I heard a woman on some TV show a few days ago complaining about men always leaving the toilet seat up. I've heard a lot of women over the years wittering on about this - it seems to be one of their most 'popular' complaints about men. I can't remember ever hearing a man having a moan about women leaving the toilet seat down though, can you? Which leads me to wonder just what it is about women that makes them think their lavatorial requirements take priority over men when it comes to the time-worn custom of bladder-emptying. And just what is it about lowering a toilet seat that they find so egregious, so massively inconvenient (npi), that they need to bang on about it all the time? Do women ever raise the toilet seat after them so that a man, in for a quick pee, doesn't have to? Doubt it.
"Ah, but" you say, "women need to sit down for both functions when they go to the toilet, whereas men don't have to." So what? Are you seriously suggesting that because women 'sit down' more often than men, then that should determine the permanent 'in-waiting' position of the toilet seat? Why? And most men as they get older suffer from an enlarged prostate, which means that they may well have to visit the toilet several times a night, but just because a man may require the seat being up more often than a woman requires it being down, we don't expect special treatment in the matter. Hell, we don't even think about it. If the seat is up when it needs to be down, we put it down; if it's down when it needs to be up, then we put it up. (Except for lazy, slobbish men obviously [there are some], who just point 'percy' at the porcelain and end up dribbling urine all over the seat. Another reason for leaving it up I'd have thought.)
"Ah, but it's considerate to leave the seat down for them," you say. Bollocks! But even if that were true, why do women expect a level of consideration that they themselves don't display towards men? And isn't it rather patronising in this day and age to treat women as if they're fragile, delicate creatures who are likely to break a nail in the herculean task of lowering a toilet seat? We've even put hinges on the bloody things to make it easy for them - that's surely all the 'consideration' any reasonable person needs. Another thing that occurs to me is that if a household has more males than females, you still wouldn't hear any of the males complaining about the toilet seat being down all the time, so in a reverse situation where there are more females in the house, it shouldn't be (but is) any different.
Some women clearly want the 'best' of both worlds. They want to be allowed to drink to excess, fart, belch, itch, scratch, and tell dirty jokes in public the same as some men do, yet at the same time be given a seat on the train or bus, have doors held open for them, be accorded special consideration, and generally be treated like royalty whenever it suits them - simply because they're women. Talk about double-standards? However, there's no point expecting women to behave logically about anything 'cos they can't even spell the word. If your wife buys you two ties for Christmas and you put one of them on to go out somewhere, the first thing she'll say - regardless of whichever of the two you're wearing - is "What's wrong with the other one I bought you?" Men just can't win.
Any thoughts on the matter, Criv-ites? Then you know where the comments section is should you feel the need to express yourselves.
30 comments:
I think... you may have missed the point. It's the whole seat that should be down, so as not to see the bowl. You open and close it as you use it, like a door. Why? It feels more hygienic. I hope that has helped to explain the matter to you.
Au contraire...'tis you who have missed the point. Women aren't complaining about the 'lid' being left up, but rather the 'seat' (that's the part you sit on). The lid being up is fine, they don't seem to have a problem with that. Apparently it's the 'inconvenience' of having to put the seat down before they can sit down. As for feeling 'more hygenic', there's no problem as long as you remember to flush after use. I hope that has helped explain the matter to you.
I think you will find in most homes the seat and lid are put down. It simply makes the bathroom look more tidy, but turn it into yet another diatribe against women if that's what makes you happy.
If the seat and lid were put down in most homes, so many women wouldn't moan about men leaving the seat up. And I've never yet heard a woman moan about the lid being left up when the seat is down (it saves them having to lift the lid), but they certainly object to the seat being left up. So you haven't quite thought it through, but exploit the opportunity to have yet another go at me if that's what makes you happy.
Commenter #1 called it proper.
Both sides of the argument are slobs - put the frelling lid down, all of you. Bathroom nicer and conflict mooted.
(Yeah, i know - it takes a loo fight to drag me out of the cave. Going to ignore whatever that says about me.)
