In the Men's Room at a Concert

[Bladderlad 823]

Here is a suggestion.. why don't big venues have 1 room for all genders, with fully private toilets (not cubicles)

And one room with just urinals.. would maybe alleviate these issues?? 😃 

[1badboy 581]

On 8/12/2023 at 4:14 PM, Bladderlad said:

Here is a suggestion.. why don't big venues have 1 room for all genders, with fully private toilets (not cubicles)

And one room with just urinals.. would maybe alleviate these issues?? 😃 

I agree.  Now that is smart thinking! I think I would create 3 options.  A woman's only restroom with all stalls, a small men's only restroom with only urinals, and an all gender restroom with private toilet rooms 

[Bladderlad 823]

2 hours ago, 1badboy said:

I agree.  Now that is smart thinking! I think I would create 3 options.  A woman's only restroom with all stalls, a small men's only restroom with only urinals, and an all gender restroom with private toilet rooms 

That's definetely smart thinking 😀

[niceguy1 42]

On 8/2/2023 at 9:28 PM, beachmom said:

Not really, men don't much care who see's them.

There seem to be some strong opinions on this topic.  I always prefer to lean more toward enlightenment than conflict.  I'm about the same age as Beachmom and attitudes were definitely different back in the 1970s and 1980s.  I think that I have a unique perspective because when I was growing up I was the opposite of what Beachmom has always consistently stated as her masculine ideal.  I was extremely private about toilet issues, avoiding public toilets and peeing in the presence of other guys, eventually discovering that I was pee shy when I tried to "come out of my shell" and pee at the urinal with some friends in college.  In the 1970s in the northeastern US urinal dividers were non-existent.  But privacy was still obtainable for the guys who needed or desired it.  A stall with a door was almost universally available and that's where I always peed until I was well into college.  But from my early teens I was already planning my "escape" from this prison of excessive modesty.  At summer camp when I was 13 I didn't dare pee next to the other boys at the urinals, but I did sneak in there a few times late at night when the building was empty and practice using the urinal.  Whether it was right or wrong according to today's sensibilities, and in spite of my natural desire for privacy, I always felt that the goal or ideal for a male was to be comfortable peeing openly around other guys.  And so it's been a multi-decade long project but today I regularly use urinals and would say that I'm comfortable and relaxed using them about 98% of the time.  It's sometimes a little more uncomfortable around people I know but I force myself to do it because I feel better about myself if I don't "back down" from the challenge.  It's now actually a frustration for me that these days there are so many urinal dividers because I feel like it hinders my future progress.

In the same way, when I started going out and began drinking alcohol with my friends in college (something I rarely do these days) I eventually encountered the situation where women were present in the men's room trying to avoid the long lines for the ladies.  Even though I had begun to become somewhat more comfortable peeing in urinals when I had been drinking alcohol, the first few times there were women present it made me quite uneasy and I was afraid my pee shyness would return.  I believe I managed to accomplish the task despite my uneasiness those first few times.  I also noticed it was somewhat of an exciting experience in the same way you might get a thrill from a wild roller coaster ride.  I also kind of instinctively felt that if the other guys at the urinals were not uncomfortable with the women there, then I should also strive to be more relaxed about it as well.  And this also extends to the relatively rare occasions when women have peed in my presence.  If they are comfortable doing this with me, it somehow just feels unmanly (my own personal opinion, not judging anyone else) to shy away from doing it in their presence as well. 

