OPINION & EDITORIAL
A meditation on bathroom culture
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Also by Andrew Fein:
- Grammys get goofy (February 5, 2004)
- A meditation on bathroom culture (November 10, 2003)
- A parent's guide to college (November 25, 2003)
- The flavor of campus rush hour (December 2, 2003)
- Confessions of a metrosexual (October 13, 2003)
Related Stories:
- Flushing out testosterone (September 13, 2004)
- Morning Wood (November 19, 2003)
- Bathroom clergy squabble (January 23, 2006)
- What not to wear on Halloween (October 29, 2003)
- What happens in Madison stays in Madison (October 29, 2004)
by Andrew Fein
Monday, November 10, 2003
Over Halloween, I dressed up like a girl. I used this opportunity to sneak into the ladies room, so I could see what really went down in there. No, I’m not a pervert with a picture phone; I’m just doing my journalistic service for every male who wants to know why girls must go to the bathroom in pairs or groups.
Well fellas, I can tell you, it’s wilder than a cocktail party in there! Let me paint you a picture. You’ve got girls in front of the mirror borrowing each other’s lip gloss and mascara, assuring each other they look great. Over in line, some girls have become best friends, from talking shit about the girl with way too much makeup on who’s been dancing with the hottie from their econ class. And on the couch (yes gentleman, the ladies room has all sorts of accoutrements like couches, lotions, perfumes, and lamps), there are some girls chatting on the phone. Finally, some are just standing around waiting for their friends. They only came to the bathroom to keep them company for the long wait in line.
Ladies, if you must know why this intrigues guys so much, the answer is simple. A men’s room couldn’t be more different. Just ask any girl who’s been brave enough to forgo the 20-minute line in the ladies room and venture into a boy’s lavatory. They’ll tell you it’s more like a laboratory, with all the unidentified liquids on the ground and workplace-like silence.
See, guys take personal space to the next level. Not only is eye contact avoided at all costs, but the 1-3-5 rule is employed. For those of you unfamiliar with this bathroom statute, I’ll explain.
Think of five urinals lined up in a row. Each one has a number, starting from left to right, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. The rule comes into practice when, for example, the first and fifth urinals are in use. It would be abhorrent should someone come and start to use a urinal other than the third.
While this may seem strange to you ladies, the behavior prior to bathroom usage is even more bizarre. Instead of asking a friend to come with them to the bathroom, guys will simply announce to the group that they have to use the bathroom and will explain exactly what they will be doing in there.
It must be noted, ladies, that explaining what you will be doing in the bathroom is not advised, since guys tend to act more squeamish than an ADD middle-schooler without Ritalin.
This makes me wonder about the idea of co-ed bathrooms, now popular in trendy offices and dorms in small liberal arts colleges in the East.
Implementation in bars here could lead to all types of changes. Girls see a trip to the bathroom like a first-class plane ride: comfortable, lots of legroom, and nice amenities. Guys see it like sitting coach on a Greyhound bus: stuffy, smelly, and “What the hell is that guy looking at?” Mixing the two together could be like taking a cross-county family trip in a minivan. Everyone’s happy to be on the road at first, but it soon turns into a nightmare where you count the mile markers ‘til the next road stop when you can finally get out of the damn car.
Procedural problems also come to mind. Girls would have to develop an entirely new way of using the bathroom. How could they be expected to sit in the stalls? Have you ever seen a guy’s bathroom stall? They are scarier than bad Ben Affleck movies.
It’ll get messy. The pristine image significant others have of each other will be shattered when they realize who it was “making all that noise” in the stall next to theirs. Where would girls go to talk about the guy they like when his roommate may be washing his hands at the sink? Where will guys go to get away from their girlfriends? The universe will surely fall out of line; guys will unknowingly use bidets as sinks, girls will mistake urinal cakes for soap.
So please, UW-Madison and private business owners of the greater Madison metropolitan area, let’s kill this idea before we have people marching down State Street for the integration of bathrooms. This is one segregationist policy that makes sense.
What we need is something akin to Title IV for bathrooms: equal spending for both genders. If some amenities must be cut from the ladies room to make up the slack, so be it; but I am tired of not being able to bitch about my problems while sitting leisurely on couches with random strangers.
On second thought, maybe it’s better the way it is. Now I’ve got to go drop an angry deuce.
Andrew Fein (anfein@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in journalism.
