Lads Pissing

Hey everyone, hope you're enjoying your holiday season. Felt like sharing something a bit on the lighter side. For the unacquainted, Dan Savage is a relationship advice columnist who specializes in the more R-rated aspects of love and intimacy. But this letter writer's complaint, far from dealing with anything too steamy, is instead about a more everyday quandary ...

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Three weeks ago, I was at my girlfriend’s apartment taking a shower. The urge to release my pressurized bladder hit me and I dutifully whizzed into the bathtub’s drain. At the same time, my girlfriend tiptoed into the bathroom and, in an attempt to surprise me, jerked open the shower curtain. My urine stream was particularly apparent, as I had been beefing up on B complex. She became incensed when she caught me pissing in her shower. I’ve since not spoken with her.

I ask you this: Is it unreasonable for me to stick to my guns on this one? Am I such a heinous bastard for urinating in the shower? It’s not like I bathed in urine or pissed in her shampoo bottle, but if I’m in the shower and gotta piss, I’m going to point toward the drain and let fly. A little bit of pee-pee never hurt anyone, did it? –Umlar in Ballard

Hey, UIB:

Women have a different relationship with urine than men do. Men break up cigarette butts in urinals, draw in the snow, swing it back and forth, see how high we can piss up into the air before the stream breaks and arcs into the toilet bowl: for us, piss is a toy. Women have less control. They must squat or foul themselves: urine is not a toy, and pee time is not playtime, it’s think time. Women piss and ponder, men piss and play–and herein lies the essential mystery of the difference between the sexes.

Deprived of a festive relationship with piss, women are likelier to be squeamish about their own and others’ urine. Hence the shower freak-out. As for the dispute, I’m on the girlfriend’s side. There ain’t nothing wrong with peeing in the tub as far as I’m concerned, but it’s her bathtub. Hers–not yours, not mine. An apology is in order, and a solemn promise never, ever to pee in her bathtub again. Follow up your promise with a sincere and heartfelt effort not to get caught the next time you pee in her bathtub–lock the door, face the wall, and lay off the B complex.

Well, that's an eye-opener.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find myself totally disagreeing with Dan Savage's reply here. And I side with the guy who peed in the shower.

(1) His musings about the differences between men and women in their attitude to pee sound like sheer speculation and as such pretty sexist.

(2) There's nothing wrong with peeing in the shower and letting it wash down the drain. It's better for the environment because it saves water: you're taking a shower anyway and you don't waste extra water flushing a toilet.

(3) If his girlfriend jerks open the shower curtain to surprise him, she should be prepared to see something she doesn't want to see. Actually you don't walk in on anyone taking a shower just like that: it's their private time.

So... That's my opinion. Now who's going to defend Dan Savage's response?

In my opinion, I'd say if she doesn't want him to pee in her shower, that's her choice to say, it's her house. But it's his choice to say if he's willing to compromise, or if it's more important to him that he be free to pee in the shower, and if that's a dealbreaker for her, it's better they both know it now. As to the response being sexist, it absolutely is, making huge generalizations about both men and women, that to be honest are kind of weird and offensive towards both.

If you intrude on someone during their private time, don't complain about what you may see. Yes, it's her place so she sets the rules, but that one shouldn't be a dealbreaker. Practically everyone pees while showering. Dan Savage's column is intended as entertainment, so you shouldn't take a sexist remark seriously.

I will say the fact that she just busted in does make her complaint a little less valid, since her whole argument is about respecting her space, but she didn't respect his privacy. As to everyone peeing while showering, I do think this particular forum may be biased in the favor of those who do. And just because his remark was intended to be entertaining, doesn't mean it can't also be problematic.

I suspect that peeing in the shower is commoner that may be supposed. Put it this way, I always pee in my own shower. Whether or not to pee whilst using other people's showers inevitably poses a dilemma. Doing so isn't without risk, especially if there's a possibility they might walk in and take one by surprise.

That column was 1996 Dan Savage, the column had been running 5 years (according to Wikipedia). I expect he would give a different answer today with almost 30 more years wisdom, like, "she did you a favor you don't want to be with someone so unreasonable about normal bodily functions"