Category — Reader Mail

David writes the following:

At work I have “the ideal situation” where there’s 1 urinal and a sit down toilet. Occasionally when I go in there to take a number 2 the person before me has used the sit down toilet to take a pee in, and they pee all over the seat. I wish that you would make it known that when there’s both the urinal and regular toilet option and you only need to pee to use the damn urinal.

Well said. Men, this one’s for you: if you have the choice between a toilet and a urinal, choose the urinal every time. I’m going to give you two good reasons:

1. Like the man implied above, it’s pretty easy to pee all over the seat of a toilet. It’s a lot harder to do this using a urinal.
2. Urinals tend to use a lot less water when you flush – at least here in the USA, this problem isn’t as large in countries with

Matthew writes the following:

My name is Matthew, and I’ve recently graduated at ***** and found myself lucky enough to be offered a job.

The current project I’m working on is a bit quarky. Ive been asked to
create a compilation of sounds that ‘mask’ the noises that may happen when
one uses the rest room. I was curious what are common things women do to
mask these sort of things.

That’s a good question, but first, an aside. I’m of the general opinion that masking sounds are ridiculous. If you’re going to a big fuss to make a bunch of noise, all you are really doing is drawing attention to yourself. People use the bathroom, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Now that said, masking practices are pretty common. Generally though, people take a fairly low-tech approach using just the equipment at hand – toilets and sinks. The #1 masking sound is a flushing toilet, followed by a running sink. Neither of these is really a great option though, as toilet flushes don’t last very long and sinks aren’t often that loud.

Which could be why things like an mp3 playing toilet and the Shinobu-Chan toilet ringer were invented. The latter promises 100 decibels (!!!) of simulated toilet flushing madness. Yikes!

Anybody using something else to mask the sound of themselves going potty?

The ICBE’s official stance on hanging the toilet paper is that you should do whatever you need to in order to ensure happiness in the home. Both the over and under methods have their advantages. That said, my own personal preference is for under, so I was intrigued to get an email the other day pointing to a rather long-winded blog entry that contained the following tidbit:

My mind is going to explode! Everyone knows that toilet paper should roll from the front.

(You can read the post in its entirety here)

News to me, a self-professed under-er. Even more intriguing though was the supposed scientific basis for this assessment! Sadly, the entire argument (found here) consisted of this one fatally flawed diagram:

It depicts two possible ways to tear the toilet paper with one hand, and suggests that the under method will always result in you tearing off more squares, thus wasting TP and hurting the environment. Problem is, the diagram is just plain wrong. From my own personal experience I know that I can routinely tear off as little as a single square of TP with just one hand when hung under, yet cannot even manage a single handed tear half the time when hung over. Now its entirely possible that other people will have different results, but to put this forward as scientific fact? Ridiculous!

I for one will continue to happily hang the TP under, and to happily tear off a square at a time with impunity.

I get emails like this all the time:

We have tried to put up signs in the bathrooms instructing people how to wash their hands (huge problem in this office) and violators keep taking them down. I have almost given up in correcting the problem. Please give any advice that you can.

The problem is, I really don’t have any good advice. How do you correct a behavior so fundamentally flawed as not washing your hands after going to the bathroom? It seems inconceivable that these people are unaware this is common practice, which implies they simply don’t care, or are pathologically insane. Either way, it’s going to be tough to reason with them. Not to mention a little bit awkward bringing things up.

Say… Bob… I noticed you don’t wash your hands after you pee… what’s up with that?

My advice is to wash your own hands even more often than usual, because sometimes the best offense is a good defense.

Robert writes the following:

When did men become pussies? Is it a result of the women’s movement? Piss an arm’s length away at a trough? that’s insane. you can fit a whole extra guy in that space. Someone talks to you at a urinal? So talk back, why not? No stalls? So shit in the open, its all guys there. When there are 3 urinals, why not use the middle one? What is it there for decoration? And when all the toilets are full, to stand there and pretend you came in to wash your hands instead of just waiting a minute til a toilet opens up is insane behaviour. Everyone in a men’s room has a penis they pee out of and an asshole they shit out of. Why are men ashamed of either?

The first thing I want to do is address the issue of shame. It’s a common misconception that bathroom etiquette has its roots in shame, but this is simply not the case. A man does not need to be ashamed of his penis, or anything else to want a little breathing room when he goes to the bathroom. If you get on a bus, and there’s only one other passenger, are you going to sit right down beside them? I certainly hope not, and they hope not too. Not because they are ashamed of themselves, but because it’s ridiculous to cram yourself on top of somebody if you don’t have to.