Since open peeing around others is my main interest in this subject, I personally find Beachmom's perspective refreshing.  I feel like it gives me a goal to shoot for, a standard or ideal that I would like to realize.  I also know from her posts, the replies of others to her, and my own limited interaction with her in the past that she has compassion and understanding for guys in my situation and has gently encouraged a number of guys to face their fears and become more comfortable peeing openly around others, which far from being a degrading or humiliating experience for them, actually gives them more confidence and enables them to feel better about themselves.  I certainly agree that everyone should have the choice of privacy if they need or desire it.  If a guy feels uncomfortable peeing at a urinal in the open, whether it's because there are other guys or women nearby, they always have the option to stand in line for the stall.  Or do what I spent a lot of my youth doing, hold it until a "safe" and private bathroom is available.  I think the trend toward more and more privacy in public toilets can actually lead to more humiliation in the long run when we're finally caught short with no private option available and we're left with a choice of having an accident (of which I had my share in my younger days) or feeling humiliated when unavoidably peeing openly, rather than simply being "cool" about it and taking it in stride, which has the desirable side benefit of having the others be less focused on the emotional train wreck in front of them (been there as well).

[Ms. Tito 2,396]

On 8/24/2023 at 12:23 PM, 1badboy said:

I agree.  Now that is smart thinking! I think I would create 3 options.  A woman's only restroom with all stalls, a small men's only restroom with only urinals, and an all gender restroom with private toilet rooms 

Or just... make all bathrooms gender-neutral with wall-to-floor stalls. Not that American crap, I'm talking straight up Euro-style bathrooms with doors that close all the way. 

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

7 hours ago, Ms. Tito said:

Or just... make all bathrooms gender-neutral with wall-to-floor stalls. Not that American crap, I'm talking straight up Euro-style bathrooms with doors that close all the way. 

We have those here, much more sensible ..... the only time you see anyone is when you enter/exit.

The doors are heavy duty stainless steel, 12cm - 1/2 inch gap top and bottom, no one can see a thing.

2228 metres (7310 ft) above sea level, Australia's highest loo.

[beachmom 1,815]

On 8/25/2023 at 12:47 AM, niceguy1 said:

There seem to be some strong opinions on this topic.  I always prefer to lean more toward enlightenment than conflict.  I'm about the same age as Beachmom and attitudes were definitely different back in the 1970s and 1980s.  I think that I have a unique perspective because when I was growing up I was the opposite of what Beachmom has always consistently stated as her masculine ideal.  I was extremely private about toilet issues, avoiding public toilets and peeing in the presence of other guys, eventually discovering that I was pee shy when I tried to "come out of my shell" and pee at the urinal with some friends in college.  In the 1970s in the northeastern US urinal dividers were non-existent.  But privacy was still obtainable for the guys who needed or desired it.  A stall with a door was almost universally available and that's where I always peed until I was well into college.  But from my early teens I was already planning my "escape" from this prison of excessive modesty.  At summer camp when I was 13 I didn't dare pee next to the other boys at the urinals, but I did sneak in there a few times late at night when the building was empty and practice using the urinal.  Whether it was right or wrong according to today's sensibilities, and in spite of my natural desire for privacy, I always felt that the goal or ideal for a male was to be comfortable peeing openly around other guys.  And so it's been a multi-decade long project but today I regularly use urinals and would say that I'm comfortable and relaxed using them about 98% of the time.  It's sometimes a little more uncomfortable around people I know but I force myself to do it because I feel better about myself if I don't "back down" from the challenge.  It's now actually a frustration for me that these days there are so many urinal dividers because I feel like it hinders my future progress.

In the same way, when I started going out and began drinking alcohol with my friends in college (something I rarely do these days) I eventually encountered the situation where women were present in the men's room trying to avoid the long lines for the ladies.  Even though I had begun to become somewhat more comfortable peeing in urinals when I had been drinking alcohol, the first few times there were women present it made me quite uneasy and I was afraid my pee shyness would return.  I believe I managed to accomplish the task despite my uneasiness those first few times.  I also noticed it was somewhat of an exciting experience in the same way you might get a thrill from a wild roller coaster ride.  I also kind of instinctively felt that if the other guys at the urinals were not uncomfortable with the women there, then I should also strive to be more relaxed about it as well.  And this also extends to the relatively rare occasions when women have peed in my presence.  If they are comfortable doing this with me, it somehow just feels unmanly (my own personal opinion, not judging anyone else) to shy away from doing it in their presence as well. 

