You’re in a large public venue, like a stadium or concert hall, for some kind of event, like a baseball game or concert or something (it doesn’t matter why you’re there). You have to take a wicked shit.
There’s one restroom nearby, but the toilet stalls have no doors. There are only a few people in there, but it’s still a public restroom in a place filled with people. You’re there alone, so you don’t have a friend to stand in front of the doorway to shield you.
There’s another restroom on the complete opposite side of the venue that’s busier and the stalls do have doors. It’s quite a ways away. You have to go pretty badly, and while you could probably make it there before shitting yourself, it’s a legitimate risk. I’d say you have roughly 60/40 odds of getting there cleanly.
(No, I don’t know why a venue would be set up this way.)
The last time I was at a stadium with doorless stalls, everyone was using the stalls for number one, with a line forming behind the guy doing the peeing. If someone wished to use the stall for number two, he would have to do it while facing the next person waiting in line.
Technically, that is what a stall should be used for. But in reality, a doorless stall should only be used for peeing.
I’d pee in one but certainly wouldn’t shit in one. But common human decency would dictate that if somebody were to be standing in line to use it next that they turn around as well to block the person doing his business. I couldn’t begin to imagine the discomfort of taking a shit with a stranger standing in front of me asking how things are coming out!
I’d probably use the doorless stall, but if there is a line waiting I’d certainly request the lady waiting to turn around.
I spent a weekend in a military barrack for a Boy Scout training event. 20 toilets in one room, 10 in each facing row, all completely open in one small room. We were thigh to thigh, and knee to knee. Showers were the same way, shower heads along one long wall. We all learned how to keep our eyes to ourselves and ignore anything else going on.
I realize that this is how I trained my bowels (and bladder along with it), because we had doorless stalls at my high school and I wasn’t about to be caught out in the open like that. Learned to hold it all in for the entire school shift if necessary.
This would not have been a solution anyway. I have never in my life had a friend that I would have been comfortable enough with to have them act like a human toilet stall door. Forget about it.
60/40 odds aren’t good enough. I’ll suffer from the loss of privacy, rather than the loss of privy.
(Ever done a hell-run in a car, driving as fast as possible, hoping to get to a rest-room before the diarrhea gets to you? Not fun. “The Last Mile is the Longest.”)
40% odds of shitting myself? Hell no. I wouldn’t even do it if it was a 1% chance. I’ll take the doorless stall. I will just lean over my lap and cover everything up and get out of there in less than 30 seconds, if I can manage it. It won’t be the most comfortable thing in the world but having almost any chance of shitting myself in public is far worse than using a doorless stall.
The boys’ lockerroom at my HS had doorless stalls (which you had to walk past to get to the storage room where the balls were kept. They very rarely got used (except as urinals) unless somebody waited until the other boys had changed and gone into the gym. The girls’ gym teacher often to get stuff from that storage room, but she’d always ask the boys’ teacher for an all clear before going in. Except none of the male teachers actually cared if anyone was in there so they’d always give her an all clear. :smack: She caught several of my classmates having bowel movements over the yrs. Back the OP I’d take my chances getting to the other restroom; I haven’t had a bowel movement with an audience since I was potty trained.
For having a bowel movement, I don’t think I’d care. On the other hand, I find it very uncomfortable to urinate when I even vaguely think someone else might be able to see, and usually can’t get my bladder to release in such a situation.
I voted yes, I wouldn’t risk 60/40 odds on completely shitting myself. If it’s a wicked shit, then it’s not only a “new underwear” situation. You’d need call HazMat and close the stadium for a couple of years.
I, however, shudder at the concept of the doorless stall in any place other than prisons.
I went to a boys only school and not even then would anyone think it was acceptable.
When I was a teen, I was sent off to summer camp that had a large bathroom full of completely open toilets like this:
About 12 of them next to each other with no stalls or privacy shielding of any kind. Amazingly this was a christian bible camp. I still remember the name - Camp Wabana somewhere in southern Maryland. None of the boys had any reservations about sitting down next to each other, often stark naked since they were often on their way to the showers.
Yes, that was an interesting (and formative, but probably not in the way my parents had hoped) two weeks of my life.
If you gotta go, you gotta go: I’m male, and I’m using the doorless stall.
Back in the 80s and 90s, several military bases had doorless stalls. Heck, Camp Wilson at 29 Palms had toilets without stalls. If you’re not using it, then you don’t have to go badly enough.
Easy enough to say “It smelled like this when I got here”, I guess. Anyway, the doors were intentionally removed so I’m sure it was for some reason and I assume it was to discourage miscreant behavior in the stalls.
