US Cubicles

[smalldickboy]

Hi,

Sorry if this has been covered but I was in the USA a few months back and I don't get why all the cubicles there have gaps you can see through.

I noticed a few guys looking in the gap right at me when i stood up off the toilet - and no, they weren't looking to see if the stall was empty as there was at least 3 others empty with doors open on the way down to mine.

Why do they have this gap, which I haven't seen anywhere else?

THanks,

SDB

 

[Fat Tanuki]

Nothing more than bad design and cheap, shoddy execution. Just look at our cars!

 

[B_RedDude]

Cuz under our pseudo-Victorian veneers we're all a bunch of voyeurs and exhibitionists!

Hi,

Sorry if this has been covered but I was in the USA a few months back and I don't get why all the cubicles there have gaps you can see through.

I noticed a few guys looking in the gap right at me when i stood up off the toilet - and no, they weren't looking to see if the stall was empty as there was at least 3 others empty with doors open on the way down to mine.

Why do they have this gap, which I haven't seen anywhere else?

THanks,

SDB

 

[Steve26]

I noticed a few guys looking in the gap right at me when i stood up off the toilet

The gaps are acceptable because this sort of behavior is generally NOT ... unless you spend a lot of time in Larry Craig's favorite restroom at the Minneapolis airport. :wink: But most public restrooms in the US are nothing like that.

I haven't been in the UK since 2005 so I don't have a clear recollection of how your (apparently airtight?) stalls look over there. I would think that the style of partition used over here would help in ventilation and, ahem, dispersing odors.

Steve

 

[CUBE]

Nothing more than bad design and cheap, shoddy execution. Just look at our cars!

yep

 

[Meniscus]

At the University of Colorado-Boulder, there's one Men's room on campus where the stalls only had half-doors. They might as well have been doorless. I never understood the point, and I can't imagine anyone using them.

 

[B_RedDude]

Maybe this was done to dissuade sexual activity in a particular men's room if it had a previous history.

I think I may have noticed a change like this in one active men's room on a campus at which I took a class post-university.

At the University of Colorado-Boulder, there's one Men's room on campus where the stalls only had half-doors. They might as well have been doorless. I never understood the point, and I can't imagine anyone using them.

 

[zawfi]

For the past 5 years or so, most places where I've worked, in the software biz in Silicon Valley, have closed those gaps in the doors of stalls.

 

[B_Artful Dodger]

Nothing more than bad design and cheap, shoddy execution. Just look at our cars!

Haha. Wise words there man

 

[JamieBoy]

I could be right waaaaaaay off tangent here...

I think I read somewhere that the US cubicle design was changed way back in the "Great Depression" (1930's - maybe the present one will be greater?) when significant amounts of men topped themselves in toilet cubicles.

 

[Sherwood D. Likelym]

I had an employer threaten to remove the doors on the restroom stalls, because someone scribbled graffiti on the newly constructed walls. Can you imagine the outrage expressed by my coworkers? It's difficult to imagine how our society can be extremely prudish. Does it come from our British roots?

 

[pronatalist]

Maybe this was done to dissuade sexual activity in a particular men's room if it had a previous history.

I think I may have noticed a change like this in one active men's room on a campus at which I took a class post-university.

It seems there is such a thing as too much privacy in public places.

That may be also a reason for the traditional communal showers. Why give people more privacy than they need, leading to certain undesirable behaviors?

Also I think for population-efficiency, meaning it's okay for populations to be quite large, but as a subtle hint to do your business and get out of there, so that the next person, or line of people, can get in to do theirs.

The urine trough in busy restrooms, could be another example. As I don't believe in population "control" of humans, population-efficiency then makes for elegant efficient design.

 

[sdbg]

Nothing more than bad design and cheap, shoddy execution. Just look at our cars!

Funny, yet sad, but true. At least the U.S. makes good bicycles!

I can't say that I've noticed huge gaps in cubicles, but the restrooms along Mission Bay have no doors. The city is probably too cheap to spend the money!

 

[pronatalist]

Funny, yet sad, but true. At least the U.S. makes good bicycles!

I can't say that I've noticed huge gaps in cubicles, but the restrooms along Mission Bay have no doors. The city is probably too cheap to spend the money!

Somehow I suspect another theory. Maybe people should stop tearing them up. Maybe they had doors some time ago, and people swung on the doors, until they didn't align right to lock, or fell off the hinges? Or maybe people were doing things in the toilet stalls, that they shouldn't, and removing the doors seemed the easiest cheapest fix. What do you need a stall door for anyway? Afraid somebody might see you pooping, just like everybody else poops? I'm much more bothered by the common perception that public toilets can't be all that clean, than by whether there be a door or not. But then, where do you hang your coat? Hope they have a coat hook on the side then, rather than on the door?