But YOU live in a cave, 3 - which means you probably use a hole in the floor in a corner somewhere. Now THAT's being a slob. Commenter #1 (who is the same as commenter #2 I believe) said that the whole seat should be down so as not to see the bowl. However, men need to see the bowl so that they know where to aim. So, once again, women's aesthetic prejudices are being given priority over men's practical urinating requirements. Strewth! They'll be wanting the vote next. (What's that? Oh, I see. I must've been out of town when that happened. Eh? I wasn't even born? Huh, they could've waited 'til I got here. What was their hurry?)
Unless you've got kids or pets who might drink from the bowl, leaving the lid up is no big deal. And, being a civilised kind of chappie, I clean the bowl regularly so that there's no sh*te or p*sh stains to see. It's only lazy, dirty people who never clean their toilet that need to keep the lid closed to hide the fact that their loo needs cleaned (and to keep the flies in).
The golden rule is don’t go unless the seat is up!
That's like saying leave the lid off the mayo jar so you can reach it easier. Maybe you do that too, as well as leaving the top off the toothpaste tube. Slobs leave the lid/seat up. Frickin close it after you urinate and stop being such a whiny baby about it.
Quite the contrary - that policy comes from a military upbringing of grout-scrubbed-with-toothbrush cleaned bathrooms. Lid down was standard "clean bathroom" protocol as much as spotless mirrors and gleaming chrome.
It's not a fully Luddite cave, btw. Sure, there's no tv or phone or whatnot. But there is electricity, internet, and hot & cold running water & air. (And an oven big enough to handle a full sized turkey and a ham at the same time when i get those holiday cooking urges.)
I'm a hermit, not an ascetic.
That's a good rule to live by, CN.
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Anon, your logic is impaired, because it's nothing like leaving the lid of the mayo jar. If you leave the lid of the mayo jar, it will go 'off' quicker. That's hardly a consideration in the case of a toly because it's already off. Once you flush it away there's nothing to see. Or perhaps you let yours sit there until it's time to do the next one? As for toothpaste, it depends on what brand I suppose, but leave the lid off and some might ooze out. Leave the toilet lid up and that flushed away jobbie is hardly going to crawl back up the u-bend and climb over the rim. Can we have a sensible objection please.
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3, nobody's saying that you HAVE to leave the lid or the seat up. All I'm pointing out is that women's objections to men leaving the seat up (they don't seem to mind the lid) is not so much based on any of the reasons you give, but because it smacks of men's lack of consideration for their 'convenience' when they go to the loo. All I'm saying is it cuts both ways (or it should). Do you really want to touch a toilet seat once a burd's big fat sweaty @rse has been spread over it when you go for a p*sh? Leave the seat down and men who can't be bothered lifting it will just dribble all over it - which would really give women something to complain about. A regular encounter with p*sh-stained loo seats, and they'd be begging us to leave the seat up.
I understand what you're saying, and the validity of your assessment in general. My point was that, like many modern arguments, it shouldn't be an argument at all.
As you noted, both sides of the fight are actually based in personal convenience, nothing more.
And, yeah - that mayo comparison was a false analogy worthy of modern politics.
That was actually my point too, 3. It should be a non-issue, but it's something that a lot of women seem to bang on about whenever they're dissing men. "They leave the toilet seat up!" Wow! War crime!
Well... yes and no.
You're saying it shouldn't be a fight because yours is the right way.
I'm saying it shouldn't be a fight because neither is the right way.
But, you knew i was going to support the 3rd alternative. (Not to be confused with Alternative 3, which, if memory serves, involved sending all toilets to the moon)
Actually, that's NOT what I'm saying at all - as what I said earlier about you not HAVING to leave your loo seat or lid up demonstrates. Nor do you HAVE to leave it/them down. I'd guess that in a single woman's home, the seat is down all the time and in a single man's home, the seat is up most of the time. I thought it was kind of obvious that what I've been saying all along is that there shouldn't be a 'prescribed' way. My whole point is that it's no big deal whether (man or woman) you have to lift or lower the lid and seat as and when the situation requires. Men don't insist on the seat being left up because it's often more convenient for them, so I don't see why women moan about it not being left down for them.
