One thing no one has mentioned is urinals. They’re extremely space efficient and can really help you meet the required number of facilities yet many women and men wold be uncomfortable being together in a room that featured unenclosed urinals. But enclosing them would require a lot more space. Unisex bathrooms that needed individual stalls for fixtures would require more square feet and actually make installing facilities more expensive.
How 'bout a six foot metal wall - just like the walls that make up stalls - placed 30" away from the urinals? Men could walk around it and still use the greater number of urinals, and delicate flowers of womanhood wouldn’t be at risk of glimpsing a penis. (Although I’m an avid camper and stand a few feet away from pissing men all the time, and somehow I’ve never actually viewed schlong in the process. They’re not all that big whilst they’re pissing, y’know.)
Why does that question need to be answered? The preference could be completely arbitrary, and it wouldn’t make a difference.
I think that could make the geometry of restrooms a bit tricky. Plus, I don’t see any overwhelming need to have unisex bathrooms. They’ll make a good portion of the public uncomfortable (how would most guys deal with the blood that is sometimes found in women’s restrooms? And you can see through the cracks in the stalls doors. Would most guys look? No. But the pervy ones would and why should anyone have to deal with that?). Also, in this day of increasingly draconian sexual harassment policies, I find it difficult to believe anyone would be seriously considering “upping the ante”.
But this thread has drifted more towards GD than GQ.
Single-sex bathrooms don’t prevent peeping. Ask the officer who arrested Larry Craig (cf the paragraph beginning “At 1213 hours”).
I don’t know but there obviously is one, or we wouldn’t have them all over the place. I have no issue with unisex bathrooms, and I don’t entirely understand why people do, but I figure it must be percieved by both the legal system and general public as a valid reason. I shouldn’t have said it doesn’t take an imagination to figure out why, because I couldn’t really think of a reason but I assumed it would be obvious so I threw that in there.
Do you want me to bite myself for being stupid?
Most (90%or more) or the bathrooms here are maintained horridly, I’ve been in maybe two stalls all the time I’ve been down here with working locks (and both were in the same place). Hell, half the time someone ripped off the entire door.
I’ve never seen this. The Starbucks around here that do have a public bathroom (not all of them do) just have one or two separate rooms. They’re not designated as male or female, and the line for both of them always has both sexes waiting.
Would you be able to cite this?
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder Stalls also have slits that can be peeped through, and face it, many women don’t feel comfortable in an enclosed area even with lockable doors in which they’re going to be taking off their clothes and men are too.[/QUOTE]
Under this logic, in addition to having male and female bathrooms, we should also have gay, lesbian, and bisexual restrooms. Wasn’t it Sir Dexter Holland who once said “You’ve got to keep em separated”? Oh, also I didn’t know women take there clothes off when going to the bathroom, I guess you learn something everyday.
I would agree. From remarks like this I also get the sense that the OP is looking for a debate rather than simple factual answers:
Moving to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The urinal lobby claims that desegregation would cost America hundreds of jobs. Surely you do not want to further cripple our manufacturing?
And I’ve been in men’s rooms that didn’t even have stall doors to begin with! :eek: Places like county fairgrounds, public parks/campgrounds, or beachs often have very basic facilities. The boys’ lockerroom at my high school didn’t have any doors on the stall.
Do you mean unisex single-person bathrooms, as on an airplane, or the type found in offices and public places? I always thought that was odd on Ally McBeal–is that really common in NYC?
I was going to mention the ones on airplanes, but at airports, and some other places, there are mens, women’s and family bathrooms: the latter, I think, for diaper changing or taking the little one in.
Serious question: do nudist camps have single sex or multi-sex bathrooms? Anyone know?
Believe it or not, I actually know the answer to this one! Well only the one nudist camp I worked on! Oddest architectural job I ever had.
This particular camp had separate bathrooms and lockers and showers.
Strangest meeting I ever attended. I was right out of school and my boss and I show up at the meeting and it looks like any other board meeting. Little notebooks and pencils at each place setting. We sit down and then the nudist building committee shows up–all nude!
I will state for the record that it is my experience that people you want to see nude are never nude and those that you don’t want to see nude are the ones who like to flout it. I will also say it is uncomfortable when everyone but you is nude—it is the opposite of what you would expect.
Both. That is, some have single sex, some have multi-sex, many have both (single sex at one end, multi-sex at the other - so if you really care about your modesty, you can hike 1/2 a mile to poop in segregated peace) and some just have Porta-Johns.
It’s what people are comfortable with, and unlikely to change anytime soon.
One odd thing I noticed in Japan – female cleaners wander into the men’s room while it’s in use, and nobody seems to be startled (except me). I’ve never seen this in the West (and, I don’t know if the corollary holds true, i.e., I don’t know if male janitorial staff can just do their work in the ladies’ rooms there without first making sure there are no patrons therein).