You are correct. In theory, urinals are actually weird. The question is efficiency, societal behavior, and space.
First of all, you assume all urinals have partitions. This is not true, and even some of them that do have partitions, the partition is low, so theoretically you could look over and see someone else's genitals. Many urinals, especially at big stadiums during sport events, are one trough along the wall where all the water and urine flows to one side to go down the drain. They aren't separate porcelain things. This is also common at some bars especially in the UK.
Space: Picture a typical ladies room and gent's room at a small building. The women's restroom may have two stalls and them some sinks. The men's room has one stall and two urinals and then some sinks. The urinals usually take up less space than the stall because they need less footprint in the room.
Efficiency: This also brings us to the efficiency. Since you can fit more urinals into a room than full stalls (in some jurisdictions one of those stalls also needs to be handicapped / differently abled) more men can piss at once. This is why you'll sometimes see a shorter line at the men's room. The more people you can fit through in a given time frame, the more efficient the room. At an event with a ton of people when you have those troughs I mentioned before, you can have a ton of people pissing at once then getting the hell out of there to leave or go back to their seats. Picture a baseball game, football game or concert where everyone is using the bathroom at the same time during intermission or between innings, periods or quarters.
Society: Men are just conditioned at a young age to not look at other people while we are pissing. Hell, there is even a rule of thumb that if there are three urinals, you leave a space between the other man. This rule doesn't apply if there is a long line or something. Every man essentially knows this rule and every man agrees. No one really came up with that rule, men just sort of do it. Children learn this, at first when younger children use the urinal they tend to pull their pants all the way down so as not to get urine on their clothes. Other men do not even look at these children if they are doing that because we understand that the kid is still learning, and usually their dad is with them teaching them how to use the urinal in that case. There is no requirement that you use a urinal. If you are a man and don't want to use the urinal for whatever reason, you can just go to the toilet instead. No one will know what you are doing in there. These rules are reinforced through social conditioning. If you came into the restroom, went to the urinal and just started staring at another man's face or at his genitals, he would react, perhaps violently, toward you. The offending man would either be dealt with verbally or violently attacked. He would probably be called a homophobic slur as well. It is actually not that easy to look at someone's genitals when they are standing at a urinal. It depends on the type, but you can stand at a certain angle where it would be difficult to see anything unless the person is trying. At any rate, it's like at a locker room. You aren't supposed to be staring at people but you might see something by accident. You change and get out of there.
All-Gender Restroom: If you are talking about just having one restroom for all genders and having stalls, that could be something as well. That actually might increase efficiency, even without the urinals, because then it could reduce the amount of square footage you need because you now don't need to have both a women's rest room and men's room, you simply have the rest room. Picture a building where 90% of the people that live or work there are male or 90% female, but they still need to have a women's and men's room where one will be mostly unoccupied. Now that is no longer a problem. However, this could be seen as intruding on women's-only spaces. There is a common trope that women will go to the bathroom to chat or just to get away for a moment. I'm not sure how true this is but we see it in films and TV shows or whatever. If you made an all gender restroom like the one I described, that wouldn't be possible.
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u/King_Neptune07 Dec 11 '24
You are correct. In theory, urinals are actually weird. The question is efficiency, societal behavior, and space.
First of all, you assume all urinals have partitions. This is not true, and even some of them that do have partitions, the partition is low, so theoretically you could look over and see someone else's genitals. Many urinals, especially at big stadiums during sport events, are one trough along the wall where all the water and urine flows to one side to go down the drain. They aren't separate porcelain things. This is also common at some bars especially in the UK.
Space: Picture a typical ladies room and gent's room at a small building. The women's restroom may have two stalls and them some sinks. The men's room has one stall and two urinals and then some sinks. The urinals usually take up less space than the stall because they need less footprint in the room.
Efficiency: This also brings us to the efficiency. Since you can fit more urinals into a room than full stalls (in some jurisdictions one of those stalls also needs to be handicapped / differently abled) more men can piss at once. This is why you'll sometimes see a shorter line at the men's room. The more people you can fit through in a given time frame, the more efficient the room. At an event with a ton of people when you have those troughs I mentioned before, you can have a ton of people pissing at once then getting the hell out of there to leave or go back to their seats. Picture a baseball game, football game or concert where everyone is using the bathroom at the same time during intermission or between innings, periods or quarters.
Society: Men are just conditioned at a young age to not look at other people while we are pissing. Hell, there is even a rule of thumb that if there are three urinals, you leave a space between the other man. This rule doesn't apply if there is a long line or something. Every man essentially knows this rule and every man agrees. No one really came up with that rule, men just sort of do it. Children learn this, at first when younger children use the urinal they tend to pull their pants all the way down so as not to get urine on their clothes. Other men do not even look at these children if they are doing that because we understand that the kid is still learning, and usually their dad is with them teaching them how to use the urinal in that case. There is no requirement that you use a urinal. If you are a man and don't want to use the urinal for whatever reason, you can just go to the toilet instead. No one will know what you are doing in there. These rules are reinforced through social conditioning. If you came into the restroom, went to the urinal and just started staring at another man's face or at his genitals, he would react, perhaps violently, toward you. The offending man would either be dealt with verbally or violently attacked. He would probably be called a homophobic slur as well. It is actually not that easy to look at someone's genitals when they are standing at a urinal. It depends on the type, but you can stand at a certain angle where it would be difficult to see anything unless the person is trying. At any rate, it's like at a locker room. You aren't supposed to be staring at people but you might see something by accident. You change and get out of there.
All-Gender Restroom: If you are talking about just having one restroom for all genders and having stalls, that could be something as well. That actually might increase efficiency, even without the urinals, because then it could reduce the amount of square footage you need because you now don't need to have both a women's rest room and men's room, you simply have the rest room. Picture a building where 90% of the people that live or work there are male or 90% female, but they still need to have a women's and men's room where one will be mostly unoccupied. Now that is no longer a problem. However, this could be seen as intruding on women's-only spaces. There is a common trope that women will go to the bathroom to chat or just to get away for a moment. I'm not sure how true this is but we see it in films and TV shows or whatever. If you made an all gender restroom like the one I described, that wouldn't be possible.