"Piss in the sink!"

May 23, 2009 2:11 PM

Why men should pee standing up.There's no arguing with science.
posted by chorltonmeateater (136 comments total)

Also, women should sit down to pee as well. None of that hovering bullshit that requires me to wipe down the toilet seat because it's covered in someone else's piss.
posted by giraffe at 2:14 PM on May 23 [15 favorites]

Um, the article appears to be making the case that men should pee standing up. I confess, I'm a little confused.
posted by Caduceus at 2:21 PM on May 23 [5 favorites]

Why didn't anyone tell me it was opposite day?!
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:23 PM on May 23

Yeah, if you read past the first two paragraphs, it seems to be the author is actually FOR upstanding pee practices.
posted by katillathehun at 2:23 PM on May 23

I remember having to tell a friend that if he couldn't hit a nonmoving target 2 feet away, with a tool he's had all his life, he didn't have the right to hold a firearm.
posted by yeloson at 2:23 PM on May 23 [23 favorites]

Sitzpinkler!
posted by chillmost at 2:24 PM on May 23

I don't care if you pee standing up, sitting down or doing cartwheels. BUT WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!!!! If you don't, I'll make you google "fecal coliform bacteria" which, despite the name, is NOT absent from your I-was-taught-to-not-pee-on-my-hands penis.
posted by DU at 2:25 PM on May 23 [6 favorites]

Also, the proper ending to the joke at the end of the article is "multiple orgasms."
posted by Caduceus at 2:27 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

Oh for God's sake. Obviously, that should say "why men should pee standing up". Dammit.

I'm going to only piss when crouching from now on, to avoid such confusion in the future.
posted by chorltonmeateater at 2:27 PM on May 23

I pee sitting because I am lazy. And a wimp.
posted by The Deej at 2:29 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

This morning as I was buttoning my shirt, a button fell off. After that, I picked up my briefcase, and the handle fell off. Then I went to open the door, and the doorknob fell off. I went to get into my car, and the door handle came off in my hand. Now I'm afraid to pee.
posted by netbros at 2:30 PM on May 23 [20 favorites]

I can write better when I'm standing.
posted by spoobnooble at 2:30 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Seconding the peeing sitting down, you don't have to aim.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 2:31 PM on May 23

If you don't, I'll make you google "fecal coliform bacteria" which, despite the name, is NOT absent from your I-was-taught-to-not-pee-on-my-hands penis.

You'll be wanting a keyboard sanitiser after that.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:33 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

If you have a foreskin, remember to roll it back before you pee standing up. Improves accuracy by a significant amount.

You wouldn't discharge a firearm with stuff hanging in front of the barrel, would you?
posted by porpoise at 2:33 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Pink Fuzzy Bunny - ...you don't have to aim.

But aiming is half the fun!
posted by porpoise at 2:34 PM on May 23

That essay was not in any way pleasant to read
posted by crayz at 2:34 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

What a shitty article.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:38 PM on May 23

What a shitty article.

Piss off! Oh wait...were you just taking the piss out of us?
posted by NoMich at 2:41 PM on May 23

There is a very simple solution to the whole conundrum of accidentally leaving the toilet seat up. And you menfolk get to maintain your manly manliness.

Leave the toilet seat down. Pee standing up as usual. Take one piece of toilet paper, do a quick swipe around the seat, drop, flush, done.

Voila! Now your special ladyfriend (or your special fucking ladyfriend) will not accidentally sit in the toilet bowl in the middle of the night on account of the seat being left up.

Besides, who wants to touch the underside of the toilet seat anyway! Automatic grounds for nasty, nasty.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 2:41 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

What a shitty article.

Yeah, you don't have to be a whiz to realise it's pissweak.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:42 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

You wouldn't discharge a firearm with stuff hanging in front of the barrel, would you?

You mean, like a silencer?
posted by jock@law at 2:43 PM on May 23

This is what the flap in boxers is for. Use it and you won't gather urine in the swan's neck joint that forms if you pee "going over the top". This prevents having to do the urethral shimmy.
posted by boo_radley at 2:46 PM on May 23

Good Lord is this satire? Someone tell me this is satire.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:46 PM on May 23

This is satire.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:53 PM on May 23

I knew I could count on you, Ubu.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:55 PM on May 23

Yeah, I'm totally down with this, boy howdy do I remember the last time that my skin or clothing came into contact with urine! Oh wait, nothing bad happened. Never mind.
posted by Brocktoon at 2:55 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

BUT WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!!!!

No kidding. It mystifies me why men don't feel they need to wash their hands after urinating ("I didn't get any on my hands, and besides, urine is sterile!"). Yeah, well you touched the underside of the damn seat, didn't you? What do you think has been sprayed on there?
posted by desjardins at 2:57 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Men touched the underside of the damn seat, sure.