I wish we could get more modern restrooms, with public toilets that automatically steam clean themselves after every use. But such things aren't cheap, so maybe we the public, have to show we would not abuse them, say by not writing stupid graphitti all over the toilet stalls.

 

[tom water]

I remember very well about 15 years ago using a rest room in Coney island NY and the line of cubicle was without doors, same in a rest room down town Manhattan there was a toilette without partitions completly open in a corner at the end of the urinals. I must admit I quite liked it.

 

[pronatalist]

I remember very well about 15 years ago using a rest room in Coney island NY and the line of cubicle was without doors, same in a rest room down town Manhattan there was a toilette without partitions completly open in a corner at the end of the urinals. I must admit I quite liked it.

What's to like? Eliminating bodily waste, is a bit of a private thing, and I wouldn't want to be "on display." However, what's the big deal?, everybody has to do it. Some of the old "communal" outhouses, with more than one hole, had no privacy partitions inside. So no doubt people must have talked to one another, while doing their business.

But one of the advantages of not having the partitions, more so with the communal showers, is that the big shower room is less confining, without all those extra unnecessary walls.

Want more actual privacy? Just go home then.

 

[deleted3782]

What's to like? Eliminating bodily waste, is a bit of a private thing, and I wouldn't want to be "on display." However, what's the big deal?, everybody has to do it. Some of the old "communal" outhouses, with more than one hole, had no privacy partitions inside. So no doubt people must have talked to one another, while doing their business.

But one of the advantages of not having the partitions, more so with the communal showers, is that the big shower room is less confining, without all those extra unnecessary walls.

Want more actual privacy? Just go home then.

Now you are promoting communal pooing?

It would be even less confining if we didn't have bathrooms at all, if we just had holes in the street that dropped directly into sewers. That way, you could poo in front of everyone with giddy glee.

 

[pronatalist]

Now you are promoting communal pooing?

It would be even less confining if we didn't have bathrooms at all, if we just had holes in the street that dropped directly into sewers. That way, you could poo in front of everyone with giddy glee.

I think in many countries, people do pee with other people around them on the streets. Not all places have yet suitable public sanitation facilities. At least we Americans usually have to pee with other people around only, well off the beaten path while on a hiking trip. And no, I don't believe you need to get completely out of sight of the opposite sex, but walk a bit into the woods, and turn away from the crowd.

No, where did I say I promote communal pooing? No, I am merely stating, if the stall door is missing, what are you going to do? Bring your own stall door from home? As long as people aren't gawking, watching you, what's the big deal? Less dirty germy stuff to touch then.

I do think the urine troughs are fine, in particularly busy restrooms. Urnals would more limit the peak peeing efficiency rates, while a trough is population-efficient, allowing people to spread out when it's not busy, and squeeze closer and all pee at once, when it is particularly busy, not limited by an actual fixed number of available urnals.

In some sense, those public partition walls and shower curtains, that don't really provide all that much privacy anyway, are a bit artificial and phony. And are too close together and confining. I think people like a little more privacy when pooing than when showering. Besides, "sitting on the throne," it's harder to reach back to the wall, to get some toilet paper, than to reach to the stall wall.

 

[deleted3782]

What's to like? Eliminating bodily waste, is a bit of a private thing, and I wouldn't want to be "on display." However, what's the big deal?, everybody has to do it. Some of the old "communal" outhouses, with more than one hole, had no privacy partitions inside. So no doubt people must have talked to one another, while doing their business.

But one of the advantages of not having the partitions, more so with the communal showers, is that the big shower room is less confining, without all those extra unnecessary walls.

Want more actual privacy? Just go home then.

No, where did I say I promote communal pooing?

Whew, ok. I had read your statement that "everyone had to eliminate bodily waste and that is was no big deal", your review of historical communal outhouses with people talking to each other while doing their business, the disadvantage of partitions, and your call that if you want privacy...to go home...as saw it as a general promotion of communal pooing. I'm glad that you agree it is something that should be kept quiet. Thanks for your clarification and agreement on the importance of privacy.

 

[pronatalist]

Whew, ok. I had read your statement that "everyone had to eliminate bodily waste and that is was no big deal", your review of historical communal outhouses with people talking to each other while doing their business, the disadvantage of partitions, and your call that if you want privacy...to go home...as saw it as a general promotion of communal pooing. I'm glad that you agree it is something that should be kept quiet. Thanks for your clarification and agreement on the importance of privacy.

Public toilets don't keep things quiet. One can sometimes hear one's neighbor's turd drop into the next toilet bowl. An example of how artificial and phony such partition privacy is. But I'm not so sure humans always need so much privacy. A partition with gaps, should do, as it serves its purpose, to discourage people from doing improper stuff, other than merely going poo and getting on out of the toilet stall after that.

And no doubt, many families don't even shut their bathroom or bedroom doors at home, not so afraid that somebody "might see something," that most everybody does or has.