Multi-use Philosophies

[eyesup]

Let me state up front that I’ve no interest a transgender debate here. I understand it is important to many, but it has become tedious because of it's obvious intent. It has nothing to do with the normal, everyday nudity we get involved with. It is obliquely related not directly. That whole can-o-worms is about sexuality which for our purposes is secondary to casual nudity.

Here is an article specifically about the whole “gender identity/restroom” tempest in a toilet bowl. The panic around that discussion is not about nudity but personal safety. The article uses the same arguments that we would use for a more widespread acceptance of normal everyday nudity. Check it out here. Invigorating reading that made me want to stand up and cheer for the rational, clear headed folks still out there.

The objections listed for not having gender neutral facilities are shown to have questionable foundation and have little to no reasonable or justified explanation outside of a personal objection. That is not to say that there will be the occasional special exception, which would most likely be because of something other than gender. That is perfectly understandable.

One can only hope that the result of this debate will eventually have an overall positive effect on the subject of nudity in general. If we can all use the same restrooms and/or showers without our brains exploding, it just might be ok to see a naked person out in public NOT going potty. Behaving normally just without any clothes on is just as benign as using the public convenience in a mixed gender setting.

Interesting reading.

Duane

[JOhnGw]

As I have posted elsewhere, it is not unusual to have mixed gender toilet facilities in France.
It varies from simply having the washbasins in a common area to having a single room with a urinal in a discreet corner (sometimes partitioned) with one or two hand basins and unisex WC cubicles.

The only problem I have known with this is when a British lady entered such a room and uttered a piercing shriek when she saw the back of a man using the urinal. The shriek was heard throughout the café and I pity the poor man who had that go off immediately behind him.

[jbeegoode]

The elimination of clothing surely does cure many social ailments and here is another.

The coed toilets are a no brainer, but this leads to coed bathrooms which will be difficult for the trends that we have been seeing, like no use of high school showers in same sex bathrooms. Even in nudist resorts where there are coed showers, I have found women uncomfortable when showering and having a man, or another couple enter and join her under adjacent spigots. I believe this has something to do with the touching oneself in public taboo, at least partly.

The transgender people have great difficulty sorting themselves out in society as it is. Society at large would have trouble at a school where a physical boy decides to shower with the girls. These people are generally in transition, stuck with bodies in parts of both sexes. They don’t fit, or they fit in both places. I gave an affectionate hug to a friend of mine one day as I would any woman, and she was very uncomfortable. Her male genitals haven’t been removed and she hasn’t sorted herself out about that final leap. She has concerns about it being perceived as dishonest, or misleading. So, there is much tado about clothing and women’s roles for a transgender person. If clothing were eliminated, then where would they be? They would be a nude person, not a man or woman, but a nude cross between masculine and feminine. We all have male and female traits in degree. Clothing is getting in the way. Nude, to a great extent, we are forced to be who we are with each other, not who we choose to portray, or identify with.

Women’s public toilets are nearly always cleaner.  Now, that’s a real problem. How to train those nasty boys!
Jbee

[Peter S]

Women's toilets might be cleaner, but I've often heard it said that their graffiti is a lot dirtier!!

[eyesup]

John, how could someone be that surprised when entering a mixed use facility if they are that common? That's just a failure to pay attention. At least she had a fun story to tell. As you mention the man she was behind, he may have had to regroup in a stall for remediation.

I can see your point Jbee about some awkwardness, but what I took from the article was that the reasons presented as justification for the policy also fit perfectly within many of our reasons for doing what we do.

Getting boys to slow down might go a long way to reducing the over spray problem.

Peter, I don't know about the women's limericks, but you have piqued my curiosity!   

Duane


 

[John P]

Coincidentally, my wife and I are in France right now, and we've been in some villages where the toilet facilities (if present!) are somewhat surprising. Here's the entrance to the item in question in the village of Ansouis, in Provence:
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/q84/p206x206/13230203_10205892493743121_6239488938458697011_n.jpg?oh=19501e9da24e62ebd2aefeb63a1ce77d&oe=579EFDD9

It does have a door. But there is one door for all, no matter what your anatomy, and this is what you get when you're behind it:
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13226733_10205892504863399_3174070730284803334_n.jpg?oh=2ff3f2d4c0078a8c2cf9d5367ae994cf&oe=57E60E02

We did find places where there's just one room, and there are doors behind which there are toilets. But men are expected to use a urinal where the only cover is to turn your back; I have to say I found this a bit unnerving, even if locals would call it quite comme il faut.

[nudewalker]

I think the whole thing is a distraction from other issues but don't want to go down the political or religious trail here. As for bathrooms; I worked as an after hours janitor in a bank while in college. Believe me when I saw that as for a mess men and women could be considered equals. Maybe it is because the women knew they did not have to clean up after themselves? It may be in the wiring as I tend to clean up after things like cooking are done and the wife cleans as she goes along.