Since open peeing around others is my main interest in this subject, I personally find Beachmom's perspective refreshing.  I feel like it gives me a goal to shoot for, a standard or ideal that I would like to realize.  I also know from her posts, the replies of others to her, and my own limited interaction with her in the past that she has compassion and understanding for guys in my situation and has gently encouraged a number of guys to face their fears and become more comfortable peeing openly around others, which far from being a degrading or humiliating experience for them, actually gives them more confidence and enables them to feel better about themselves.  I certainly agree that everyone should have the choice of privacy if they need or desire it.  If a guy feels uncomfortable peeing at a urinal in the open, whether it's because there are other guys or women nearby, they always have the option to stand in line for the stall.  Or do what I spent a lot of my youth doing, hold it until a "safe" and private bathroom is available.  I think the trend toward more and more privacy in public toilets can actually lead to more humiliation in the long run when we're finally caught short with no private option available and we're left with a choice of having an accident (of which I had my share in my younger days) or feeling humiliated when unavoidably peeing openly, rather than simply being "cool" about it and taking it in stride, which has the desirable side benefit of having the others be less focused on the emotional train wreck in front of them (been there as well).

Wow! Thank you, and yes you certainly do understand my perspective and my interest in helping young men to overcome their fears. I think that a good many young men these days share your fear of undressing or even peeing around others. In the years past men peed mostly outside, urinals were often just troughs and had no dividers. Locker rooms and showers were wide open and they often swam nude at schools or ymca's.  Back in the day, men were expected to be comfortable being nude or peeing in public. While times have certainly changed, there are enough of us who remember how it was and find all this privacy ridiculous. I guess it's hard to change an old persons opinions. I've spoken to so many young men here who are intrigued by how carefree many here are about peeing in public or in odd places and would love to have the nerve to do so. They often wrongly assume that others (such as their moms, aunts, neighbors) would be outraged to see or hear of them doing so, when the opposite is often true. Many older people, (yes, even moms and grandmothers) have always presumed that men would pee wherever it's convenient and wouldn't be intimidated by anyone voicing criticism.  I'm certainly not insulting men who don't want to do so, but I've spent a great deal of time reassuring young men that if they choose to do so, older women are not at all likely to object to them doing so, but rather respect them for being bold.

[niceguy1 42]

On 8/28/2023 at 8:21 PM, beachmom said:

Wow! Thank you, and yes you certainly do understand my perspective and my interest in helping young men to overcome their fears. I think that a good many young men these days share your fear of undressing or even peeing around others. In the years past men peed mostly outside, urinals were often just troughs and had no dividers. Locker rooms and showers were wide open and they often swam nude at schools or ymca's.  Back in the day, men were expected to be comfortable being nude or peeing in public. While times have certainly changed, there are enough of us who remember how it was and find all this privacy ridiculous. I guess it's hard to change an old persons opinions. I've spoken to so many young men here who are intrigued by how carefree many here are about peeing in public or in odd places and would love to have the nerve to do so. They often wrongly assume that others (such as their moms, aunts, neighbors) would be outraged to see or hear of them doing so, when the opposite is often true. Many older people, (yes, even moms and grandmothers) have always presumed that men would pee wherever it's convenient and wouldn't be intimidated by anyone voicing criticism.  I'm certainly not insulting men who don't want to do so, but I've spent a great deal of time reassuring young men that if they choose to do so, older women are not at all likely to object to them doing so, but rather respect them for being bold.

Thanks for those encouraging words Beachmom!  When I was younger I never felt comfortable discussing these issues with anyone but now that we have the anonymity of this site it feels great to open up about it and get the perspective of others.  And again, I really appreciate your viewpoint because as I was growing up I always had the sense that it was the way I should be, I just didn't have the courage to make it happen.  And I also appreciate you clarifying that you basically have a two-pronged approach, if I can describe it that way.  You often just write a brief post stating/restating what your standard or expectation is for male peeing, I think with the hope of normalizing it again through repetition and returning male behavior to its "former grandeur," so to speak.  But you also have the second prong, which is just as important, that you sometime mention in your posts but probably more often is done behind the scenes in private messages with the individual young men who come to you for your help in reaching that standard that they agree is a worthy one to try and meet.  It may take some time for them to get to that point, and they may not know exactly what approach or actions they should take to get there. 

