On Women and Toilet Seats
So I said on the twitter: “I’m 36 years old, been married for 14 years, and I still don’t understand women’s debilitating fear of the toilet seat being left up” which led to stars from several men (not exclusively but predominantly), and @replies from several women:
wending wrote: “Clearly, you’ve never inadvertently fallen in.”
danielle_i asked: “How can you not understand the fear of falling ass first into cold toilet water that you hope has been flushed?”
atsirhc said: “because if we’re not paying attention, our butts sink in. :/ ooh, and sometimes you guys get pee on the toilet and that’s gross.”
kindasleepy echoed: “Dude, you guys tend to spatter the rim and we don’t want to touch it and we also can fall in and it’s COLD”
toplessmama topped them all with: “I fell into the toilet last night as a result of the seat being left up. I stuck my hands in the toilet water & rubbed them on his face.”
So the explanation appears to be this: women approach the toilet in some manner which does not allow them to see whether or not the toilet seat is up or down.
To which I ask: Really?
My son is 6 and often waits until the last possible second to run to the bathroom, but he still looks at it. He would never dream of running in and jumping on the seat without looking at it.
I’m quite sure it would never even occur to him.
Or me.
At what point in the learning-to-use-the-bathroom development are girls told that they are not required to look at the toilet seat first? Where did this expectation come from? Is there some child-rearing book where boys are supposed to learn to lift the seat to pee, then lower it when they are down, and girls are told that they do not need to look before they sit?
And toplessmama, that’s just gross. Would it be OK for him to wipe his hands on you because there was no toilet paper because he decided it was your responsibility to make sure that there was always enough toilet paper?
sometimes you guys get pee on the toilet and that’s gross.
Honestly, you face a greater likelihood of sitting on dried pee if you insist that the seat be left down. Because a guy is more likely to try to aim into the bowl over the seat, inevitably dripping onto the seat than he is to lift the seat to pee and then lower it again afterwards. Before you accuse us of being lazy, remember your core argument is that you shouldn’t even be expected to look at the seat before sitting down.
If I ever think to address the position of the toilet seat, I put the seat and lid completely down. Why? To prevent anything from accidentally falling into the toilet if the lid is left up. That makes sense.
At least you wouldn’t fall in, I suppose. Might pee on the lid, if you don’t notice that it’s down.
The moral of the story here is that my original assertion was incorrect: I understand that it would be unpleasant to sit down on a toilet only to find that you were, in fact, wedged into the bowl instead of sitting on the seat. What I don’t understand is how human females have developed to the point where they think that blind faith in the proper positioning of the toilet seat is a reasonable expectation.
How did that happen?
