There is a typo in the fourth paragraph (that begins with “This is bad.”) The word “evaluation” should be “evacuation”, unless we are suppose to be rating our urinary experiences.
Link. I don’t think that’s a typo. I think he’s talking about evaluating urinary tract problems. You don’t evacuate urinary tract problems–you evacuate urine.
Grammatically, there’s no doubt of it. The phrase unambiguously reduces to “evaluation of … problems”.
No most women do not. I know I don’t, unless the seat is nasty.
Shouldn’t that be “the remaining 86 percent”?
Also, I could swear Cecil once wrote a column where he debunked that claim on Elvis. Couldn’t find it, though.
You’re right, not a typo… but how did you find the link? Why don’t I see it on the main page?
You’re probably right, but I still don’t understand the sentence. Compared to the number of females urinating every day, the relatively small number of them undergoing urinary evaluation makes it a curious addition.
Here’s a patent for somebody to register; a sitting toilet with flip-out foot-rests so squatting can become an option if desired. Surely such a thing already exists. I wonder why they are not common as it makes sense to me.
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, the child of a mother and grandmother whose information on germs was not as cutting edge as it is currently (we now know that there are germ experts who would rather eat out of your toilet bowl than your kitchen sink!). So we hovered, for years. I quit hovering (mostly) about the time I had children 12 years ago (damn hard enough to pee with a non-walking sprat in your lap, much less hover). There’s that old “gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die” saying, and the old saw about urine being sterile (though one recent scientific study challenges that - but hey, scientists also found fecal matter in clean laundry, and I maintain that most people are not getting sick from their own washed clothing). So, there I was, until I recently GOT MRSA ON MY HIND END! Now, granted, the dermatologist says he’s seeing things like this more frequently, but I don’t go to gyms or locker rooms, and still have no clue how this could have come about. I read a recent study about MRSA on hard surfaces, though, and it sounds as if it can SURVIVE for a while! So there you are - it’s an uncertain world. I guess maybe I should go back to hovering? Love the idea of flip down foot rests, though! My daughter. did a school project on the history of plumbing, so I had to vet some of her research material (much discussion of the unsavory things people have dumped down privies), and I really got thinking about the whole “squat” thing. I still apparently have thighs of steel, and in yoga class could sit for years in that posture (pissture?!).
The study was done by “Moore and associates surveyed 528 women attending gynecology clinics in northern England and found that only two percent said they’d sit directly on a public toilet seat.”, so the whole survey was in the context of gynecology clinics.
The sentence in question: “The immediate concern was that crouching would throw off evaluation of urinary tract problems…”
It sounds to me like Cecil is saying that crouching causes women to retain more urine, which may result in misdiagnoses. A urologist may interpret urine retention as a symptom of urinary tract problems, rather than just the result of an awkward position.
Whatever you do don’t squat on a western style toilet. The ceramic bowl may be unable to take the weight and if it breaks can cause horrific injuries. Warnings exist in toilets in Asian countries to discourage this practice. See:
http://manonthelam.com/travel-photo-week-graphic-toilet-sign/
Speaking of squatting, this week’s article by Dan Savage in Savage Love (what is it with Chicagoans holding a monopoly on all the good advice columns even when they move away?) had a note at the end from a doctor about the usefulness of squatting.
Maybe those british women were squeamish because the bathrooms were so filthy!
Personally I use a butt gasket (seat tissue) whenever possible. Also, most of the time my public restroom forays are in airports. Otherwise, I’m at home or small office. It’s just a little neater.
I also wash my hands and then use the towel to open the door of the public restroom and toss the towel in the first garbage I see. I don’t have to touch the door handle with my cleans hands. Why? Because I see how many women don’t wash their hands after using a public toilet.
I’m no neat freak and not much worried about germs. I think those are reasonable precautions that only take a few seconds.
A old lady I know thought it was more important for men to wash their hands before using public restroom, than after using. She had a point.
Re: UK toilets.
Everything I know about UK toilet sanitation I learned from Trainspotting.
The 2% who sit must be good swimmers.
Then there are the unintended consequences of all these points of view. Particularly among those who cover the seat with tissue. There seems a common, if not widespread, belief that no less than five layers of TP are sufficient to protect one’s backside from the germs on the seat. Moreover, that one should not even risk the possibility of direct contact between the porcelain and the back of one’s calves.
I look for a clean stall–typically the first one since most people automatically skip it, it’s usually the cleanest. Next, I’ll choose a seat with minor dribblage-- it cleans up easily with a small wad of TP. Then on to the desperate stage of the one with dark spot(s) on the seat; That’s the time I start looking for seat liners, hover, or another restroom. Which leads back to my point: all too often a toilet will look like a band of teens TP’d it with streams of TP going every which way and extending to the floor where it starts absorbing liquids.
It’s sad that someone that paranoid couldn’t at least be considerate enough to at least clean-up after using up their very own mega-industrial roll of TP, or perhaps they tried and it’s clogged the commode causing even more liquids and sh-stuff to spill onto the floor, spreading germs and oh such lovely odors all over the place. Leaving me with my knees crossed and hopping to my car to “go” somewhere else while trying not to retch. And I really pity the poor soul making $8/hr who actually has to clean up all that mess everyday.
Perhaps this explains why the ‘women’s room’ was always so nasty when I was the poor janitor 30 years ago. Of course, then, minimum wage was $3.65, not the current nearly $8 you mention.
The women’s room in the office (with only 2 women) I cleaned was usually***** much nastier than the men’s room out on the factory floor, with dozens of men using it. I bet those two hated each other.
*****except when it wasn’t. Sometimes a guy would have the shits and spray all over everything. They didn’t clean up after themselves, either. After all, there I was making 3 and change an hour to do it for their 20 an hour lordships.
I have a word for public toilet seat hovering: Lavitate, a contraction of Lavatory and Levitate.
There do exist “half and half” toilets, common in India. The bowl is a bit lower than a standard sitter, on either side the bowl widens to footrests on the top, and there is still a toilet seat lid you can flip down on top of the footrests.