Which brings us to the issue of etiquette vs. law. It’s proper etiquette not to use the middle of 3 urinals, because it’s nice to leave a space between people. That does not however mean that the middle urinal is never going to get used. It’s proper etiquette to not put your elbows on the table, yet it happens all the time. It would sure be nice if it didn’t though, wouldn’t it?

The wonderful Keith writes the following:

StumbledUpon your site, it was good for blowing 15 minutes. Have you ever picked up the Alphabet of Manliness, by Maddox? It’s a rather cynical, offensive (yet hilarious) book by the author of www.maddox.xmission.com and it has a chapter on Urinal Etiquette that’s actually pretty funny. Thought you might be interested.

Also, your hate mail is absurb. I’m floored by the fact you garner so much hate.

In fact I have not read that book, but it sounds like I would appreciate at least 1/26th of the chapters…

Hygienically inclined reader Joseph D. writes the following:

I recently attended a festival with Port-a-John facilities. These seats are always pee-covered. In fact, pretty much the entire area inside the John is pee-covered, which causes a hazardous situation for women who must hover while standing on the slippery plastic floor or worse, the area that extends from the toilet opening.

Whenever I use one of these, I try to put the seat up. Why? Because a woman (or #2-ing man) would much rather go through the trouble of putting the seat down than hovering for the duration of the deed or creating a T.P. barricade on the soiled seat. Most often, in Port-a-Johns, T.P. is absent anyway. (suggestion: Bring your own T.P. to these events.)

This toilet seat etiquette should extend to unisex restrooms as well. Why? In a perfect world every guy would lift the seat, do the deed, and put it down. This is not the case. Guys, no matter how accurate the aim, leave pee-droplets. Pee droplets should be wiped and the seat raised so that gravity removes the remaining liquid.

These suggestions are not from a lazy guy, but a hygiene-concerned guy.

As a brief aside, I always call those damnable contraptions porta-potties. I wonder if there is some regional dialect associated with what we call them? But I digress.

First of all, my sympathies for having attended such an event. No fun, from a bathroom point of view. Men fare okay in such a situation, but women should never be forced to endure a poorly-maintained porta-potty (I have been in some sparklingly clean ones from time to time).

However, we need to take a moment to discuss etiquette vs. reality. Etiquette is what you should do, and therefor deals with precisely the kind of “perfect world” scenario that you describe. Proper etiquette dictates leaving the seat down in all situations where a woman might reasonably be expected to use the bathroom. It also dictates you should not pee all over the seat. Realistically leaving the seat up might help, but that doesn’t make it good etiquette.

That said, this is one of those situations where etiquette is pretty much thrown out the window. Anything that effectively helps keep the seat clean may well be appreciated by women, and is probably fine to do.

One more note on the seat up vs. seat down issue. This is a bigger deal in a home, where a woman is going to have a reasonable expectation that the seat is already down, especially in the middle of the night in the dark. I think that all women are going to check on the seat status in a public bathroom, and so effectively the seat condition will be less of an issue in these venues.

Oh, and great tip about bringing your own TP!

Concerned reader Ben sent us the following question, which I must admit we don’t field that often:

I was never “taught” to pee standing and was wondering how you hold your penis?

You were never “taught”, but did you ever “learn” how?

At the base?

Probably not. How are you going to aim from down (up) there?

Halfway up the shaft?

Getting there. I’m thinking maybe 3/4 of the way down or so.

At the bell-end?

Only if you want to pee all over your hand.

BY THE FORESKIN?!?!?

Dear god no!

We receive a lot of email here at the ICBE, but this one confused me. A gentleman – well, a man in any case – took issue with some of our advice, and offered up the following as explanation:

While I sympathize, the website is on bathroom etiquette, not manners.

etiquette: conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion.

manners: the prevailing customs, ways of living, and habits of a people, class, period, etc

Yeah, those are really different.

John asks the following question about the bathroom in his workplace:

An interesting debate has been hatched at my workplace. Let me first start by laying out the ground work of this situation. We are a one hole company with about ten men using the one hole on a very regular basis. Our restroom is located directly across the hall from our kitchen / break room area which does not have a door. This hall way is also our main thoroughfare for pedestrian travel. The restroom does have a ventilator although somewhat weak.

The debate is: After stinking up the bathroom, should we ventilate out into the public area of the building (kitchen/breakroom/hallway) by leaving the bathroom door wide open allowing the AM fog of Potpourri Scented aerosol and human excrement particles to float out for everyone to enjoy, or should we pull the bathroom door nearly closed and leave the ventilator on and allow the stinch to be sucked up through the ventilator thereby replacing the foul air with fresh breathable and tasteless air?

My advice: Get a new job somewhere with decent (and sensibly located) bathrooms!