Not with their hands, though. Every male I know can flip lids, flush toilets, etc., all with one foot.
posted by adipocere at 3:00 PM on May 23 [14 favorites]

Cecil Adams addresses why it's important to wash your hands after peeing. This includes:

I've said this before: your boxer-shorts region--from belly button to mid-thigh--is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria. These bacteria originated in your intestine, and some of them are deadly. Remember punji stakes? They were sharpened sticks that the Vietcong concealed point up along trails and daubed with excrement. If you stepped on one you had a good chance of contracting a fatal infection. Similarly, an otherwise not-so-serious gunshot or knife injury could kill you if it perforated the intestine and allowed coliform bacteria to spread around your abdomen.

Think about that the next time you eat sushi off your lover's stomach, or do body shots of tequila off some stranger's navel just because it's Cancun and you bought the giant comedy sombrero so you might as well.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:03 PM on May 23 [6 favorites]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: You're all lucky we don't poop standing up.
posted by Mcable at 3:03 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

I sit down to pee at night so I don't have to turn on the light...and because I'm tired.
posted by spacely_sprocket at 3:09 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

your boxer-shorts region--from belly button to mid-thigh--is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria.

Is this statement a myth, or can somebody point me to a credible cite?
posted by found missing at 3:11 PM on May 23

...body shots of tequila off some stranger's navel just because it's Cancun and you bought the giant comedy sombrero so you might as well.

Wait, the liquor doesn't kill the ickies?
posted by giraffe at 3:15 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

There is a very simple solution to the whole conundrum of accidentally leaving the toilet seat up.

There is no conundrum. If you want to sit down on the toilet, look to see if the seat if down. If it isn't, then you put it down. See, it has thingamabob on it, so it can swivel from one position to the other.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:16 PM on May 23 [15 favorites]

Not with their hands, though. Every male I know can flip lids, flush toilets, etc., all with one foot.


Seriously? I thought flushing with your foot was a girl thing.
posted by Bizurke at 3:19 PM on May 23

girl/woman thing — excuse me.
posted by Bizurke at 3:19 PM on May 23

Cecil Adams is pretty credible. He's been around since before Snopes. And the full article does go on to say that you're not likely to DIE if you eat a sandwich after peeing without washing your hands, but it is pretty unsanitary.

Wait, the liquor doesn't kill the ickies?

Doing a proper body shot entails encircling the mouth around the region where the liquor is. Your lips will come into contact with non-liquored skin. Or so I've heard anyway.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:19 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

I'm not saying he's a crackpot; I just want to know where he got that idea and what the evidence is to support it.
posted by found missing at 3:24 PM on May 23

BUT WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!!!!

Mmm. Pee Mints.
posted by ericb at 3:24 PM on May 23

Is this statement a myth, or can somebody point me to a credible cite?

Meh, it's just germophobia.

Germophobes like to rank acceptable levels of microbes against an impossible imaginary standard of zero, and turn a willing blind eye to the fact that everything is always, already "crawling with germs".

If the human body really created & disseminated stuff that was so intrinsically deadly to itself, the race would have died out aeons ago.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:25 PM on May 23 [41 favorites]

*note, don't shake hands with Ubu, EVER*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:30 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

My first year in the college dorms, my particular dorm was equipped with sinks in the rooms. Talk about a godsend--late night pees were dealt with right there in the room with no fuss. Though at least one lady friend was unimpressed.

There were regular urinals down the hall in the bathroom. In a full year's time, I never saw a single guy use a urinal.
posted by zardoz at 3:33 PM on May 23

hey, i'm the kind of person who'll eat any old food dropped on the floor without qualms, and we're generally a shoes-on-in-the-house kind of household.

this is quite deliberate, as it allows me to eat any street food i like in any developing country without getting a stomach upset. it's been more than a decade since i last had the runs in a loser country.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:34 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

What about the married guys?
posted by found missing at 3:34 PM on May 23

In a full year's time, I never saw a single guy use a urinal.

That would probably explain why they were still single.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:37 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

The article is making the case for men to piss standing up, but just in the sink.
Is this the egalitarian solution?? http://www.go-girl.com/
Can't we ll just get along?
posted by sea at 3:41 PM on May 23

Wait, the liquor doesn't kill the ickies?

If you're going to the bathroom with your wang in one hand and a glass in the other, and spilling booze to clean things off seems like a good idea, then I just don't know what to say.
posted by Sparx at 3:42 PM on May 23

I don't care if you pee standing up, sitting down or doing cartwheels. BUT WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!!!! If you don't, I'll make you google "fecal coliform bacteria" which, despite the name, is NOT absent from your I-was-taught-to-not-pee-on-my-hands penis.

