I am a 51-year-old male who has never seen an anal lubricant tube in a shower. Have I led a sheltered life?</p>
<p>And I think claiming that the use of bathrooms for menstrual-period-related hygiene is “fundamentally different” from what men use them for is a bit of a stretch. What people use bathrooms for is to dispose of their wastes and clean and groom themselves. The details may differ slightly, but that’s the gist of it.</p>
<p>I’d also argue that people differ widely as to the truth of this statement:</p>
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It’s only mildly true for me, and probably extremely true for some other people and not true at all for others. I’m more anxious about being naked in front of women, but this is not only about embarrassment per se but also about the social taboo that is being violated; to be naked in front of women could be interpreted as aggressive or even criminal. No such factors are involved when only men are around–there it’s embarrassment pure and simple.</p>
<p>It also depends quite considerably on which women and men. For example, I would be much less embarrassed to be seen naked by a woman friend of long standing than by a man I had just met.</p>
<p>Nakedness in front of anyone is not necessary in college dorm bathrooms. </p>
<p>In general, if the bathroom serves a small group of people (as in a dorm suite), it is set up like a family-style bathroom, which means that except when two or more people are doing things that do not require privacy, such as toothbrushing, putting on makeup, or shaving, only one person uses it at a time.</p>
<p>If the bathroom serves a large group, both the showers and toilets typically have enclosures. Students typically arrive for a shower dressed, dry off after the shower, and then put on either the same clothing or a clean set of clothing before leaving the shower enclosure.</p>
<p>On the subject of not wanting to indulge the inhibitions of students to promote some artificial division of the sexes - maybe if college students had been brought up in another place and time, entirely. In this one, they have been raised from birth to use separate facilities, from preschool on to high school, in restaurants, movies, airports, locker rooms and rest stops. As a practical matter, isn’t it just a <em>little</em> bit unreasonable to expect that the social mores of a lifetime should be dropped on the basis of idealistic philosophy? </p>
<p>I also wonder about some of those hallway votes. Are they anonymous or are people pressured into voting yes in the name of being adaptable and unrepressed?</p>
<p>There may have been some peer pressure involved. However, in 3 years of dorm living, I never saw a single one of my dormmates exhibit any discomfort with the bathroom issue. And we had some pretty sheltered small town midwestern kids (stereotyped). Bottom line, if students don’t make a big deal out of it and behave with modicum of respect toward each other, kids are quite adaptable to different situations.</p>
<p>Where I live (technically a co-op in an on-campus college-owned building - but very much a dorm-like situation), voting is public, but everyone has the ability to “major-object” ( = veto) any decision. Such objections can be anonymous, do not require any rationale or justification, and can be made up to 24 hours after a vote. In addition, people can ask to re-open discussion on an issue at any time - this could also be anonymous. So although there is a potential for peer pressure, there are also many mechanisms for people to voice their discomfort with policies that don’t work for them.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, the same is true of the residence halls: students can raise anonymous objections at any time and ask their RAs to advocate for them if they are uncomfortable with the status quo on their hall. The residence halls have the additional policy that if a single student on a hall is uncomfortable with all-gender bathrooms, the facilities revert to being single-sex - a terrible policy, IMO, but it definitely ensures that no one is forced into using an all-gender bathroom.</p>
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<p>While I see your point, it’s a bit of a stretch to describe people’s need to be physically safe and emotionally comfortable in the bathroom as “idealistic philosophy”. Isn’t it similarly unreasonable to expect that students’ safety and strongly-held identities should be disregarded on the basis of others’ social mores?</p>
<p>It’s not a stretch at all – in the girls’ restrooms at my school, they have separate receptacles and other differences. I might as well say that the bathroom is for “doing stuff,” because it’s accurate. It’s also incomplete. People use the restrooms for more than urination and showering. The details matter if they affect in what ways the restrooms are used.</p>
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<p>Let me amend my statement: For some/many, … My point is that those students should be accommodated, just as transgendered ones should as well.</p>
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<p>It’s been established in this thread that while it is not necessary, it is a frequent occurrence in some restrooms.</p>
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<p>First of all, I don’t see how this is a safety issue (it’s a genuine question), and have not heard it phrased that way. Does it relate to privacy? Or something more serious? I would like to know, because safety has been brought up but I don’t really know what it means here.</p>
<p>Second, I don’t see why either should be sacrificed. And I think both parties are trivializing the other population by identifying them with terms like “idealistic philosophy” and “social mores.” It’s much more serious. For students who prefer single-sex bathrooms, there is a real concern of privacy and comfort. It’s not just a preference on a whim.</p>