[jbeegoode]

When I lived in Paris in the 60's, we would visit a restaurant with fine pepper steak. This photo could be it exactly. It was in a larger room, with urinal and sinks, all coed.

I remember being uncomfortable squatting there, exposed, the difficulty of not spraying pants, nowhere to hang them to get them out of the way. It would be a good setup for a nude, but precarious for clothing.

As for coed urinals, I grew up camping, etc. and turning my back to do something as uninteresting and benign as urination was never an issue. I had been taught that that is okay. I've never encountered any objections to it. As a kid, enjoying the length and power of the arc, as a young man putting on an act, as if a fire-hose was being unraveled out of my pants, standing on the side of a road with the other guys, there has never been much of an issue.
Jbee

[nuduke]

Pretty grubby bog, JohnP!  However, the squat toilet is a fine invention and good for the constitution to defaecate in natures position.  Not so comfortable if one's every 'movement ' is on public display!
John

[eyesup]

I have never been in a squat toilet in a public restroom. Are there handles for maintaining balance? While reading the posts I had this visual of losing balance and plopping down on the floor.  Urrrk!

My many times dealing with this on hikes or camping caused me to wonder. Out on the trail it's not a big deal. Just don't pick a spot near cacti or nettles. 

In a mere 9 posts we have moved from transgender politics to the many variations of toilet facilities. Yet another strange topic drift. 

Duane

[jbeegoode]

It seems to me that the discussion is germane to the original issue. The layout of the facility is the context of the socialist toilet.

I see labeling of transgender, transsexual, transvestite all have a certain amount of irrelevance when people get nude together. They are seen as they are. Identity is less an issue. The trans people that I know are very much into the costume and feminine, or masculine expression. They dress up, they don't undress. They are not yet completely transformed physically, if at all and tell me that this is very common in the ranks, generally because it is expensive and quite a commitment. So, to me, it follows that the issues inferred, like so many other social and personal issues, are solved with social nudity. The person is a masculine or feminine personality and is potentially accepted that way.

Transgender locker rooms and public facilities will be a segue to body freedom, which is our issue.

Social nudity is a more egalitarian, a more out front, basic and honest situation. So many of the clothing and gender roles fall aside and are seen much easier as the social constructs, which they are and which are greatly varied between people. Much to do about nothing.
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

I have never been in a squat toilet in a public restroom. Are there handles for maintaining balance? While reading the posts I had this visual of losing balance and plopping down on the floor.  Urrrk!  Duane

A few years ago I saw squat toilets at Cap d'Agde in the south of France.  My wife wanted instructions about facing forward or backward to pee. 

It seems to me that the discussion is germane to the original issue. The layout of the facility is the context of the socialist toilet.
{snip}
Transgender locker rooms and public facilities will be a segue to body freedom, which is our issue.

The layout is germane to public acceptance of human bodies.   Nudist places still tend to separate male and female for common body functions even while naked together outside the toilet spaces.  Seeing the other sex poo or pee is somehow wrong, and its a context that defines the level of body freedom and social acceptance. 

Imperial Rome built public toilets in semi-circles for conversational groupings.  Taking a dump was a social opportunity.  When we make naked people divide up so their body functions are hidden we are making a statement about body acceptance. 

Bob
 

[jbeegoode]

To me there are certain body functions that I'd just as soon get done and leave. There are smells and messes, wiping to be done and I'd rather not have someone share that with me. I prefer privacy at those times. Na, no thanks. A quick convenient leak is not an issue. Sharing a mirror or sink is not an issue. Dressing, undressing, no biggy any time or place. Certain body functions, please, leave me out of it.

I've had the opportunity, I've shared that, it is a matter of fact, but I don't care to repeat it. Nose pickers, nah. Puking, nah. I've had to use the facilities with the livestock and didn't like that. I don't think that it is a repressed body issue. A cute baby's brown diapers are like dirty bombs, horrid, something that must be gotten used to. My bare baby once crapped on the owners knee at a naturist resort. That was very inconvenient, natural, understandable, but who needs it?
Jbee

[Safebare]

I think there are several perspectives to this topic. I am not too far from Jabee, except for the last comment. We all 'need it', bodily function speaking. The baby's poop on the knee? How about the shoulders and hair?  I didn't like it, but that's life. I have carried on conversations at the urinal and have heard others carrying on conversations while on the toilet. I think we should go back to the urinal trough, but not the 2-hole outhouse. I too, experienced the odd toilets of France. Men's were openly hanging outside the building, women's urinals behind doors. Stalls were located inside the unisex washroom-shower area.
It goes for sex too. I personally think that intimacy should be private, but acknowledge that there are others that think differently. As long as no one forces it on me, I let things fall where they will.

[eyesup]

At some point there has to be a meeting at the mid-point. It won't achieve all what either side wants but it will have aspects of both. Such is the nature of compromise.

Duane