I've never understood this argument, for this reason: what do you do after peeing/pooping & wiping, before washing your hands? You pull up your pants, tuck in your shirt, arrange your clothes about your waist. If the act of voiding inevitably contaminates your hands, then getting yourself presentable to go wash your hands likewise contaminates your clothes--especially around the pockets, where you keep your keys and wallet and whatnot. So unless you shuffle out of the stall with your pants around your ankles, handwashing isn't likely to be terribly effective at preventing infection from fecal coliform bacteria. There should be a plague of infections from coliform bacteria, but I'm not actually aware of any.

The real hygiene benefit of washing your hands after using the toilet is simply the fact of getting multiple hand-washing every day, which has an aggregate effect of lowering the germ-load in your environment.
posted by fatbird at 3:43 PM on May 23 [15 favorites]

And sometimes, given a sufficiently vigorous shake, on the walls, or even on the ceiling.

Ceiling? I am not judging any other man's technique in the washroom, but if you are winding up with piss on the ceiling, you may be doing it wrong.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:45 PM on May 23 [7 favorites]

If the human body really created & disseminated stuff that was so intrinsically deadly to itself, the race would have died out aeons ago.

I'm not so sure this is the case. The human body is capable of producing plenty of different toxins that are indisputably deadly.

But as to the coliform bacteria question - There are many different kinds, from the relatively harmless to E. coli, and many forms are present in the human intestinal track, and can produce skin rashes and eye, ear or throat irritation from direct contact.* The presence of this bacteria is used to test for the presence of human waste contamination in drinking water.* I don't think I need to spell out how this bacteria could find its way from your intestinal track to the surface of your skin, but just how many are living on your body as opposed to inside it is another question. As the article I linked to says, you're not in any tremendous danger by housing them.

The real hygiene benefit of washing your hands after using the toilet is simply the fact of getting multiple hand-washing every day, which has an aggregate effect of lowering the germ-load in your environment.

Ideally post-poo shouldn't be the only time someone washes their hands, no.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:47 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

OT: Why don't toilet seats have handles?
posted by Ron Thanagar at 3:49 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

From the article:
Given the [...] penis of an upright man (approximately two feet, depending on anatomic variations).

I'm not sure this article makes me feel good about myself.

Out of context? You're out of context. This whole thread is out of context!
posted by Lemurrhea at 3:58 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

I confess I *don't know how to pee sitting down!*

I know it seems like something you don't have to go to school for but it seems unnatural and rther complicated and artificial to me, like a woman trying to pee standing up. I mean th epee doesn't just magically trickle to the toilet. You have to spread your legs just so, which is uncomfortable on the throne, and then hold and aim your member so that it doesn't go up and shoot in front of the seat.

How is it done? I can't do it without contortions.
posted by xetere at 4:02 PM on May 23

I mean th epee doesn't just magically trickle to the toilet. You have to spread your legs just so, which is uncomfortable on the throne, and then hold and aim your member so that it doesn't go up and shoot in front of the seat.

This is a good point: I once peed while sitting down, without paying attention to the fact that I was semi-erect; I arced it all through the gap between the seat and the bowl, leaving a nice puddle in front of the toilet.

The moral is clear: not only must you sit to pee, you must sit directly on the bowl, and push downwards aggressively on your member to ensure that disaster doesn't result.
posted by fatbird at 4:06 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Oral sex must be particularly deadly then.
posted by cj_ at 4:08 PM on May 23 [7 favorites]

I confess I *don't know how to pee sitting down!*

I agree. And furthermore, how do you keep your penis dry when it is hanging down into the water. Should I use some kind of little life preserver?
posted by found missing at 4:08 PM on May 23 [5 favorites]

I think a great AskMe question is being forged in this thread.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:12 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

What about these women who leave the toilet seat down after they pee. So inconsiderate.
posted by chococat at 4:26 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

I agree. And furthermore, how do you keep your penis dry when it is hanging down into the water. Should I use some kind of little life preserver?

Don't use one of those gross American toilets?

(Mind you, resting against the porcelain isn't much of an improvement)
posted by rodgerd at 4:29 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

The real trick is trying not to piss in my scrubs.
posted by greatgefilte at 4:46 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Oral sex must be particularly deadly then.

Sssshhh, no one tell them about the variations on that, unless you want to be quarantined.

