The State of Mens' Loos

[Lamahaha]

Someone posted this on Facebook. Someone in the comments mentioned that it should be posted on MN so here we go. It should also be on AIBU but I've never posted there so maybe someone else?

At the weekend, I met my family for lunch at a nice restaurant in Notting Hill to celebrate a significant birthday.

The restaurant’s bathroom provision was two separate self-contained rooms with loo and basin, each with the same design made with a combined W and M on the door – so mixed-sex loos.

I went when we arrived shortly after noon, when there were very few people in the restaurant, and all was clean, tidy and orderly.

I went again between the main course and pudding. Both rooms were occupied so I waited in the little ante-room. I heard some movement and a rattle of the lock (no flush) and a man came out. He looked startled to see me waiting – or was he embarrassed because he’d walked out without flushing, without washing his hands, leaving the seat up, and urine all over the floor and the rim of the lavatory?

He looked perfectly normal, not drunk, not a derelict, not in any way impaired. He was in every way the sort of man who is prosperous enough and has sufficient social capital to be lunching in a smart Notting Hill restaurant. But he, and other men like him, left a mixed-sex lavatory in a sordid mess.

Every woman who has ever used a mixed-sex loo - and that’s pretty much every woman - know that men leave lavatories covered in urine and worse, and that we’ll have to negotiate puddles on the floor, wet seats and so on if we need to use those lavatories. But we’re not allowed to mention it, because it’s embarrassing and gross and ladies don’t talk about things that are embarrassing and gross, do we? And we’re certainly not allowed to mention it in the context of wanting to preserve our single-sex, women-only toilet facilities.

So let’s start mentioning it. When you go into a mixed-sex facility and it’s been left in a mess, take a photo and put it on social media. Say where it was. Put it on TripAdvisor. Name and shame. I’m going to write to the owner of the restaurant and tell her about the repulsive experience I had in her restaurant. Let’s see if she responds.

A brilliant post, I think, and nothing to do with trans so they can't call us transphobic for once.

it's a really good idea

if you don't like mixed sex toilets (and I don't), tell the establishments that you use

Well everyone knows this that’s why it’s so ridiculous on every level.

Great idea.

I think that's a great idea Lamahaha. I will do this in the future.

Last weekend, at Filia, there were hundreds of us and far too few toilets. And I was struck by the fact that at no point did our female-only toilets get as disgusting as I've seen mixed-sex ones get after just a few men.

Not even during the party, when there was a lot of drink and merriment. And because I'd seen on here a big discussion with posters claiming women are just as bad as men, I kept noticing it, I suppose.

Now don't get me wrong, these were not fancy toilets or newly refurbished or anything like that. And I'm talking seriously busy, so they did get a bit untidy at peak times and definitely on party night, but even when the loo rolls ran out, there were women there actually pointing this out to women coming in and telling them which stalls had some or handing it to them.

No piss on the floor. Nothing smeared over anything. At least not the ones I saw - but I saw most as I've got stuff going on, so needed to go far too often.

Great post.

I used to work in a bar as a student, decades ago when transgender ideology and twaw were merely a glint in neoliberalism's eye.

No cleaner - a rota for all the cleaning duties - so I cleaned the men's and women's loos on a regular basis.

Without doubt, the men's were the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I don't even want to describe it - the worst I ever saw was the Saturday before Christmas. Never mind the wet floors and usual complaints about men's loos - men will also just vomit anywhere, and everywhere, it seems.

A consistent reporting of all these incidences, and even cancelling table bookings having enquired if the toilets are gender neutral - will make a difference, I'm sure. Although we would have to get over our female socialisation and inherent "Britishness" about making a fuss

The receptionist at my (tiny, classes only, receptionists know your first name) gym recently told me a story of a male regular who will always visit the loo after his class on a Saturday AM and leaves the toilet bowl absolutely covered in faeces. He just smiles and says bye to her on his way out, no embarrassment at all.