I don't want to betray any confidences, but I know that one of the young men who reached out to you for help in the last few years also contacted me to get more information from me about my journey overcoming pee shyness and we have been regularly corresponding privately (at his request) and sharing our successes and challenges.  I think he had a milder form of pee shyness than I did that only lasted a few brief years for him.  By the time he communicated with me you had already set him on the right path and he had made great strides.  Sometimes I think he gives me more encouragement than I give to him.  But he has enthusiastically embraced the traditional viewpoint and has said that it has given him more confidence in other, unrelated areas of his life as well.  Which is exactly what I've found as well.  Sometimes I think I spend too much time thinking about these issues, but it really does have a lot of side benefits in other areas of life in somewhat the same way that the expenditures on the space program led to many technological advances that enrich our everyday lives. 

And that young man's experience with his mom bears out what you say about mom's and other older woman not caring or even expecting that men and boys will pee boldly and openly.  I have to confess that when I first started reading your posts I was skeptical about this.  But just as you have said many times, when he started becoming more open around his mom she welcomed it and encouraged even more openness.  It does, however, make me think about lost opportunities with my own mother.  I always perceived her as very prim and proper, rigid and very rule-oriented.  To a certain extent she may have just been playing the role that she thought was expected of her at that time.  But I think I adopted her viewpoint and took things to a greater extreme than she had probably intended.  Instead of doing what most boys would normally do at that age, try to match their friends' behavior and rebel against the limitations their parents put on them, I tended to want to do things differently than my peers and try to follow my parents' (especially my mother's) rules as perfectly as possible.  It definitely came as a shock, after reading your posts, to come to the realization that all along my mother may have been expecting me to push back against her rules.  That the standard she said she expected may have been higher than she was expecting to get from me, thinking that I would push back and meet her in the middle.  Since she is in her eighties now and has dementia there is nothing I can do now to change my relationship with her.  But I'm so glad that you have had the chance to persuade so many young men to not let the years go by, but to take a risk today and make a change for the better.

One more quick story I thought about as I was reading your reply.  A close friend of mine from college told me that at a different college he attended the year before I met him the all-male dormitory he lived in did not have any doors on the stalls in the bathroom.  It sounds like they never did have them, they were designed that way.  When he told me that soon after I met him, I felt like I dodged a bullet since I never had to deal with that.  The similar, nearby college that I went to for my first two years may not have had urinal dividers but at least the stalls had doors.  I don't know how I would have reacted if I had been in that situation since I always used stalls to pee, pretending to do a #2 by sitting down.  That definitely would have rocked my world and forced me to make some tough choices!  But this was 1987, so it shows that not all that long ago there was no real expectation of any privacy in all-male environments.  It really was considered unmanly back then to need or want privacy and the other guys definitely looked at you with suspicion if you made an obvious effort to try and get it.

 

[Jake Jones 0]

On 8/24/2023 at 9:23 AM, 1badboy said:

I agree.  Now that is smart thinking! I think I would create 3 options.  A woman's only restroom with all stalls, a small men's only restroom with only urinals, and an all gender restroom with private toilet rooms 

But shouldn't men also get stalls just like the women do?

[gldenwetgoose 21,486]

This is not a thread about the architectural planning and design of public buildings, nor is it a thread asking for debate on the political implications of gender specific or neutral facilities.

It was written as a real experience from a member - for us to enjoy the account of their desperation, their use of the mens' room and their interest in seeing guys peeing.

As no further comments seem to be addressing that original topic (in a positive, supportive Peefans manner) then this post is closed to further off topic comments.

Goose - On behalf of Peefans Staff