On the upside, you would likely meet someone into that sort of thing.
posted by Talanvor at 4:50 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Most toilets are not well designed for men to pee sitting down. The elongated bowl ones are better because you can better avoid touching the rim, which is both disgusting and cold, but those tend to be shallower, which presents another problem, especially if you lean forward for any reason while seated. Not to mention that there is a good 10 percent of the day when it is just not possible. It's not a binary device, and anything over 'just got out of the pool on a cold day' is going to cause aiming difficulty.
posted by Nothing at 5:02 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

I confess I *don't know how to pee sitting down!*

How do you poo, then? Or am I the only one who finds that these two urges can come on at the same time, and even alternately within a single session; do you like stand up and sit down again repeatedly?
posted by troybob at 5:13 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

O WHAT A LUXURY
by Garrison Keillor

O what a luxury it be
how exquisite, what perfect bliss
so ordinary and yet chic
to pee to piss to take a leak

to feel your bladder just go free
and open up the Mighty Miss
and all your cares float down the creek
to pee to piss to take a leak

for gentlemen of great physique
who can hold water for one week
for ladies who one-quarter cup
of tea can fill completely up
for folks in urinalysis
for Viennese and Greek and Swiss
for little kids just learning this
for everyone it's pretty great
to urinate

of course for men it's much more grand
women sit or squat
we stand
and hold the fellow in our hand
and proudly watch the mighty arc
adjust the range and make our mark
on stones or post for rival men
to smell and not come back again

women are so circumspect
but men can piss to great effect
with terrible hydraulic force
can make a stream or change its course

can put out fires or cigarettes
and sometimes
laying down our bets
late at night outside the bars
we like to aim up at the stars
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:29 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

"Western Europe is abuzz with the latest flare-up in the war between the sexes, and for the moment, the Amazons seem to be winning. If outrage continues to mount, it will soon be not just uncool and politically incorrect for a man to urinate while standing up, but out-and-out ILLEGAL. Yes, the liberated women of France and Germany and Holland have vowed to put their men down – on the toilet."

Any sources for this "controversy"? Apart from this German YouTube video? A Google search on the term "Laissez tomber votre pantalon, et asseyez vous!" does not return many relevant hits.

For some Americans, Europe is a place of "decadence and despair", boring sports, the incomprehensible metric system, socialism, gay marriages... and men being forced by law to sit on the toilet. This idea - men can't stand up anymore - is an interesting metaphor to illustrate the (fake or real) "evils" of Europe.
posted by iviken at 5:34 PM on May 23

I'm with troybob. If I'm just peeing, I'll do it standing up, but if I'm pooping it goes sit down, pee, poop, wipe, stand up. Pausing halfway through to turn around sounds ungainly — does anyone really do that?
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:35 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

You can have my urine when you pry it from my cold, dead mouth.

I mean, uh.

SHIT.

I really should have invested in a keyboard with a backspace key.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 5:51 PM on May 23

Leave the toilet seat down. Pee standing up as usual. Take one piece of toilet paper, do a quick swipe around the seat, drop, flush, done.

Voila! Now your special ladyfriend (or your special fucking ladyfriend) will not accidentally sit in the toilet bowl in the middle of the night on account of the seat being left up.
whimsicalnymph

Men should pee through the toilet seat (an even smaller target), then wipe up afterwards? Eeww!

Do women actually sit on a toilet without looking first? In my house you'd land on the lid. I used to have a cat who trained me on this one. She used to like to jump up and sit on the sink while I brushed my teeth, and the quickest way up was from the toilet. I guess, like whimsicalnyumph, she was sometimes in too much of a hurry to look and if I left the lid up, Splash!...very angry kitty.
posted by eye of newt at 5:58 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

found missing: ...how do you keep your penis dry when it is hanging down into the water

"Water sure is cold."
"Yeah, 'n' it's deep, too."
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:18 PM on May 23

Pausing halfway through to turn around sounds ungainly — does anyone really do that?

I do,
Stand up to the toilet, pull pants down, pee, shake, flush or not, depending on volume color and odor of lee, turn around, sit crap, wipe,flush and it's carpe diem!
posted by xetere at 6:23 PM on May 23

I have never understood why it's not standard practice -- or at least far more common -- to install urinals in residences.
posted by trip and a half at 6:26 PM on May 23

All men know not to audiocast, yet few answer the challenge.
posted by painquale at 6:50 PM on May 23

your boxer-shorts region—from belly button to mid-thigh—is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria.

I'd be interested in Real Science on this topic, too, but for the opposite reason: my understanding has been that your whole skin, and much of your environment, has a fair amount of intestinal bacteria. It's not like they only exist in a tidy isolated gut-colony; we walk around all day in a vague cloud of our commensal microbes and others'.
posted by hattifattener at 6:56 PM on May 23

what do you do after peeing/pooping & wiping, before washing your hands? You pull up your pants, tuck in your shirt, arrange your clothes about your waist. If the act of voiding inevitably contaminates your hands, then getting yourself presentable to go wash your hands likewise contaminates your clothes--especially around the pockets, where you keep your keys and wallet and whatnot.