<p>I understand your argument, but I don’t think preferences must be “natural” in order to be valid or respected. To the contrary, many “preferences” are societal constructs and not natural at all, such as manners and wearing appropriate attire, and I think it fair to say those constructs are respected by mainstream America.</p>
<p>Women may feel extremely uncomfortable pooping, releasing rip-roaring malodorous flatulence, having the runs, straining with constipation, vomiting and dry-heaving, inserting and/or removing tampons, birth control devices, vaginal medications and douching products within 12 inches of the personal space and hearing of a man she barely knows, but whom she may end up across from at the breakfast table or next to in section. Even at home, most girls probably do not engage in those behaviors within 12 inches of their own brothers or fathers, nor mothers/sons.</p>
<p>Currently in our society, these behaviors are deemed unacceptable in mixed company, but tolerable or even humorous in same-sex environments. Unless this changes, a woman’s (or man’s) preference for same-sex bathrooms makes sense and is respectable because it conforms to society’s expections of behavior. <em>Wanting</em> to engage in those behaviors in mixed-company via gender-neutral bathrooms is actually “unnatural” in our society.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - Indeed, singles are unnecessary except for those with medical issues–where the luxury becomes a reasonable “need.” But like a single dorm room, coed bathrooms are desirable both as a luxury–just as some people actively prefer single-sex bathrooms, I’m sure that others actively prefer coed bathrooms for a variety of reasons–and as a “need” for those who do not identify as either female or male. Such persons should be included by the same rationale that male-gendered pronouns are often changed to be neuter (e.g. s/he).</p>
<p>If given the opportunity, I will vote for a coed bathroom because it doesn’t inconvenience me in the slightest and might make others more comfortable.</p>
<p>Baelor - Actually, it has been established that frequent nudity has occurred in exactly ONE college dorm bathroom, that I can recall. If you recall multiple examples, please quote them to refresh my memory.</p>
<p>We will simply have to agree to disagree on the issue of what constitutes fundamentally different bathroom use. I don’t believe that having a separate receptacle for sanitary napkin disposal fundamentally affects the purpose or usage of a bathroom, just as I’m not fundamentally deterred by the presence of urinals (the bathrooms of my high school were originally converted from male to female) even though I do not make use of them. I respect that you may disagree about how “fundamental” such differences are.</p>
<p>Many of your opposing debaters agree that single-sex bathrooms should be offered as an option to those students who feel most comfortable in them. Quaere has described Oberlin’s policy on the matter–Oberlin, mind you! (A school that I <3.)</p>
<p>I’ve been harassed and threatened with arrest in public bathrooms of both sexes - thankfully not recently, but it’s not an experience I’m eager to repeat, and I definitely had that in mind when I was looking at colleges. For many people, safety in bathrooms (from harassment, arrest, and physical violence) is not an abstract concept, and a preference for all-gender bathrooms is much, much more than a non-conformist whim or an “idealistic philosophy”.</p>
<p>That said, I understand that concerns about safety go both ways: many people do not feel safe in all-gender bathrooms, and I don’t mean to dismiss those concerns (although in the interest of dispelling myths I’d point out that there has never been a reported instance of violence in an all-gender bathroom). My point is simply that both options are important, and just as society respects the convictions of people who are only comfortable in single-sex bathrooms, others’ need for all-gender bathrooms should not be underestimated. Some posters in this thread have argued that if men’s and women’s rooms are convenient and accessible, there is no need for a separate all-gender space, and that is far from the truth.</p>
<p>The number doesn’t change the fact that it happens at all, which was the relevant part of my post discussing this issue. I think a nation-wide poll would be interesting, though (actually).</p>
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<p>Female and male “grooming” are different, especially relating to sexual organs. It’s like saying that the fact that women have breasts et al. isn’t a fundamental difference. But let’s just let this sit unless we fully list the differing uses of the restroom.</p>
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<p>Strange, given that have expressed explicit support for this option on several occasions.</p>
<p>And thanks for the safety post. That clarified the issue.</p>
<p>Slightly OT and I’m adding some unnecessary personal anecdotes: I am mostly androgynous in appearance, with a leaning towards a male appearance. Female, but I look like a 15-year old boy with some feminine features when my hair’s cut short (which it usually is). When I was young (think Grade K, when I looked even more androgynous), I was frequently nervous about using the girl’s bathroom because on one occasion when I came out, one kid made fun of me for being a boy coming out of the girl’s bathroom. Not nearly as traumatic an experience as arrest, but at that age, it made an impression such that it took me years to stop feeling self-conscious about using the lady’s room when there were other people around. (This experience was not at all helped by someone blocking the entrance to the restroom and telling me, “This is for girls,” while I was in middle school. No, not fun at all.)</p>
