Signal Boost: Why can’t we have decent toilet stalls?

[shy_magpie]

Via umadoshiSlate.com posted: y can’t we have decent toilet stalls?

Aside from the cleaning perks and cost benefits, flimsy partitions have been justified precisely because they offer no privacy. They make it easier to see if someone is, say, doing drugs or having sex in a stall, Besides offering an arguably more pleasant experience, the floor-to-ceiling design “provides more privacy for people who need to do more personal matters in the stalls,” Worsham points out, whether that be manage an insulin shot or change clothes. The design would make it possible for folks with pee shyness or bowel issues to use the toilet without fear of judgment. In Norén’s imagining, the ideal public bathroom would not only have floor-to-ceiling stalls but also a little shelf for things like phones and insulin syringes and the option to turn on some nice noise-covering sounds.

Comments

[shy_magpie]

Also the gate keeping around bathrooms is just weird, if homeless people are using business bathrooms is something we see as a problem then we need to make more public bathrooms available not make minimum wage minimum training workers guard them on top of their other duties. How can we complain about people cleaning up in the bathroom when we don't offer any alternatives?

[fandomnumbergenerator]

I totally agree on a societal level, though I also understand why small businesses might feel like they and their employees don’t have the resources to take on societal-level issues of homelessness and drug use.
I guess my worry is that trying to make bathrooms more comfortable would result in there being a few nice bathrooms in expensive businesses and no public restrooms anywhere else.
I also worry about what people want out of a nice bathroom. Is it sometimes code for a fancy space away from undesirable people?
Though I know that I am coming from a very specific perspective: I have a high tolerance for gross stuff and am not pee or poop shy in public restrooms.

[shy_magpie]

That's kinda the opposite of what I said. I said we need to have more public bathrooms and quit acting like employees should gatekeep bathrooms. They already have to control who gets let in to the bathroom, thus making them responsible for not letting in people they think will use drugs. More and more businesses are already taking out bathrooms even with giant gaps in the doors. They usually blame societal ills like homeless people and drug users using them. Having the gap only helps if you make people look through them to police behavior.

[fandomnumbergenerator]

I didn’t mean to come off like I was arguing with you. I understand that we were agreeing that the problem is at the societal level and should be paid for/ legislated at that level. And that the solution would require some pretty dramatic rethinking of a lot of policies.
I think I am just very pessimistic about that happening any time soon. Because even cities that are experimenting with supervised injection facilities and supportive housing for homelessness are still pretty far away from tackling the public restroom question. I was in San Francisco for a week and so a lot of these things have been particularly on my mind. I was also traveling with my kids and so very dependent on quick access to public restrooms.
I think I am still trying to articulate (to myself, I guess) my frustration with the original Slate article, which seemed to be focusing on comfort without really talking about what it would take to totally rethink public restrooms. And seemed to be taking for granted that people are able to access public restrooms in the first place.

[shy_magpie]

The article was a very surface read of a surprisingly deep issue. I just think gap or no gap people will use drugs and the effect of the gap is that we pretend the issues are already solved.