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public bathroom culture
Jinnigan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
why is it that men's rooms are no eye contact, no talking zones, whereas women's rooms are (from what i hear) social break rooms? where does this difference come from? do men and women truly use bathrooms for different things?
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And the no talking thing isn't limited to everywhere. I had some epic conversations while taking a dump in the Army.
That being said, if a coworker and I are both on our way to the bathroom, I have no problem continuing an existing conversation.
The only rule in the men's john that is universal is the urinal one, but every now and then there is that one motherfucker....
I'm bladder shy, though, so I'm usually heading straight to a stall.
Why is it that women's bathroom at work have two diffrent kinds of lotions and it took us a week to get some gotdamned paper towels and I had to be the one to put them there?
Vis a vis ipso facto etc etc
That said, when my little brother and his friends were in high school, they treated the bathrooms like fucking playgrounds. The tales I've heard...oh, the tales I've heard...
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- take a break from constantly being hit on
- lend each other make-up equipment
- talk about and decide who gets to sleep with which guy
etc.
Men go to the bathroom alone because they are there to empty the tank and that's it.
well i was talking to some normal girls lately (and i mean that in the sense that they were... preppy? Generican?) and this is what the conversation turned to
This meant that you could be pissing opposite somebody - I of course, sussed this out right away and stood directly opposite my friend even though there was plenty of space, just to see whether he would carry on the conversation. Then again, we'd been living on the same corridor for a couple of months, and trying to weird each other out was part of the whole dynamic of our friendship group.
For anybody else, and as this was a club there would be lots of strangers ending up facing each other, I imagine that it would be fairly weird, as the eyes-front rule just meant that you were staring at another guy who also had his junk out. Eyes down, and you were focusing on what would be, if it were not for the urinal, another man's tallywhacker. Quite a surreal position to be in, especially when drunk.
The stench more or less depends on where you are, but yeah. The only difference between men's and women's rooms are that guys have urinals and women get 1 or more extra lavatories, the whole couch thing is either a media reinforced stereotype or a stupid owner.
there were, of course, none in the men's, though what we would do with it is beyond me anyways.
Might be regional, might have picked it up from some random literature - either way, I like the Edwardian pomp it gives to the one-eyed trouser snake.
The couches do happen.
They may not be universal, but there are couches.
Also sometimes more decorations and furniture, or makeup counters.
More often than in the men's room, generally. I try to give the gals a couple extra stalls to prevent a line from being formed, or at least prolonging its existence. Then again, I've mainly done municipal type projects recently where large groups would congregate at one time and then nobody'd be there for hours.
I mean to say that some of you have some funny ideas
nobody makes eye contact in the Ladies at Central Station or in the local mall, srsly. The only time you'll see women having a chatty-chat in the loos is if they were already in a group when they went in, there's no chatting with strangers. Or hanging out for any longer than one has to, because its a toilet! Ege is mostly right, about nightclub bathrooms at least, but most of the time if you wind up in group heading towards the bathroom, its mostly a case of "oh well, may as well go while I've got the chance, or at least check mah hair".
You're an architect?
well, yes, but this basically never happens with guys and i'm wondering why that is
like, why don't guys go to the bathroom in groups to have a chat and check their hair?
this may simply be because we no longer have hair like this:
but i think there is more to it than that
Actually, I'm unemployed. :P
Gotta love that 'oh shit' feeling after graduation sinks in, but for all the non-residential projects I did back in school I generally went over the plumbing code requirements.
But is the couch there because it's wanted/needed or because the owner heard that women's rooms have couches and therefore his women's room will have a couch, repeating the stereotype.
And Jinn, guys did go to the bathroom to chat and fix their hair way back when. I forget the documentary that I saw it in, but it was meant to show how narcissitic the 50's were.
Yeah, reckon I'd go with homophobia. Plus, just about every comedy film ever seems to have a scene involving urinal-embarrassment which I'd say reinforces the omgdon'tlook thing.
Maybe if urinals weren't a feature it wouldn't be so much like that? I can't imagine being in the mood for a chat with anyone if I had to pee in front of strangers...
Also, this.
I wish we still did though. Mmm greasy.
The social psychology portion of the course I did this semester mentioned an experiment where people had trouble going when someone is looking at them at a urinal stall. (the study has since been banned
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I'm not sure it's a meaningful distinction at this point.
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I'm pretty sure the health codes around here restrict what kind of seats you can put in a bathroom. I've only ever seen one couch, and that's at a concert venue in town. All the others have none, or maybe a couple of ordinary chairs for oldies to wait on in the nicer places.
I'd say that it is because it's become a self-perpetuating stereotype that doesn't seem to have any meaning or purpose outside of sitcoms.
I really couldn't say.
I don't really trust the average person's sense of sanitation enough to want to share a bathroom couch with them, or let a kid do it while waiting for an adult.
Girls who are in groups tend to be much more attuned to each others feelings/moods than guys. If a guy is hitting on a girl and the girl's female friends don't like the guy, the guy has close to zero chance. On the other hand, if the guy gets along with her friends well and wins them over, he's much more likely to be successful and attract the girl. Similarly in dating situations, girls put way more importance than guys do into whether or not the guy gets along well with her female friends.
Or think about the ways girls always look after each other. Like, if a member of the female group disappears, or leaves the venue, the other girls go "oh my gosh i wonder why she left! is she OK?!" And all kinds of gossiping and text-messaging and calling takes place.
With guys you don't have these sorts of things. When a guy leaves the group, most don't even notice. When they do, the conversation goes like this:
"where is dave"
"dunno. he just left."
"oh."
And you can think of that as sort of a "screening" routine: only the most confident guys will go in and interact with the group.
Anyways. Guys do get pretty comradey sometimes. Last night at the club these guys kept slapping each other's legs and asses like they were in a football locker room. It just doesn't usually extend to the bathroom. And when it does it's fricking disturbing.
I don't know. Maybe it's the simple fact that you have your penis in your hand and someone is trying to chat with you.
Or maybe a morbid fear of being distracted and missing the mark.
this sounds sexist but i'm pretty sure it's true
Doesn't seem to sexist, maybe the part about "pack mentality" but it is sort of true. Girls feel better in a group, and are a bit more perceptive to each other's feelings.
I agree tho', don't talk to me when I'm taking a piss. Afterwards, yeah. But not during.