WTF? If you can't fasten your pants without fondling your keys and riffling through your wallet, maybe you should invest in a manservant.

Even the most involved state of undress requires me to touch:

1) Two 1" square areas on the sides of my underwear
2) Two 1" square areas on the sides of my pants
3) Button
4) Zipper

None of which I ever need to touch unless I'm using the bathroom again, at which point I wash my hands. (Or if I'm getting undressed, when I usually also wash my hands.)

If the human body really created & disseminated stuff that was so intrinsically deadly to itself, the race would have died out aeons ago.

And almost did, several times. This argument is like the opposite of the rock-that-keeps-away-tigers. "We've never been killed yet, so washing must be useless."
posted by DU at 6:57 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

I have never understood why it's not standard practice -- or at least far more common -- to install urinals in residences.

Because then you've have two unsavoury bathroom fixtures to clean instead of just the one?
posted by hot soup girl at 7:00 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

maybe you should invest in a manservant

Don't hire Ubu, he doesn't wash his hands.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:00 PM on May 23

BUT WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!!!!

Only when Alton Brown tells me to.

In the interest of humor conservation, I am reusing a jokey reference from 2003.
posted by wendell at 7:03 PM on May 23

Alfresco urination (into a decorative shrub, a culvert or drain, against the wheel of jacked up Bronco with a giant eagle wearing an American flag bandanna on its rear window, for instance) is one of the great and rare pleasures afforded to humanity by the clearly insane and uncaring god that we have been afflicted with.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:05 PM on May 23 [5 favorites]

Why can't they just make home toilets with a little inset tray on the top of the tank, so you'd have a urinal/toilet. Granted, there's a bowl in the way, but if you have room to stand off to the side, it'd be awesome for everybody.
posted by iamkimiam at 7:06 PM on May 23

No matter how much you wiggle,
No matter how much you dance,
That last little drop
Will end up in your pants.
posted by nzero at 7:57 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

This could all be solved with the installation of a urinal in the home. Go fancy if you like. If you have males under 25 this is particularly attractive I would think.
posted by caddis at 8:00 PM on May 23

Very rarely during urination a sudden drop in blood pressure can occur resulting in fainting. This condition is called mictirition syncope.
posted by humanfont at 8:00 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Don't hire Ubu, he doesn't wash his hands.

and nor do i need to. i just stand there and let my manservant do all the manual handling.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:11 PM on May 23

It doesn't matter how much you wash your hands if you have to grab the handle on the restroom door. That's the thing that's swarming with all the germs of people who don't wash their hands. Why can't they make the doors open outwards so you could push it open with your foot or elbow?
posted by digsrus at 8:12 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Wee, another bathroomztawk thread. Geddit? Wee.

I disagree with minor points in that article:

A) There is no reason men can't wipe after takin' a leak. It would be more sanitary than shaking. He didn't articulate why this wouldn't work, but seems to imply that shaking works excess liquid in the tube out in a way that wiping can't. I don't buy this "excess liquid" theory-- it ain't true for me-- and, if true for some, I don't see why a squeeze into the paper wouldn't take care of this.

B) Seriously, the little bit of urine left after a piss is harmless. I don't see why the shake or wipe is even necessary. It doesn't leave a smell or a stain if you drink more water and buy better underwear. Not tighty-whities that show yellow speckles. Out of sight, out of mind. No one is getting sick from this, except, maybe psychologically sick if they think about it like a masochistic OCD weirdo. Don't think about it, you masochistic OCD weirdo.

C) He says that men can't shake sitting down; this either implies that he doesn't urinate when he takes a shit, that he does, but doesn't think or care about getting urine in his underwear after a shit (which calls into question why he cares at other times), or that shaking is unnecessary if you just let it drip for a little while longer. I'm guessing he would say the third interpretation was correct. If so, then another reasonable option is simply waiting a few seconds longer after a leak while your peen hole finishes dripping and air dries. Relax. Read the dirty joke on the wall. Reminisce about the good times.

D) Urinals are the anti-hygiene. I don't know what universe he's from, but urinals are an engineering failure on par with that bridge from that old video that's undulating around all crazy. I have never seen a urinal where the floor underneath it isn't speckled with the dried piss of every man that used it that day. They frequently smell. And urinals seem like they are intentionally streamlined to send a fine mist of piss back at me: I can feel the pissmist hitting my face and arms-- gross! I always opt for the stall when there are vacancies. This also keeps those nosy paparazzi from catching me off guard and giving my beef face-time on page 6.

