February 2, 2022
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