Sit Your Butt Down
A public bathroom PSA 🚽
At work, we’ve been doing a Hot Take Bracket.
Each week a batch of colleagues goes head to head with spicy opinions. The rest of us vote on who advances to the next round.
There’s been a mix of topics presented.
From “mullets are sexy”(disagree)…
…to “babies shouldn’t be allowed on planes” (agreed on the basis that kids would still be allowed on Flair and Spirit since “you already know what you’re getting with those airlines.”)
Last week was my turn.
I didn’t think I was presenting anything controversial. In my eyes, the take was lukewarm at best.
That was until I started researching.
And it only got worse when I joined the call.
So many coworkers got so angry, that my arguments devolved into yelling at comments in the chat.
I stabbed my finger at my laptop camera.
I told a co-founder she was disgusting.
I made lifetime enemies.
The passion around this topic was so intense that I felt it was my duty to bring it to this forum.
I come to you cautiously.
I’m approaching with the same fearful skepticism of an eighth grader asking their crush to the dance.
…With the same level of shame Katy Pery should have had around her new album.
…With the same humility I used yesterday when asking a tall teenager at No Frills to grab muffin mix on the top shelf.
…With the same general disposition of Moo Deng the pygmy hippo.
And I pray all of you want to keep reading.
Here it goes.
My hot take, as exactly presented to a Zoom call of coworkers:
Sit your butt down! Public bathrooms aren’t gross, you are.
I’ll admit, the framing was intense.
I still stand by it.
The argument
ChatGPT tells me that, although studies vary, between 50-80% of women hover to avoid contact with toilet seats.
BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology found that only 2% (!!!) of women sit while using public bathrooms.
When did y’all decide this? When was that meeting? Why was I left out?
My whole worldview has been a lie.
Regardless - you’re wrong, and I’ll address four points to explain why everyone should be SITTING on toilets.
Cleanliness
Disease
Use
Common Good
Cleanliness
Women hover because communal toilets are, in a word, yucky.
Or are they?
There are multiple levels of cleanliness standards for public bathrooms.
Each province has health regulations and best practices enforced by local authorities, each municipality has bylaws surrounding public bathroom maintenance, Canada Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is involved in workplace washrooms, and every facility has its own codes of conduct.
All this to say that there are rules on:
How bathrooms should be cleaned
What products can be used for cleaning
The frequency of cleanings
Visible records of sanitization (ie: the little schedules you see in bathrooms)
In certain high-traffic areas, public washrooms are serviced every 1-2 hours (!!!) during peak periods.
I dare you to reply to this email and say your bathroom is held to the same standard.
And what about your friends’ bathrooms?
Your family’s bathrooms?
How can you be sure they take the same pride in cleaning?
Should we ever be comfortable using a toilet that doesn’t have an accompanying log of “last cleaned by” signatures????
What is the actual risk of a disgusting bathroom, anyway?
Disease
We think that gross bathrooms = diseases.
Someone in middle school spread a rumour that you could catch gonorrhea in a bathroom stall, and now everyone pees with shaking quads because “you never know.”
But we do know!!
Experts are clear that it’s nearly impossible for STIs to be spread via toilet seats.
Sure, toilets have germs, but there is no such thing as a butt-borne disease. You are much more likely to get ill from not washing your hands.
In fact, I’d love for you to guess how many documented toilet-seat-transmitted disease cases exist…
NONE.
THAT’S HOW MANY CASES.
A BIG, FAT ZERO.
Disease transmission from toilets is completely hypothetical, and could only occur if you rub your genitals or an open wound directly on the seat.
But not just any seat!
You’d have to stroke your bare crotch across a toilet seat that has traces of someone else’s infected semen, blood, or urine.
Huh? How would pee even get on a toilet seat in a women’s washroom???
OH WAIT.
THAT’S RIGHT.
FROM HOVERING.
This brings us to our third point…
Use
Toilets have very simple, very basic instructions for use.
Sit the fuck down.
If you don’t, your pee stream might end up all over the seat or floor.
All of a sudden, the risk for disease increases.
All the wonderful cleanliness standards get more difficult to maintain.
The entire experience becomes smellier and grosser.
In “protecting” yourself, you’ve made it more dangerous for everyone else.
How ironic.
How shortsighted.
How selfish.
If you were genuinely worried, wouldn’t it have been kinder to bring a Lysol wipe? Couldn’t you have made a little seat cover out of toilet paper? Wouldn’t it be simpler to face the facts and just put your ass on the seat?
But no! You wanted to hover!
You wanted to flex those quads and mark your territory!
You wanted to literally and metaphorically piss all over the entire point of having public washrooms in the first place!
Common Good
Because - love them or hate them - public bathrooms are necessary.
They allow our favourite places (like parks or malls) to be accessible for extended periods.
Many people require access to clean bathrooms to leave their homes at all.
These spaces help prevent incontinence episodes, which, hygienically speaking, would be way worse.
So the next time you decide to hover, think about the elderly people and children who will have to follow you into that space.
Think about the cleaning schedules rendered pointless because you’re peeing everywhere.
Think about the ZERO CASES of toilet-seat-transmitted diseases.
Ask yourself, “What am I even hovering for?”
Because the threat isn’t real.
It’s in your head.
It’s paranoia.
And it’s ruining our public bathrooms.
I rest(room) my case.
Time will tell if I make it to the next Hot Take Bracket round.
Either way, this is my new cause.
I will be screaming about this from the rooftops until 98% of women sit on toilet seats!
This is the activism I was born for!
Hanging thoughts:
Do you sit or hover? BE HONEST
WOuld you have voted for me?
What’s your hot take?
I'll wipe the seat and use the toilet. But what I HATE is when that mystery monster in my office makes a toilet cocoon. That's far more disgusting than having to flush a toilet or wipe a seat.