By Ali Siemens (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 7, 2012
Recently two male friends and I had a conversation about bathroom etiquette. They asked me why females always make a big deal about men leaving the seat up, and I tried to give them my most honest and fair answer.
It seems as though men are often bullied about leaving the toilet seat up. It isn’t surprising that they often retort with, “Well, why don’t you lift the seat up after you use it?”
For starters, men, the toilet seat is fashioned to be left against the bowl it is connected to, so that is the simple answer for that. But before you think I am going to side with the ladies, hear me out.
The bathroom is often stereotyped as the dirty room in a house, perhaps because we all know what goes on in there when no one is around. That being said, who doesn’t like having an intimate experience in their bathroom? It’s always nice to be seated next to the two-ply-kitten-soft toilet paper, and you generally always feel better after exiting the bathroom. Is that too much information or truth? You decide.
The social issues surrounding the bathroom are the real issues. Perhaps why men and women fight over the seat issue is because everyone wants to have a pleasant bathroom experience.
Upon further discussion with these two male friends, I explained that the issue really doesn’t have anything to do with the process of lifting the seat or putting it down – it is the condition of the seat itself. If we think about this on the basis of female and male genitalia, women sit and are therefore closer to the water, not resulting in any urine splashing onto the seat. However, for men, there is a further distance from the urine stream to toilet water, often resulting in pee-dribbles splashing on the underside of the toilet seat.
This is the issue.
The pee dribbles.
Not to mention the other bodily fluids and hairs that then stick to the pee dribbles. I’m not trying to nag or act like anyone’s mother, but I feel like the seat battle would be non-existent if we all just took a minute to think about it.
If the seat is clean, I have no issue moving it from the up position to the down position. I mean, I believe in a fair division of labor, and if I have to do my part, I am willing.
Luckily, in the public sphere, men and women do not generally share bathrooms. We have been provided with separate entrances to separate locations so we don’t have to deal with our co-workers pee-related issues.
Unfortunately, men and women share bathrooms in other circumstances, and I feel like it’s time to narrow down the issue and address it.
I hope we can all work together in the future. For those moments you forget to put the seat down, I hope you remember to clean up the pee. If you do, I will put the seat down with a smile on my face. Problem solved.
