‘it’ not being anything I described.
Ah, memories float back to the good ol’ days of college… in which I walked into the co-ed bathroom in my dorm to tinkle, only to hear from the stall enclosing the bathtub the giggle of a girl… and a guy… and another girl?!?
And then there’s grad school in London… My schoolmates and I would frequent the Belgos restaurant near Covent Garden, which had a unique bathroom of sorts. After several strong Belgian beers, I went to the restroom to do my business. As I walked in the door, I saw a circular stainless steel basin, about 8 feet in diameter, with faucets attached, and a couple of rows of stalls. Thinking that beer drinkin’ time was more important than door openin’ and closin’ time, I unzipped, relieved myself in the basin, only to my buddy come in behind me and comment in colorful, drunken language about the manner in which I was utilizing the communal sink in the co-ed bathroom…
Anyways, if all the important facilities (save sinks) are located in stalls, I simply fail to see what the big deal about co-ed bathrooms is, as long as there’s not any drunk idiots around. Coed bathrooms in the workplace – a la Ally McBeal — seem perfectly reasonable to me. The fact that girls also poop just isn’t a surprise to me.
:smack:
The Texas Potty Parity law requires BrainGlutton’s
Those two guys should let someone else use the bathroom.
I don’t see how you can have multi-person unisex bathrooms without eliminating the urinals. The reason the men’s room never has a line is the urinals. Not even the bashfullest of kidneys wants to give them up.
Oops; my mistake; I thought BrainGlutton was merely suggesting the installation of twice as many as usual - i.e. probably twice the statutory minimum.
The other side of the coin!
**Personal privacy: a thing of the past **
You are considered a voyeur by some.
No, no, no! Count me as a prude if you will, whatever. I don’t care. I don’t wanna share my bathroom with you men.
It’s the last place of refuge. And I’m tired of people saying men and women are the same. We’re not! And I like my bathroom.
I did have a coherent comment. What was it. Oh, yes.
For some reason one of my recurrent nightmares is a huuuuuge unisex bathroom, without even walls between the toilets or any doors. You’re just supposed to sit there and do your business. And the worst part is, *you can never find your way out.
*
I’m not sure why. I’m not that terrified of them, awake anyway. But I still don’t want them. I don’t mind sharing, as in one person at a time and lock the door, but not all at once. And I wouldn’t mind having a communal bathroom with, say, roomies, but I’d still want to lock the door during certain things.
I won’t bend and I won’t be flexible. Some things are not meant to be borne. This is my line.
I’m with you. I have a hard enough time going to the bathroom in the presence of other women. Add men to the equation, and I may well actually explode. And I don’t consider myself to be an exceptionally uptight person.
saoirse is right about the urinals, but that’s only half the problem. Have you been in the women’s bathroom? More stalls, less mirror, dammit! I mean, I understand why you want plenty of mirror in say, a dorm, or an office bathroom. But a freakin’ football stadium? I need to pee! I’m not overly concerned with my lip gloss, and I checked my outfit before I left home, thanks, so the full length mirrors are *really * unnecessary.
If unisex bathrooms become the norm, I make a motion their slang name gets changed from Johns to Semajes.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the “glory hole” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_hole_(sexual)) is a part of life with which men are generally familiar (at least to the extent of having seen a few of them and been forced to at least guess at their function, and it ain’t hard to work it out), but to which women are largely oblivious (they might have heard of them, but that’s all; and some have never even heard of them). If we had unisex lavatories, that would change. Is that good or bad?
What?! Are you implying there’s glory holes in nearly every male bathroom? What do you guys do in there, anyway? Isn’t it bad enough that at least some of you cheer on one another’s poops?
Wait, are you asking if it would change
a) the fact that now we can’t have glory holes, or maybe we’ll have them more
b) or more women will know about them.
If it’s the second one, what difference does it make? I know what they are and I’m female.
I think if there were actually glory holes in all mens’ bathrooms, they’d be the ones complaining about the lines. 
I agree, we need urinals. Heck, I’ve even made do with a trough.
Although I guess I’m fortunate in that I can piss in front of anybody at anytime. I could even make do with a drain in the floor, since it’s all pipes anyway. Or designate a specific bush for “watering.”
I think more people need to preview and make sure their meaning is clear. 
No . . . but in some. I’ve even been in some (e.g., my local public library) where management has covered the partition surfaces with sheet metal to keep glory holes from being drilled; it says something that they felt obliged to go to the trouble.
And it’s entirely a male thing, AFAIK. Am I wrong in assuming one never sees a g-hole in a ladies’ room?
It’s this kind of thing that prompted me to start this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=348812 I mean, IMHO you’d have to be really, really horny to use (let along create) a g-hole – which in essence is a way to have some kind of sexual contact with another person without ever even seeing his face, let alone learning his name.
It’s a guy thing. And, in particular, it’s a gay-guy (or a “so horny I don’t even care where I stick it” guy) thing. But suppose there were a 50% chance the occupant of the neighboring stall were a woman . . .
But…but…in your library? I thought you were going to say in bars or something. So guys just like to look at each other, and even use the glory holes? With complete strangers? I am baffled.
I mean, really? I. Just. Can’t. Credit. It. I can’t even imagine it. What would possess a guy to go to his library, hit the bathroom, see a hole, stick something through it? What possesses the other guy to use it??? Didn’t their mothers ever tell them not to touch strange things they find in bathrooms? I am flabbergasted.
No, I’ve never seen a glory hole in a girl’s bathroom. But part of the reason for this is also because - we have nothing conveniently-shaped to stick through there, other than a finger.
Another prude here (I’d be happy if loud music played in every bathroom, everywhere). Perhaps they’d be okay at work, but in public places? It’s bad enough having a creepy guy stare at you-- I’d hate to think what more he’d do if he could peek through the cracks in a bathroom stall (or just listen in). Ugh. And he could just feign innocence- What? I was washing my hands.
I have never seen one in a men’s restroom either. I couldn’t imagine using one. What if the other person was an ass, since you most likely don’t know them and wouldn’t know, and they chopped down on your penis with their hand or a piece of wood!
I (a man) feel the same way about the women. I can just imagine them peeking at me in the stalls ostensibly while they are going to the bathroom. Also I wouldn’t feel safe if a few of them came in the bathroom at the same time while I was the only person there.
So it is. I don’t think women fully appreciate the ambient sleaze level in male lavatories. I recall one toilet-stall graffito from my school days: “I CAME HERE TO GET MY DICK SUCKED AND MY ASS HOLE REAMED.” That stuck in my mind – verbatim – because of my own perplexity; at the time, I could not fully appreciate its import. This was a junior high school lavatory.
In fact . . . on reflection . . . it might well have been in an elementary school. I’m not quite sure.
Are you ladies sure you want to share facilities with us pigs?!