Oops. I fell prey to the classic fault of making statements without context, so it's read differently by different people.
The argument that i generally see breaks down to whether it's important or it's meaningless on how one leaves the toilet seat. (South Park may have covered it best). That's the context in which i phrased the statements.
Personally - it's good to be a hermit.
Though i say put the lid down, my back is starting to argue otherwise.
Where it gets further complicated is that the lid and the seat are two different (but connected) things. Like I said previously, I've never yet heard a woman moan about the lid being left up as long as the seat's down. I'd say that whether the SEAT is up or down is (or should be) a non-issue; it's some women's seeming insistence that men are somehow doing wrong by them in not lowering the seat and thereby sparing them having to do it themselves is what irks me. (That's an exaggerated 'irk' of course - nothing more than a handy excuse for the purpose of writing a blog post.)
(...and drawing the odd hermit out of the cave)
I'm trying to drag myself out of the cave - but it's so damn bright out there.
Wear shades.
I live with four females, so in order to keep using the bathroom indoors, I make sure to leave the seat down. Also, I happened to sit one time after leaving the seat up and the results were nearly catastrophic, so I can see where they're coming from. :)
You mean you sit down without looking where you're parking your @rse, G? Heck, you're practically a Kamikaze. I still say that if it's no big deal for a man to lift a seat, it shouldn't be such a big deal for a woman to lower it. That's equality.
I have to say I put the whole thing - seat and lid - down too. Google 'toilet plume'!
But in the sticky subject of the battle of the sexes, leaving toilet seats down does seem like an especially petty first-world problem. A thing for rolling eyes and moving on...
I always leave the lid up and the seat down but I live alone so I don't need to care what anybody else thinks.
I remember reading that the Greek historian, Herodotus (called the "father of history") was visiting Egypt in the 5th Century BC and he noticed that the men peed crouching down and the women peed standing up! I assume they did their peeing in the open air. In the great-halls of medieval castles there was always a pile of straw for the men to pee into.
Unfortunately, when you're looking for something to write about, WJB, you can't just roll your eyes and move on - otherwise you'd have a blank blog. However, I feel that a lot of people are missing the point. It's not the actual 'up or down' thing that's being questioned per se, but rather the fact that some women feel themselves hard-done-by if men don't put the seat down for them - as if it's a personal or gender insult in some way.
As for 'toilet plume' - that means it all hits the underside of the seat and lid, which is possibly even more unhygienic. And the seat and lid need to be up when a guy's having a pee, so what about the microscopic splashes from that? Hey, it's a room where we dispose of bodily-waste - no one's going to dine in there.
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So do you lift the seat when you need a pee, CJ, or just try and miss it? (See, I ask the difficult questions.) Perhaps Herodotus was just confused as to which gender was which? The Greeks did that a lot I understand.
Kid, I should have checked before writing that comment because I leave both lid and seat up!
Would you be shocked if I said I often wee in the sink? I'm over 6' tall so the sink is at the perfect height rather than aiming into a toilet bowl. Obviously I flush the sink with plenty of water afterwards!
I'm agreeing with Colin on this one- lid up and seat down. Haven't been around much lately as am in the middle of moving house, but it's good to come back to Crivens and find the usual interesting debates!
Hope you and all the regular commentears are well, Kid!
Wee in the sink if you wish, CJ - but make sure you take the dishes out first, eh? Oh, you mean the sink in the toilet? That's okay then. I'm sure every guy's peed in some odd places at times.
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Ah, DS, here's you agreeing with CJ, only to find that he's disagreeing with you (and himself). Bit run off my feet, DS, but I try to find a bit of time for Crivens. Happy house-moving. Bigger or smaller house?
About the same size, but a much nicer area. It has room for my collection of stuff though!
That's always handy. I need more room or less stuff.
A lot of the problem too I think is women are too quick.They race into the toilet drop their undies without looking and finish up with a cold butt. I have been chewed out many times over this. My answer slow down and look.
Yup, that's the way of it, LH. They expect us to do everything for them so that they don't have to.
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