I think expecting a clean toilet is part of what you are paying for in any establishment that provides a toilet part of it's service and a dirty one is deserving of a complaint and bad review.

But I do wonder what these men do at home? My Dh doesn't leave shit and piss all over the place, does anyone elses?

In 1979 one of my chambermaiding jobs in a family run 14 room guest house, with an active bar- was cleaning the pub parts toilets. They gave me PPE and a pressure hose.

OMG.

I agree with the OP, but also email the establishment to complain and tell them that you've written about it on TA.

This is an excellent idea. Also, as someone asked, do men behave the same way in their own toilets at home? If not, why do they think it's OK to do so in public?

Whenever I see womens’ loos in a state it’s usually broken locks, broken seats etc. I was at a local gig venue the other day and the loos are a right state. They weren’t particularly dirty though, just busted up and broken, and this was during a day long event with lots of bands playing and thousands of people coming in and out of various venues. The mens’ on the other hand are absolutely disgusting according to DS, covered in piss and puke.

I love going to music festivals but the loos really put me off. Occasionally they’re split into one lot for men and one lot for women but in reality very few men respect it. I’m sure some of the blokes just stand in the doorway and piss inwards, and don’t get me started on the shit and vomit splattered everywhere. There are also no sanitary bins, although I’ve only found one or two used towel in one, despite having been to loads of these events, which have thousands of attendees. If men menstruated I very much suspect I’d find a lot more.

In the local gay (lgbT queer) club they recently changed the single sex loos to gender neutral. Apparently according to a few friends they now have bouncers at the toilet doors, they never needed that before. I personally won’t go to that particular establishment anymore because several of my lesbian friends have been sexually assaulted there. One woman got punched right in front of security for rejecting a man’s advances. Security did nothing. This is a well known issue in that particular club, there has been more than one report about it in the local rag, yet the proprietor still thought it was a great idea to make the toilets mixed sex. Having said that, the local rag have now gone uberwoke, so they probably think it’s a fab idea as well now.

I asked DH about the state of men's loos.
He said the ones at work are nice and clean. There are, at a guess, 20 men using them a day and they are cleaned once a day.
But in pubs and other public toilets they can be awful.
In places like motorway service stations are usually okay but sometimes not.
It doesn't sound like they are universally disgusting, but I'm not sure what separates the good ones from the bad ones.

Mixed-sex lavatories are a THIRD WORLD problem.

Just think about that. Third world conditions where one of the first priorities for women is to have toilet and washing facilities with NO MEN. The men cannot be trusted to share facilities with the women. The women are scared for good reason.

In third world countries, women have to organise themselves for using shared mixed-sex facilities. At night, they don't go at all, or have to use a pot but cannot go out into the dark.

Women going to the loo in groups was never about "lady time in the ladies" - it was about safety in numbers. Even if we don't realise that. You think back to when you were a girl. Did you ever go into a public convenience alone? Why does no right-minded parent let their kid go to a loo on their own? We all know why.

So as we got a bit older and allowed to the teenage disco, still we went together. And so it goes.

WE DON'T WANT TO SHARE WITH MEN.

So, who do we call? Bog Busters!

First we email the establishment. Hinting that Trip Advisor is also an option.

Make sure you are flagging it as a biology/hygiene issue. Women have to sit. But what in?

Describe how it works. You have to drop your trousers, and pants. Into what? Men's shakings? Photograph it. And post it.

It's great when you're fit enough to hover, while scooping your clothes away from the mess; not great when you can no longer do this.

Single sex toilets are a hygiene issue, not necessarily a political issue, where women lose out. (Who'd've gessed?)

I'd avoid any 'right on' transgender stuff, apart from 'I recognise why you have done this, to appease a tiny section of society- though a loud, forceful section- a section that does not recognise people with women's anatomy as having any rights... .... Steer clear of that. Just suggest that their female customers do not appreciate having to use WCs where men have weed on the seat and dripped on the floor. Anatomically, explain why. Photograph it and post.