OK, all that aside: I totally agree with him about the sink! It's stupid to use the toilet. It's too far from the dick. The piss stream frequently breaks apart, mists, or dribbles out at the end. It often ends up on the white porcelain rim, the toilet seat, or the floor. Furthermore flushing the toilet wastes tons and tons and tons and tons of fresh water. TONS of it. It's a stupid, inefficient waste of a natural resource. When the aquifer water runs out we'll be drinking that piss-- run through some dubious filters, of course-- and paying more for it.

Pissing in the sink is the most sanitary, economical, and green way for a man to pee. (especially if you rinse the sink with gray water, harvested from baths, showers, laundry, etc).
posted by dgaicun at 8:16 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

digsrus - Why can't they make the doors open outwards so you could push it open with your foot or elbow?

That's why I wash my hands, grab paper towels, dry hands with towels, use those to turn off faucets, and use those to open door, prop door open with foot, drop towels in bin, walk through open door.

Or I'm drunk and don't think about it and pick the short and curlies from out of the urinal and use those to floss my teeth before pulling the door open by the handle with my prehensile penis.
posted by porpoise at 8:24 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

As a married woman, I didn't even realize other women had issues with their husbands making a mess. Maybe I should give mine an extra hug today.
posted by Nattie at 8:39 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]

There is no reason men can't wipe after takin' a leak.

i'm not quite sure where you'd hang the paper rolls in a standard urinal, or where you'd throw the paper afterwards.

and that's not even mentioning the dicey etiquette around asking the guy beside you if he could tear off a sheet or two from his roll, because yours is all out.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:41 PM on May 23

This morning as I was buttoning my shirt, a button fell off. After that, I picked up my briefcase, and the handle fell off. Then I went to open the door, and the doorknob fell off. I went to get into my car, and the door handle came off in my hand. Now I'm afraid to pee.

Geez, netbros, at least give (the late, great) Rodney Dangerfield credit for his work (the fifth quote down)
posted by Doohickie at 8:49 PM on May 23

You can shake it as much as you wish,
but you'll never get rid of that last drop of piss.
Shakespeare
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 8:53 PM on May 23

I wash my hands and I'm a pretty good shot. But someone tries to start making me pee sitting though I'm going to start making bank shots and ricochets.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:06 PM on May 23

Urinals are the anti-hygiene. I don't know what universe he's from, but urinals are an engineering failure on par with that bridge from that old video that's undulating around all crazy.

Thank you! I, for one, am anti-urinal. The urinal - and the less common yet more degrading urinal trough - makes little sense to me, seeing as how we've reached the point were we believe the need to poo necessitates being blocked from view on four sides. There are no pooing troughs, no pooing basins lined up in a row for men to saunter up to, place their butts against, and squeeze one out while avoiding eye contact with each other. Granted, the practice takes longer than your standard urination, but the same principle applies - it is a moment for privacy, contemplation, and reflection. So it should be with peeing.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:18 PM on May 23 [3 favorites]

I think a great AskMe question is being forged in this thread.

This thread is a classic, covering male urination, hand washing and butt wiping habits.
posted by bobobox at 9:23 PM on May 23 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, urinals give no help on the family front, since few of them are installed in private homes.

So install one in your private home, duh. We did; works great and you don't have to strain your tip-toes trying to reach the sink.
posted by BobInce at 1:22 AM on May 24

I despise urinals because I have shy bladder. It seems like every time I try to use one, someone will walk up to the one next to it. Then I have to scurry off to the toilet stall to finish, which is so embarrassing.
posted by double block and bleed at 1:41 AM on May 24 [1 favorite]

Thank you! I, for one, am anti-urinal. The urinal - and the less common yet more degrading urinal trough - makes little sense to me, seeing as how we've reached the point were we believe the need to poo necessitates being blocked from view on four sides.

and yet, some cultures are civilised enough to build smallish barriers so that it's a relatively private thing - Iran, the Middle East generally & most Asian countries I've visited spring to mind.

i feel the same. if an establishment (er, pub) can't be bothered to make even reasonably private urinals, or lay out their bathrooms such that you can take a wizz in peace along one of three or four walls or else find a stall for privacy, then that's not a place where i want to drink. given that there must be other guys with similar attitudes, it's amazing that pubs blindly lose - what? 10%? 20%? 50%? of their potential patrons by saving a few bucks on a once-off capital investment.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:25 AM on May 24 [1 favorite]

It seems like every time I try to use one, someone will walk up to the one next to it.

You must live among a bunch of Philistines who have never learned proper bathroom etiquette.

And caddis, your comment led me to this; those are amazing, but a little pricey.
posted by TedW at 2:55 AM on May 24

given that there must be other guys with similar attitudes, it's amazing that pubs blindly lose - what? 10%? 20%? 50%? of their potential patrons by saving a few bucks on a once-off capital investment.

