When I posted this on Facebook, a philosophy ABD I know pointed out that Henry Miller had written about them.
He would, the filthy bastard.
When I was in Lima, Peru, there was this stone bridge that led into a huge park. The walkway was wider than the exit, so there was a right angle in the wall.
In that corner was a HUGE permanent brown stain, about waist high, and the funk could knock you off your feet.
Well, yeah, if you want to get all true-y fact-y about it :smack:
The cities’ decisions to prioritize men’s urinals over women’s is just an indicator that rather than basing their plans on who needs a bathroom more urgently the most often they’re basing it entirely on which gender is more likely to shamelessly piss in the streets if there’s no other convenient option.
And now I know that the Dutch word for urinal is “pissbuck”.
Yes, because the port-a-potty is there all the time. Blocking the sun in the day, blocking the view all day.
You think the portapotties are bad, look at all those buildings. And art installations, my god, they’re not even useful!
Tear them all down and replace them with penises.
Since the late 19th century, in fact. However, at some point (late 80s???) they were all removed, considered unsavory and redundant since paying public toilets had been installed. Now, they’re coming back.
Generally not, they bring them in every evening for weekends and special events. I’ve not seen the ones in Paris, but I’ve seen it in other European cities, you get trucks unloading whole rows of them in the evening, then they collect them again in the morning. Men are far less likely to piss in the street during daylight, and more likely to be able to find alternative facilities, plus if they left so many smelly plastic eyesores in the most popular and attractive bits of the city all day, people would complain…
Of course, unloading and collecting all these things is an expensive pain (and if you’re really unlucky, they’re not fixed to the ground, so drunk arseholes can push them over), hence the permanent ones that sink out of sight during the day and other solutions.
I travel a lot, so I’ve had experience (as a woman) with some female and male public urinals.
There are numerous in Europe. Privacy isn’t that great, but much better than using male public urinals. I have used some male ones on a few occasions.
I wasn’t really embarrassed (yes, my bare ass was exposed to the street), but Europe is very progressive, and I wasn’t harassed by one passerby. Would never try that in America, though. Plus, the times I had to use it were times when my bladder was about to burst, so I really didn’t care. It’s nice when my boyfriend or a friend is there, though. They’ll often shield me from outside view. It was just really unpleasant using it in freezing cold weather…….
I wish there were more public urinals for women, though. On long days out with my friends on trips to Europe, there were way too many times I had to stoop by a tree while a friend shielded me.
Squat toilets were unisex when I was in Japan years ago, and no privacy walls in many of them. Belgians generally consider the world to be their toilet, or did. That’s why their national symbol is this guy.