The thing is though, you can't know that the mess has been left by men unless you go in before and after a man to check. Finding a mixed sex loo in a mess doesn't mean it's been caused by a man.

I know someone who is a cleaner for a living. She says that men's toilets often smell worse than ladies toilets but that when first started cleaning she was surprised at the state of some women's loos. She has some funny but also some very disgusting stories of what she's found in both women and men's loos. Nothing shocks her now apparently in any toilets.

In women's loos, there is often urine on the seats/floor, maybe because many women hover rather than sitting on the seat. I've also found blood on the seat before and used sanitary products left on the floor or on top of the sanitary bin.

So it's definitely not just men that can be dirty bastards.

Women are more likely to hover in a mixed sex toilet. So does it really sort out the problem to say women are dirty too?

Women are more likely to hover in a mixed sex toilet.

Are they? I have no idea. I haven't conducted surveys. The women I know that hover do it because they don't like using public toilets, they do it in all public toilets.

So does it really sort out the problem to say women are dirty too?*

No, but it's wrong to blame all mess on toilets on men whilst pretending all women clean up after themselves. OPs post seems to say that it's men who leave toilets in a state by leaving urine on seats and floors. I am just pointing out that I have also had to negotiate urine on seats and floors in women's loos. If those women who are leaving the ladies loos in a state, use a mixed sex toilet, I have no doubt that they will also not clean up after themselves in there either. Or do you only have an issue with male urine? Personally I don't want any urine on seats.

I've used a few mixed sex toilets in the last month or so, I haven't found them any worse than most ladies toilets I've used.

If women don't want mixed sex toilets for other reasons, I get that.

Just got back from a gig in London. Venue has mixed sex toilets - cubicles and then a central area for washing hands. Cubicles did not have a sanitary waste bin. Just a rubbish bin by the exit.

Cubicles did not have a sanitary waste bin. Just a rubbish bin by the exit.

That's not great. Some women will end up flushing sanitary products. You should complain to the venue although I know it never used to be a law that sanitary bins were provided, not sure if that's changed.

If women don't want mixed sex toilets for other reasons, I get that.

This is where we're at. In third world countries the need for women to have women's only facilities is recognised by the UN - yet here is the UK, and the US, mixed sexed facilities are being foisted on us, and it's constantly being implied that women are being precious for wanting them.

It's like some full circle of progressiveness.

Our Victorian foremothers FOUGHT for women only loos. And the'[re being decimated - and we all know why.

AND ANOTHER THING.

I don't believe anyone who says men's loos aren't worse than than women's.

I know they are - not only do have lengthy experience of cleaning both in a city bar in the UK - my DH refused pint blank to take our dd into loads of men's toilets because they were so gross.

The cleaners at the blooming bank I worked at said the same - and that's supposedly respectable, on-drunken men.

*non-drunken men.

I don't believe anyone who says men's loos aren't worse than than women's.

Well the person I know says they are often as bad. She found that either both were fine or both were bad. She says the men's always smell worse though no matter how clean they are. I'm truly shocked by the things she's come across in both men's and women's toilets. Some people are twisted.

my DH refused pint blank to take our dd into loads of men's toilets because they were so gross.

There are places where all toilets are bad. I don't think I've ever been anywhere with my OH, where the ladies have been fine but the men's haven't. My OH is quite fussy so it's not that he has low standards. I was quite poorly a few years ago for a year or so and my OH used to take the kids out alone quite a lot. We have a daughter and he obviously had to take her in the men's toilets, he wouldn't let her use anywhere unclean. I only know one place that he wouldn't let her use the loo but the ladies are known to be bad there too.

Anyway, my point is, if women don't want mixed sex toilets I don't think the strongest reason is because of urine on the seat or floor. For the women I know that don't want them, it's to do with safety. I don't understand what taking photos of dirty mixed sex toilets will achieve when I was under the impression that safety/privacy is the issue for the women that are unhappy.

Imagine what they’d be like if men had periods.

Imagine what they’d be like if men had periods.

Can you explain what you mean?