# Characters throwing up into public toilet bowls **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841 "2011-10-07T00:03:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/61 "2016-01-24T07:37:49Z")
Those zombie jokes are just so delightful. Really. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/62 "2016-01-24T08:43:37Z")
What annoys me all the time is how the characters sound when not shown. They either cough or just give a gag of the throat. Throwing up in a toilet sounds like a waterslide on a busy day. There’s splashing, dunking, gagging, gasping, etc. I just don’t know why they can’t just pour a can of chunky soup in the toilet while fake-coughing. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/63 "2016-01-24T08:58:59Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I pray to the god I don’t believe in that it’s not an exclusive German thing, but I’m talking [about this](http://www.google.de/search?tbm=isch&hl=de&source=hp&biw=1016&bih=633&q=kotzbecken&gbv=2&oq=kotzbecken&aq=f&aqi=g1g-S1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3248l5739l0l6924l10l10l0l3l3l0l138l610l6.1l7l0). Wow, high tech, with handles and everything. I’m not saying the US should adopt this, because it seems to indicate “this is _the place_ for getting so drunk your mouth imitates a Saturn V”, but it’s a pretty dandy solution. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/64 "2016-01-24T10:53:27Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#): > > Eww, kneel on a public bathroom floor??? I just don’t think so, no matter how sick. Touch some piss covered seat with my _HAND_?! Barf! I have seen people _lying down_ on a public bathroom floor, in all cases puking drunk/high out of their minds. Semi-conscious and moaning/rolling around between barfs, or even entirely unconscious. Not too often, because I try to avoid such dives, but stuff happens. A lot depends on how messed up the person in question is - for the average puke, yeah, people will probably try to avoid touching the toilet or the floor but if you’re extremely ill/incapacitated it’s a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/65 "2016-01-24T10:58:59Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Just wanted to add that I didn’t want to suggest that all here who confessed to having puked a lot in public restrooms have been drunk at the time. Another explanation for this could be the simple fact that many people get sick when traveling. Pregnancy is another common reason for public toilet puking. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/66 "2016-01-24T19:51:57Z")
It doesn’t take me out of a movie or anything, but I’ve always thought the toilet-hugging thing was weird, and probably exaggerated for effect. It’s never even occurred to me to do that when I’ve been sick–I might brace myself with a hand against the tank or wall as I lean over, but my balance has never been so screwed up that I couldn’t remain standing. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/67 "2016-01-24T21:11:16Z")
There have been a few times in my life when I’ve been so sick and weak I couldn’t stay on my feet. It wasn’t a matter of balance. Consider yourself lucky it’s never happened to you. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/68 "2016-01-24T21:14:20Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > It doesn’t take me out of a movie or anything, but I’ve always thought the toilet-hugging thing was weird, and probably exaggerated for effect. Let’s hope! If I were a movie actor and the script called for me to do that, I would want to ideally see the toilet be a brand new one or a prop, but at the very least very well cleaned before I did this. But it would still be tough to overcome the aversion psychologically. Studies have shown that even if you do something like unwrap a brand new flyswatter in front of someone and then serve them a sandwich with it, they are still grossed out even though they rationally understand that it is new. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841/69 "2016-01-24T23:04:55Z")
> [@ronenfe](#): > > It seems like all people in movies use the same way of hugging the toilet and seating on a filthy floor when vomiting. As I originally noted in this thread nearly five years ago, I don’t watch a lot of movies with puking scenes, so I have limited data to go on here. But are the floors/toilets in such scenes really so obviously filthy that their putrid festering effluvia distracts the viewer from the plight of the character who’s vomiting? On the contrary, most public restrooms I see in the movies are pretty much like most public restrooms I see in real life: tiled with enamel fixtures, probably cleaned with disinfectant of some kind sometime within the last 24 hours, usually white with no visible smears or stains. Not a place I’d particularly enjoy eating a meal in, and not a place I’d be comfortable walking out of without thoroughly washing my hands, but not inspiring any immediate revulsion or fears of invisible unspeakable contamination. > [@Flyer](#): > > I find this whole thread to be odd. Is it really possible that so many Dopers are unaware of all the studies, many of which have gotten significant news coverage, showing that (A) fecal matter is more or less everywhere, and (B) phones, keyboards, and kitchen counters are VASTLY germier than toilets? I think many people just have a deep-seated conviction that public restrooms, no matter how clean and undefiled they may look, are seething masses of horrible invisible filth that no sane person would consciously risk touching any more than they absolutely had to. Actual bacteriological study data are not generally effective against such convictions. Or maybe it’s just that many people are encountering public restrooms that are **way** dirtier-looking than the ones I tend to see? But in that case, I would think that the “shocked and revolted” contingent would be asking _“Why do movies show public restrooms as reasonably clean-looking instead of covered in mold and rotting excrement?”_, rather than _“Why do movies show characters who vomit in public restrooms **not** avoiding reasonably clean-looking surfaces as though they were covered in mold and rotting excrement?”_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-throwing-up-into-public-toilet-bowls/598841.md?page=3)