Seriously. How much could it cost to put up some rudimentary panels between the urinals? Seems so basic to me. Still doesn't solve the problem of the Chatty Micturator though.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:46 AM on May 24

There are no pooing troughs

Oh, but there are. Or used to be. I was at a motorcycle race at a fairground in Pennsylvania in the seventies where the men's room had a row of a dozen toilet seat sized holes drilled in a length of plywood with itty-bitty one foot square dividers in between each hole. Talk about performance anxiety. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.
posted by digsrus at 5:15 AM on May 24 [1 favorite]

and anybody who wants to get all romantic about the prospect of spending time in a tibetan buddhist monastery in the himalaya - better get used to the idea of scheduled pooing time, everybody in a room together, squatting over a single trough.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:31 AM on May 24 [1 favorite]

*crosses "Tibetan Buddhist monestary" off the list*
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:34 AM on May 24 [3 favorites]

I love threads like this. They remind me to be thankful I'm gay. No women around to tell me how I should pee, or bitch about the lid being left up.
posted by Goofyy at 7:15 AM on May 24

Indeed, our culture is replete with disparaging references – “piss on it,” “filthy as piss,” “I don’t give a piss” –

Replete is probably pushing it.
posted by penduluum at 7:26 AM on May 24

Do women actually sit on a toilet without looking first?

I did this recently in the WOMEN'S bathroom at a restaurant and nearly fell in. Either the previous occupant (who I saw, and identified as a lady) was transsexual or she had some SERIOUSLY bizarre hovering ritual.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:20 AM on May 24

Do women actually sit on a toilet without looking first?

This is why I don't leave the seat down. It lulls the wife into a false sense of security, leaving her defenseless when out in the wild.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:49 AM on May 24 [8 favorites]

your boxer-shorts region—from belly button to mid-thigh—is crawling with germs known as coliform bacteria....I'd be interested in Real Science on this topic

Related: Licking your Toilet Seat is Healthier than Typing on your Keyboard.

Penn & Teller: "Safety Hysteria": The Truth Behind Toilet Seat Covers [starts at 08:49].
posted by ericb at 8:58 AM on May 24

grapefruitmoon: Do women actually sit on a toilet without looking first?

I did this recently in the WOMEN'S bathroom at a restaurant and nearly fell in. Either the previous occupant (who I saw, and identified as a lady) was transsexual or she had some SERIOUSLY bizarre hovering ritual.

Or she was vomiting…
posted by paisley henosis at 9:07 AM on May 24

Do women actually sit on a toilet without looking first?

Yes, if it's the middle of the night, I don't want to turn on the lights and blind myself, and I'm half asleep. It's a pretty rude awakening.
posted by desjardins at 9:25 AM on May 24

I don't want to turn on the lights and blind myself

Put a night light in the bathroom or nearby, works wonders.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:30 AM on May 24

Seriously. How much could it cost to put up some rudimentary panels between the urinals?

Seriously. It's been done. But I'd estimate only about 1 in 5 public facilities around here have them.

those are amazing, but a little pricey.

I like flowers, but I do not in any way want to walk into my bathroom and take a piss on a giant, garish, porcelain flower.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:40 AM on May 24

Peeing in the sink is a great idea and would likely save a shitload of water. Most toilets flush 1.5 gallons or more per use.

Always use the shower as an opportunity to pee as well.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:44 AM on May 24

I like flowers, but and I do not in any way want to walk into my bathroom and take a piss on a giant, garish, porcelain flower.

ftfm.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:51 AM on May 24

This thread does two things:

1. Makes me glad I live alone - no worries about the toilet seat being left up.
2. Makes me want to scrub my brain, if only to remove the memory of: And sometimes, given a sufficiently vigorous shake, on the walls, or even on the ceiling. ugh... *shudder*
posted by LOLAttorney2009 at 9:52 AM on May 24

Why the hell would I pee standing up when I'm already unconscious on the sofa at 4 am?
posted by Elmore at 10:25 AM on May 24

Potential overshare here, but I remember in my early days of public school, still transitioning from the commode-only bathroom at home to the commode-or-urinal option that the school provided and so I opted for the stall. Details are indeed hazy but I think the janitor noticed me ("caught" in his parlance, no doubt) doing this and chastised me aggressively in his frightening-to-a-little-boy broken English. For some reason this non-standard peeing was interpreted by him to be associated with some stall-messing pranks he was dealing with. I remember my family and the administration getting involved as well
posted by stevil at 1:41 PM on May 24

But just to clarify I stood up in either case. No sittin' down, no sir!
posted by stevil at 1:43 PM on May 24