<p>I’ve gotten used to it by now, but I know I would’ve greatly appreciated coed bathrooms when I was younger. =|</p>
<p>*We did have one guy who wore only his birthday suit before/after showering but he marched from his room that way so single sex bathroom would not have protected anyone from that display. *</p>
<p>lol…now with camera phones and other digital devices, this could have been a youtube sensation.</p>
<p>Baelor… explicit support for coed bathrooms is not the same as opposing the option of single-sex bathrooms. You of all people, with the clarity of rational argument previously shown, should know that.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, I am aware of that fact. I am also not really arguing that point with those posters at all. My sole concern here is with the poster who questionswhether preference for that option is worthy of respect, if justified in a particular manner.</p>
<p>This makes me sad, very sad to hear. And, of course, the people who would beat up other people in the bathroom for their appearance are just disgusting excuses for human beings. </p>
<p>Having said that, if you think about the kinds of losers who are apt to rough up who they perceive as “heh heh! dude looks like a lady!” over at the next urinal, two things strike me:</p>
<p>1) Declaring the bathroom to be coed isn’t suddenly going to reform their ways. Either there is a firm policy about not harassing or making life miserable for other bathroom-goers or there isn’t. This is why I don’t get the “making it coed provides the trans people with a safe space.” As if these losers would harass a trans person in an all-male bathroom but give the trans person a pass in the coed bathroom? * Please. * This woefully overestimates the capacity of these losers.
2) The losers who are prone to harass the trans person in their shared male bathroom aren’t going to magically turn chivalrous in front of The Ladies either. They’re just as dangerous to my daughter as they are to the trans person who is in their male bathroom. The same sense of entitlement that says “I can harass this dude, look, he looks like a girl, what’s he doing in the men’s room?” is the same sense of entitlement that says “I can make catcalls and whistle at and make the showering females in the coed bathroom feel mighty uncomfortable.”</p>
<p>It strikes me that giving the trans people a safe space to go to the bathroom (which is certainly deserved) is better dealt with by having strict harassment policies and penalties, rather than counting on the coed-ness of a coed bathroom to “defuse” the bubbas from targeting the trans people. Because I think it’s laughable to suggest that the coed bathroom magically defuses the bubbas. If anything, it expands their targets – now there are hot females to harass, too!</p>
<p>I’ve got to say this thread has been an eye-opener for me. I’m not sure how representative it is, but I always assumed people primarily preferred single gender restrooms. From here it isn’t the case apparently.</p>
<p>I work in a large, downtown Los Angeles office building. Certainly not a bastion of prudery I wouldn’t think. Almost all the restrooms are single gender, and if a janitor wants to enter the bathroom opposite to his or her gender they all yell out to announce their entrance. A couple ladies here actually complained because a male janitor walked in on them.</p>
<p>As for myself, I don’t care. Given my druthers, I’d really prefer my own bathroom just for me. But I’ve adapted over the years to sharing communal facilities both single gender, and on occasion coed.</p>
<p>When you were growing up, you may have been sharing a bathroom with at least one female (sisters, mother, etc.) – but I doubt you were doing certain activities in there with them present. Once you were past the point of needing adult help to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth and take a shower, I highly doubt that you just up and went to the bathroom, for example, with your sister at the sink brushing her teeth. Or vice versa. </p>
<p>And as for your life as a married adult – yes, you’re sharing the bathroom with a female – your wife – but she’s YOUR WIFE. It’s a different level of relationship, where presumably, you’ve seen it all and there’s little need for her to be a delicate flower who can’t drop her robe in front of you when she steps into the shower.</p>
<p>Actually, in my house I don’t even share a bathroom with my wife. That’s actually her preference. Apparently I’m not the neatest person in the world. :)</p>
<p>LOL! My sister just bought an older house, which has one bathroom on the top floor and one on the finished-basement floor. The one on the finished-basement floor is really quite nice and spacious and has a huge walk-in closet. They actually decided that they are going to have my sister and niece share the top bathroom and that my BIL is going to have a “man-cave” below :-)</p>
<p>I don’t know about the rest of you, but in our family with one boy and a girl, there are still bathroom activities and visits that are more segregated by gender. It’s acceptable (though not preferred!) for me to walk in if D is taking a shower; not so her brother or father. It’s acceptable for my D or H to walk in if I’m taking a shower; not so my son. And so on.</p>
<p>For clarification, JHS, I said mystery not mystique as in “The Feminine Mystique” to which I assume you are referring. Perhaps that association may have colored your response.
I simply believe it would be more pleasant for both genders not to have to share bathroom space with each other.</p>