Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Remain seated, please

From the More-than-you-need-to-know-about-Doug department, with a warning that the following does reference natural bodily functions (that everyone does):

I've shared a bathroom with women most of my life. As a teen it was with my sister, and when I first moved out on my own my first roommate was a girlfriend. From that I developed the habit of putting the toilet seat down when I'm done with my business.

It's not that this makes me better than other men who aren't thusly inclined. I'm just admitting that I was conditioned early on to do this, and it's become something I don't even think about. I feel neither pride nor shame about it; it's just what I do.

Most of the time, at least.

A recent night I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, with the world still very dark, and had to answer the call. I got out of bed and strode the few steps to the bathroom. Enough light came in through the window to allow me to identify the toilet without turning on the light, and I had no desire to expose my eyes to that level of brightness, so I made my way to the toilet in the relative dark.

I started to sit down to pee so I wouldn't have to focus on aiming. (At that hour I could care less about seeming emasculated.) And as my hand grasped the side of the bowl I realized that the seat was up. Apparently I'd failed to follow my habit when last I urinated.

So I stopped my sitting action, stood up, turned and put the seat down. I then resumed the sitting, and proceeded with the task at hand.

I don't mean to sound dismissive of what women have been telling me most of my life, but I have to say: It wasn't difficult, even without full cognition, to identify the difference between the seat up and the seat down.

Just like when I'm walking through a darkened room I will reach my hand in front of me to detect any object before walking into it, feeling for the existence of the toilet seat before attempting to sit on it, even though I almost always would have it down anyway, just struck me as being in my best interest.

Even one such as myself who's good about this sort of thing can slip up. It's not an attempt to pull a prank on anyone; it's a slip.

All I'm saying is: I'll continue to put the seat down, but it strikes me as prudent for both sexes to verify that the seat's down prior to putting the posterior in its proximity.

If you do it enough, you'll make a habit of it.

~

And now, some more on this topic (not that anyone wants to or needs to know)...

Upon reflection (during that tilde), it has occurred to me that despite having been conditioned to put the seat down (to such a degree that it's usually unconscious behavior) I have never actually investigated why the onus was on men to accept responsibility for putting the seat down. At no point when the women who requested I put the seat down have I ever stopped and asked why they couldn't put it down.

This is because, even in my teens, I was not a complete idiot. And just to be clear: I am not asking now. (I am still not a complete idiot. A partial idiot, sure, but not a complete one.)

I certainly understood the importance of lifting the seat before I urinated standing up; neither of us want that. However, with the seat always down when either of us enters the bathroom, that obligates me to lift it over half the time I go in. Would a proper compromise not be that the woman exert the effort to put the seat down half the time?

That's a rhetorical question. Don't answer. The point here is not to persuade any women that they should stop training men to put the seat down. Nor am I suggesting men should argue when the women request the seat be put down. (Men, it's not standing up for yourself. It's actively making your life more difficult for an insignificant reason. You earn far more brownie points—yeesh, that term takes on a whole different connotation in this scenario, doesn't it?—for doing it than any benefit of delusion of self-assertion will grant if you fight over this.)

Even though I've never asked—and, I repeat, I'm not asking now—logically there must be a reason why women have issue with putting the seat down themselves. I could speculate about what the reason is (and I imagine the conclusion would be somewhere in the "it looks nicer if company drops by" area), but to do so would be folly undertaken only by a complete idiot. As we have already established I am not a complete (only partial) idiot, I shan't speculate thusly.

Were I not a partial idiot, I would have refrained from even mentioning what I have above. Clearly it implied some things about women that are less than complimentary, although I merely wished to highlight some of the quirks of the situation. And in a pathetic attempt to save my butt, I will offer this sincere belief (in the form of an overly glib generalization): Men, left to our own devices, will eventually screw everything up; women are the only hope for our species.

If they can get us to put the toilet seat down today, perhaps tomorrow they'll keep us from killing each other.

~

Let me have it in the comments, ladies.

4 comments:

  1. Great post, Doug.

    1. I have never "grasped the side of the bowl" during routine use in my entire life, excluding those extreme circumstances wherein I was hurling from flu or food poisoning. I found that bit of information a bit disconcerting, but then again, I'm a bit of a germaphobe, whether it's my toilet or not.

    2. I have always found it utterly ridiculous when women bitch and moan about the status of the toilet seat. I mean, really....talk about displaced anger and frustration.

    I have heard women argue that it's merely the inconvenience of either falling into the bowl and/or having to actually touch the seat in any capacity.

    Okay, but men have to touch the seat to put it up for use, as women have left it down when they're finished, so why is it okay for them to avoid digital seat contact, but not okay for men to avoid digital seat contact? “Well, b/c they have to put it up to pee, that’s why!” Yeah, and you have to put it down to pee, so what’s your point?

    The lid itself is a whole other box of noodles: the lid should be left down by all parties should any amount of money be spent to decorate said lid with a designer or non-designer cover, as doing anything else would simply be a waste of money and spitting in the eye of your economic resources. I mean, if you buy a groovy pair of jeans, you're not gonna walk around town in yer undapants, you know?

    "But I've fallen in the bowl before!" Yeah, so suck it up, shit happens (pun #1) and find a real problem already.

    I have heard, "men should leave the seat the way they found it--down." Well, what if the seat was up when they spotted the porcelain beauty at Home Depot before purchase? Well?

    Who made women the toilet police? Maybe women should leave the seat the way they found it after men have used the toilet--up.

    It's a pissing contest (pun #2).

    I appreciate the gesture when a man leaves the seat down, however I’m not going to crawl up his ass about it when he doesn’t (I’m not sure if that’s a pun or not).

    In fact, I have been known to leave the seat up in an effort to say, “hey, you’re about to take a piss and there’s no need to lift the seat because I love you enough to lift it for you.”


    jenji

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  2. ...oh, and props to the man who can admit that he on occasion will pee sitting down...

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  3. Truth be told, I tend to prefer putting the lid down for purely aesthetic reasons.

    My abject lack of machismo thanks you.

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  4. Doug:

    Aesthetic reasons? How about health? According to one doctor a few years ago in the NY Times, when you flush the toilet, it act likes a fountain, spraying all sorts of stuff in the air. He recommended keeping the lid down.

    Of course, if he was right, why aren't people who leave the lid up not dropping like flies?

    The other reason to keep both the lid and seat down is a compromise between the down-seat woman and the up-seat man. The woman only to raise one part; the man has two. That way both share in the lifting hassle. Also, less chance with the lid down of something falling in (like your only pair of eyeglasses that decide to slide off).

    I do remember seeing a magazine ad showing a toilet with the seat down. It was for some product like Lysol disinfectant. The text made some comment about the guy's aim -- implying that it was OK for the guy to pee with the seat down, as long as you use a disinfectant spray!

    I used to be in a relationship with a seat-up woman. She complained one night she fell into the toilet because I left the seat up. One afternoon she was cleaning the bathroom and after she walked out, I noticed she left the seat up. So myabe I wasn't the guilty party with the bad memory.

    Well, better to get back to catching up with all the blogs I read.

    Best,

    Ray

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So, what do you think?