I wish I could find the it now, but I remember reading an interview with the Butthole Surfers where Paul Leary outed Gibby Haynes as a "dive bomber". He was pretty upset about that. Apparently, dive bombing entails removing your pants and underwear, climbing to the top of a bathroom stall and hanging there, butt-side down, over the toilet. You then attempt to, um, "drop your payload" and strike the center of the toilet. I've never attempted this myself and wonder if anyone else has. Don't be shy now.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:07 PM on May 24

We haven't even touched on what I think is the most fascinating phenomenon, which is 'forked pee,' in which two separate streams diverge at the point of exit and neither one reaches the intended target.
posted by troybob at 4:04 PM on May 24

Huh. Didn't even consider vomiting as a reason why a lady would have left the seat up. This was a fancy-pants restaurant, but she certainly could have had one too many over priced cocktails.

Or swine flu. Could've been swine flu.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:50 PM on May 24

or bulimia
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:11 PM on May 24

or an undercover male spy, impersonating a woman, so he could get closer to the target and achieve the mission objective, thus saving the world from a bio terrorism plot.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:42 PM on May 24

or the aftermath of a particularly robust sneeze.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:44 PM on May 24

which wasn't triggered by swine flu but by a cold caught from the bulimic spy in the next stall.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:45 PM on May 24

Go fancy if you like. --caddis

You do realize that a pitcher plant is carnivorous?
posted by eye of newt at 7:06 PM on May 24

I am so happy that I clicked in here. Now all the mysteries of the world have been revealed. I can rest now.
posted by mnb64 at 7:17 PM on May 24

We haven't even touched on what I think is the most fascinating phenomenon, which is 'forked pee,' in which two separate streams diverge at the point of exit and neither one reaches the intended target.

I've always heard it referred to as 'double fire'.
posted by kersplunk at 8:17 PM on May 24

And caddis, your comment led me to this; those are amazing, but a little pricey.

As the designated bathroom cleaner in my house, I say fuck these. I can imagine the hell it is to clean these godawful things.

I am a woman, and have lived with men almost my whole life. I have never fallen into a toilet, and my brothers/fathers/boyfriends/husband have not been diligent about putting the lid down. I have been sleepy, drunk, high, etc. and yet I have always managed to note whether my arse was about to get dunked in toilet water and take appropriate action. I just don't understand why this is an issue.
posted by jeoc at 8:25 PM on May 24

Some of those flower urinals are, uh... slightly arousing. Not really the kind of association I want to make.
posted by Ritchie at 8:35 PM on May 24

Peeing in the sink is a great idea and would likely save a shitload of water.

Fuck no. First of all, my toothbrush is near the sink. Occasionally it slips or falls into the sink. You better not be fucking peeing in my goddamn sink.

Howabout we invent some kind of waist-height porcelain spout thing that guys can rest their penises on and pee into a drain, constructed so that there's a lip to catch backsplash or something? Kind of shaped like the spout of a watering can, if you were peeing into the spout. I'm sure there's an engineering school out there that can get onto this. Less muss, not much water use, whatever. I'll pay to have it installed. Just don't pee in my goddamn sink like a bunch of urine-spraying assholes. Jesus.
posted by emjaybee at 9:30 PM on May 24 [1 favorite]

As the designated bathroom cleaner in my house....I am a woman,


Whoa, you need to put your foot down with the males. Those who piss on the toilet rim shall clean that same toilet. Pick a new task, like balancing the checkbook. Let the men take care of the toilet.
posted by caddis at 3:51 AM on May 25 [1 favorite]

using the sink instead of the toilet for water-saving purposes?!

did no one else grow up in a "if it's yellow let it mellow if it's brown flush it down" household??!

the toilet gets flushed twice a day here . . .
posted by chickadee at 7:08 PM on May 25

thankfully, that particular water crises has passed.
posted by caddis at 10:00 PM on May 25

urine-spraying assholes

I'm sure there's a story behind this, and am equally sure I don't want to hear it.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:32 PM on May 25

Pissing in the sink is the most sanitary, economical, and green way for a man to pee. (especially if you rinse the sink with gray water, harvested from baths, showers, laundry, etc).

That is incorrect.

The most sanitary, economical, and green way for a man to pee is to go outside and piss straight onto topsoil, preferably under a shrub that drops plenty of leaf litter. Random spots on the lawn are fine, too; just avoid obvious walkways, and don't use the same spot all the time or you'll over-fertilize and burn it.

Women can, of course, use exactly the same technique.
posted by flabdablet at 5:02 AM on May 26

Some people take toilet control to the extreme. To be fair, it seems this person took everything to the extreme.
posted by caddis at 11:44 AM on May 26