Toilet

A toilet is a plumbing fixture and a disposal system primarily intended for the disposal of bodily wastes such as urine and feces. In addition to this primary purpose, it is frequently used to dispose of other bodily wastes such as menses, semen, and vomit, small items such as cigarette ash, cockroaches, dead fishes and other small pets, and in a pinch, contraband.

Culture

Graffiti

For thousands of years, public toilets have been associated with graffiti, often of a transgressive, gossipy, or lowbrow humorous nature (cf. toilet humour). Examples were found in the ruins of Pompeii. Here are a couple of well-known modern specimens:

Related Topics:
Graffiti - Toilet humour - Pompeii

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:He who writes on bathroom walls

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:Rolls his shit in little balls

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:And he who reads these words of wit

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:Eats those little balls of shit!

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:Here I sit

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:Broken-hearted

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:Came to shit

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:But only farted

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Furtive Sexual Relations

Similarly, toilets have long been associated with furtive sexual relations. These includes assignations ("for a good time call..." messages, note-passing between stalls) as well as the acts themselves, for which dalliances toilets provide a convenient (though not necessarily sanitary or romantic) venue.

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For many years gay men have used them for cruising, i.e. for anonymous sexual contact. Particularly associated with toilets is the use of glory holes for peeping, or anonymous fellatio. Another example, equally open to heterosexual participation, would be sex in airplane lavatories, awareness of which is reflected in the vulgar use of the phrase Mile High Club.

Related Topics:
Gay men - Cruising - Glory hole - Fellatio - Mile High Club

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Social Bonding

Additionally, toilets are important arenas of male as well as female social bonding. Boys may use the facilities to smoke, gamble, deal drugs, give one another "swirlies", or experiment with low-grade fireworks. Girls and women may share gossip and make-up advice. Often, boys will sneak into the girls' restroom as an intentional act of boundary-transgression.

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In many cultures, each gender has its own distinct "toilet etiquette." American women may invite one another to go to the toilet together, and once inside, chat with abandon. Men tend to be more reticent (perhaps out of nervousness at being perceived as gay), and may even experience pee shyness; yet they too may feel a certain cameraderie (though this is often more easily felt during outdoor, toilet-less urination).

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Sex- or Caste-Based Cleaning Roles

Toilets are important locations where sex- or caste-based division of labor may be observed. In Western tradition, cleaning toilets is considered women's work; in India, such tasks are allocated to the scheduled castes or "untouchables." Such mores may be changing in the wake of modernity; however, progress is slow.

Related Topics:
Division of labor - Women's work - Scheduled castes

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Unusual Uses

American President Lyndon Johnson was occasionally wont to received staff members while he sat on the toilet.

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In the wake of the cartoon film Finding Nemo, a number of children sought to help their tropical fish "escape" captivity by means of the toilet. Many sewage treatment plants responded by announcing that live animals in the sewer are almost certainly killed by the treatment process.

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Several movies include comic scenes involving eruptions of water and/or sewage while a character is sitting on the toilet. (E.g. Weird Science). See also Toilet humour.

Related Topics:
Weird Science - Toilet humour

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The Great Equalizer

Symbolically, the toilet is a great equalizer, like death: even kings must needs bow, and queens curtsey, before this humble recepticle--this gleaming white throne.

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