Male Bonding2
For those who like to explore the concept and dynamics of male bonding. Men are socialized in different ways in different societies, and so many men would like to have close male friendships, yet after spending time establishing a career, primary relationship and live in general, find themselves without close male friends. Many of us want male friends with whom we can share openly without...
- created by AZdesertman
Urinals
Return to DiscussionsI've noticed recently that urinals are increasingly being built with dividers and no longer open. There's something exciting about peeing next to other guys, and I miss it. Nothing sexual about it, but I feel like most guys like to peek a little and size up, sort of guy camaraderie. Are there other people out there who enjoy being able to pee freely next to other guys (open urinals, troughs), and similarly miss it?
Yes man! I totally agree that there is a male camaraderie and sizing up aspect of urinals with no dividers. Love those type of settings where lots of dudes are doing things that are natural for dudes to do...in this case pissing with the very thing that makes them a man. There is an unspoken bond that all these guys around you have shared experiences, shared desires, etc. I know this is rare, but it's best when you see a dude catching a glance of your manhood from the corner of your eyes and then you give him the same kind of glance and then both look up at each others face and do what I call the "bro nod" acknowledging each other as men and communicating that it's ok to look.
dividers are just another step in our paranoia of our bodies in this country. Guys that do the towel dance in lockerrooms when changing, shower with curtains in the gym, such a shame we are afraid of nudity . Not to mention the waste of materials and $ putting up dividers that are unnecessary
Yes man! I totally agree that there is a male camaraderie and sizing up aspect of urinals with no dividers. Love those type of settings where lots of dudes are doing things that are natural for dudes to do...in this case pissing with the very thing that makes them a man. There is an unspoken bond that all these guys around you have shared experiences, shared desires, etc. I know this is rare, but it's best when you see a dude catching a glance of your manhood from the corner of your eyes and then you give him the same kind of glance and then both look up at each others face and do what I call the "bro nod" acknowledging each other as men and communicating that it's ok to look.
Well said. I remember going to the Indy 500 and in the infield restroomshad two troughs side by side so you actually had lines of men facing each other. They also had no stall doors. No one had a problem with it...just guys being guys
What's the point of dividers? We are guys, we are all doing the same thing, why be shy about it. I think a lot of guys don't like being vulnerable or being judged which leads to these dividers but I don't think they are needed. Heck, I would even take a dump on a public toilet that did not have stall dividers, I have nothing to hide.
I totally agree! A friend of mine in college lived in a fraternity house and I visited alot. The bathroom on his floor had urinals and two toilets and no dividers anywhere. Guys did what they did and The first time I saw it it surprised me because of the lack of privacy. I suppose it was done that way to equalize everybody. I was used to open urinals and had used some piss troughs when i was a kid with my dad at car races and at the college hockey rink, but I hadn't seen open toilets until then. My buddies that lived there said it got so they hated walls around toilets and one of them used to always leave the stall door open in other men's rooms when taking a dump! I thought that was funny. But it is a much healthier attitude. I don't need to see other guys, but I don't mind if others see me and I like the casual freedom of the openess of urinals with no walls. I almost never see them without walls now.
dividers are just another step in our paranoia of our bodies in this country. Guys that do the towel dance in lockerrooms when changing, shower with curtains in the gym, such a shame we are afraid of nudity . Not to mention the waste of materials and $ putting up dividers that are unnecessary
You are exactly right. It's the paranoid of our bodies in the US that's driving this. Years ago, one of the men's rooms in my local airport had six urinals all without dividers. After the terminal renovations, that same men's room went from six to three urinals now with dividers. The reason? State law requires an equal number of toilets for men and women. Rather than have the expense of adding more toilets to the women's room, the decision was made to remove half the urinals to comply with state law. At busy times, there is always a line to use the urinals.
I'm amazed by the number of guys who go into a toilet stall just to pee. When I was younger, my friends would have laughed at me for doing that. Now it's common. Of course, so is the towel dance in men's locker rooms.
To comply by state law maybe they should just put in a trough in the men's bathroom. But overly crazy privacy thinking shy law makers will make sure that does not happen. All must be equal some how by what they think is equal.
Seems that sporting events are the most open area for guys when it comes to urinals or troughs here in the US. Those places are very open to male bonding anyway so no big surprise. The funny thing is that the smallest dividers between urinals that I have found in public buildings is on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Seems the Congressmen want to make sure they can size each other up.
I think its interesting that these changes have taken place in people's attitudes toward nudity and bathrooms. I was in London in the 1990's several times and saw men's rooms in the London Tube stations and train stations with a wall of tile and a floor trough with a trickle of water running down to keep it all moving, but we all just stood and pissed openly at the tile. I went to college hockey games in the 1970's where we had open troughs we all used and then went out for beers to bars where they had open troughs there too. When I was in college in New England I remember some classroom buildings dating to the 20's 30's and 40's that had beautiful marble floors and wall tiles and open urinals where men stood side by side easily able to see each other as we exposed our genitals to urinate. And I grew up around old houses that, although now with indoor plumbing, also had old outhouses and they almost always had at least two seats, but usually three or four, so showing that even back in Victorian times using the loo was a social thing. It's only in the past thirty years this need to partition everything and make showers private has been going on.
I might be wrong, but is it possible that with more young women working in architecture and building, that they are confronted with the idea that guys can piss together? An old lady friend (now deceased) who was a well know architect, said that men and women have differentneeds in the toilets and was very open about it! But I fear social mores have changed for the worse. But equality between the sexes in toilet construction, how absurd. Next urinals will be banned!!