The Last Word on Toilet Seats

I am writing this post to show that while I prefer to talk about intelligent things, some things that I figured would be common knowledge by now need explanation. I am also writing this post because I’m angry. That is actually why I write most of these posts. I am angry at stupid things that get posted on the internet that are then reposted all over my damn Facebook: http://funny2.com/mensrules.htm Men’s Rules for Women (I know this post was from a while ago, but someone posted it again and made me hate it all over again). I was upset on the first entry. Primarily because it must have been written by some unintelligent stubborn man who is making the rest of us look bad with archaic notions of gender roles. Second, the toilet seat should not be a problem anymore in this day and age. We are completely screwing up if we think that this is men vs. women battle. It’s not. It’s a situational battle and an attempt to overcome what amounts to a semi-awkward situation when we realize that there are more people in the world than toilets and therefore one of the most private and disgusting things that we all do has to occur at a shared location. Yes, men and women have different needs to these devices and we have collectively been intelligent enough to adopt designs that work for both genders. However, for some reason this is still an issue, one I would like bury now. 

First, here are a couple overall rules that, since we’re getting really meticulous here, probably need explaining:

Rule #1 - Guys when urinating while standing should always lift the seat up prior, it doesn’t matter which toilet you are faced with, this is universally true. If it has a seat, lift it.

Rule #2 – Cleanliness is always more important than general manners, and being clean should be the most essential manner.

Rule #3 - The long standing tradition where I come from is that you should always leave the seat down because women prefer it, I believe because it means that they don’t have to do any prep-work in order to use the facility. I imagine that polite also has something to do with it for instance, if you are in a private residence you should generally leave the environment as it was left to you, much like a nature preserve. That means if the seat was down and the cover was down, leaving it in a state where just the seat is down is generally inadequate. Every time one enters a restroom with the intent on using the facilities for their designed purpose, I presume they would generally prefer that things be in a polite respectful order, that would especially apply to the proprietor of the restroom but also any other regular users. This, however, is where we can run into our first predicament. What gets lost in this argument is that women prefer to have the seat down so it is ready for use, but more important than the position of the seat, is the cleanliness of the seat which is often taken for granted. Having urine or indirect toilet water (via splash back) anywhere on the seat, but particularly the top surface is a much more severe problem than a seat that is out of the users desired position. So keep these things in mind when evaluating your actions. So to sum up Rule #3: Always consider the interests of other users of the facility.