Thinking about peeing
Mar. 4th, 2005 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerI got Rhys a potty, since he's been really interesting in flushing the toilet whn I use it. I took off his diaper and put him on it; he promptly hopped off, stuck his head in it, and peed on the floor. Not sure what to make of that.
I've been thinking a lot about gender-neutral bathrooms these days. I was at a performance of the Vagina Monologues last weekend, and the bathroom situation was just silly -- lines down the hallway for the women's room, and no one in the men's room. I couldn't get any of the women to hop overto the other side, though I suggested it to several. Part of it is the cultural taboo, I think, but part of it is just...the urinals.
Urinals are weird. We don't have them in bathrooms at home. Women's rooms don't have them, and generally they don't have extra stalls to compensate. I would think that standing with your genitals exposed in a public area would be really odd. So, why?
I have to know.
[Poll #448516]
I've been thinking a lot about gender-neutral bathrooms these days. I was at a performance of the Vagina Monologues last weekend, and the bathroom situation was just silly -- lines down the hallway for the women's room, and no one in the men's room. I couldn't get any of the women to hop overto the other side, though I suggested it to several. Part of it is the cultural taboo, I think, but part of it is just...the urinals.
Urinals are weird. We don't have them in bathrooms at home. Women's rooms don't have them, and generally they don't have extra stalls to compensate. I would think that standing with your genitals exposed in a public area would be really odd. So, why?
I have to know.
[Poll #448516]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-05 05:56 am (UTC)If your hands acquire a smell from your genitals, it's not the not washing your hands that's the problem. It's a not keeping your genitals clean problem, imo. It's about not being conscious of your own body. If your hands have acquired a nasty smell, irrespective of origin, and you bypass a thoroughly convenient opportunity to wash up because "you don't believe in washing up", that's a mental disorder, not a failure of hygiene.
And, for reference, the smell of urine can come from more than your genitals, since you excrete uric acid from your sweat glands everywhere on your body.
That said, all of this is irrelevant to the argument at hand, so to speak. There is a rampant irrational fear that needs to be excised. It's why people wont shake hands with a homosexual. It's why people hover instead of giving the seat a quick swab with TP. Its why little boys run away from cooties. Its why Purell and Lysol can sell billions in product without having any provable positive health impact. Its why vancomycin resistant bacteria are what keeps public health workers in night terrors.
It's all the same elitist b.s.: wrapping something in the aura of "the public health" when it's just loony made-up superstition.