Solving the Toilet Seat Debate

The toilet seat belongs down.

I know, I know: it sounds as though I’m siding uncritically with my sex in the debate that has raged for decades. However, my friends, I can assure you that I have given this much thought – probably far more than it deserves – and have endeavored to remain entirely unbiased. I firmly believe my decision is the fairest one.

We could discuss the horror of women falling into the toilet or take a more feminist stance
and say public spaces tend to become male-dominated spaces. But, no. I have a much more scientific rationale behind my assertion.

Think through this, my friends:

In a bathroom, four main activities take place:  female-identified persons use it for their two major excretory functions and male-identified persons use it for their two major excretory functions.* That’s four.

When women use the toilet, they always require the seat down, no matter which of the two functions they’re engaging in. That's two for the toilet seat down. When men use the toilet, they need the toilet seat up for one and down for the other. That's one for the toilet seat down. Therefore, 75% (three out of four) of the activities that take place in a bathroom require the seat down. (Yes, I am aware men urinate more often than they defecate; the 75% is number of activities, not the percentage of instances. Also, we  should recognize that many male-identified peeps pee sitting down.) To insist that the toilet seat remain down is saying men’s standing urination should take precedence over every other excretory activity that happens in the bathroom.

Even for those men and/or for those who identify as male and who urinate standing up, it often benefits you, too, to have the seat down at least some of the time. It always benefits the female-identified and those men or male-identified who pee sitting down. To even debate this acts as though men's peeing is equally important to all the other activities that take place in the bathroom and require the seat remain down. 

The debate seems pretty solved to me.


* Yes, I am aware trans* and intersex folks exist and complicate these categories. For simplicity’s sake, I’m dividing urinating up into people with penises who stand up to pee and people with penises and vaginas (or whatever combination therein) who sit to pee. 

Comments

  1. You are of course right. I think males/male identified people need a phone app that would kick in as soon as they flushed the toilet and ask, "Did you put the seat down? Hmm?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brilliant! Some tech geek needs to make it so asap! :)

      Delete
  2. Good point. Simple - - so let's do it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Until recently, I had cats and kept the cover down over the seat all of the time. I asked everyone who came in and used the toilet to please put the lid down because the cats used it to climb on. Most everyone complied. Since it was my way of doing it, and excluded no one, most everyone complied, every time.

    ReplyDelete

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