When I first started working at my company the bathroom just had a couple of stalls with bare toilets. About a year ago they installed paper toilet seat liner dispensers so you could have a barrier between your butt and the apparently toxic seat. Now…I’ve been using public toilets for years with no adverse effects. Nobody I know has ever had ANY issue from using a public toilet. Now…i’m sure there is some off chance something could happen, but there are lots of off chances that something could happen in many everyday things. However…sitting on a bare public toilet when you think of all the other bare butts on there throughout the day is pretty gross. I do enjoy using the paper butt gaskets now that we have them but is it really actually preventing me from catching anything? Is it providing any real protection or am I just killing trees for unnecessary peace of mind?
P.S. Keep in mind that if there is any poop or pee on the toilet seat I’m not using it anyway so covering THAT up with a paper gasket is a moot point
Assgaskets, like so much bathroom-related technology, are primarily psychological. People have this irrational fear of their elimination systems - really, just wash your hands, and you’ll be fine - and so anything that makes it look safer will be popular.
Agreed, it’s completely psychological. It’s catering to the current irrational fad for germophobia. Nobody has ever caught anything from a toilet seat ever. It’s a totally imaginary danger.
I don’t think the gaskets really help even on a psychological level. Those who think they’re going to get cooties still hover over the seat and spray the whole stall anyway.
I don’t know, public toilets can be pretty nasty. You often see quite a mess in them, piss and shit on the seats, and thats the people that don’t clean up. I’m sure some wipe their mess off the seat with just one quick wipe. It’s not going to kill me, its most probably not going to make me sick, but the issue isn’t that I’m worried about catching something. It’s nothing more than, if given an option, I choose not having other people’s feces and urine on my bare ass. It’s not an irrational fear for me, it just a preference. Those seat liners are pointless though, 2 strips of tp work just fine.
At the other end of which spectrum are the cigarette-holders built into the stainless steel t.p. dispensers in restrooms I saw when living in Winston-Salem, NC. The logic of which is: user will enter toilet either already smoking or will commence smoking while therein, will, in due course, need to put that cigarette down, the logical location being on a horizontal surface 18 inches from a toilet, then wil put cigarette back in his/her mouth.
“But unfortunately, these tissue paper doilies come with no instructions as to how to interpret their highly ambiguous design. Like what are you supposed to do? Sit there with this big paper tongue hanging down beneath you, lolling in the water? Or are you supposed to use it like a Melitta coffee filter?”
Sara Cytron
As a data point, they’re all but completely unknown up here. I can’t remember the last time I saw a dispenser for them, and I was never taught to use them as a child - never even heard them mentioned.
You know, I think this was the first place I ever heard the phrase “ass-gaskets.” It’s one of my favorites now.
We have those at my work. Not only does almost everyone use them, but I’ve been asked, en route to the stall, why I didn’t grab one. My response? “It’s wasteful.”
And, really, it is. I mean, come on. . .it’s my ass. I’m not going to be fondling it, licking it , touching it, etc. It can get whatever on it, and as long as it’s invisible and unfeelable, I’m good.
Also, side note, I used to not believe the public bathroom thing. Then I visted the Funk’s Grove rest stop on I-55 in Illinois. There was shit on the floor. I will never doubt again.
My job (land survey) takes me onto construction sites quite often and while I try to avoid them at all costs I have been known to use the portable toilets from time to time. Number 1 is easy enough as an urinal has been available in the toilets for years now, but when time for number 2 I use the gaskets for something other than intended. I toss two or three of them into the tank before assuming the position. This helps to minimize any potential back splash from either the liquids or semi-solids already present.
Before smoking was pretty much eliminated indoors I frequently saw guys standing at urinals lay a cigarette on top of the urinal, do their thing and then pick the cigarette up and put it back in thier mouth.
If they were to provide some Windex or other cleaning stuff, I would never need one. However, just wiping the obvious wetness from the toilet seat is not cleaning it, really, and like Bootis, I don’t relish walking around with other people’s urine on my behind.
The tongue is supposed to go down the front of the toilet to protect you from the dirtiest part, the little strip of uncovered rim under the crack in the seat.
My understanding from those I’ve known in the industry is that “hoverers” are the bane of bar staff and pub workers across the nation. I’m sure you are careful, but apparently there are many that aren’t. Blow-outs are especially disturbing. :eek:
I think you can make a convincing argument that placing paper protectors on toilet seats has more potential for causing infection than simply bare-assing it. A few million rogue microbes on ones buttock poses nary a problem, but contaminating ones fingers with pathogens (easily accomplished during manual butt-gasket application with digits in close proximity to fecal encrusted seats) certainly could be problematic. Fingers to mouth and eyes is much more likely to occur than buttocks to mouth and eyes…unless you’re into that sort of thing. I’m more worried about touching the doorknob on the way out—they really should put the sinks on the other side of the door. :eek:
