The toilet seat is one of the key battle zones of modern society. This lowly appliance accessory should not even intrude into our thought processes, yet somehow it has become one of the key controversies in any relationship. Before the invention of civilization, people used to just squat, or else use fallen trees to sit on. But from the dawn of civilization, the basic design of the out house was perfected and has remained unchanged for centuries. Chamber pots were the other device, and have enjoyed a similar longevity of basic design for about the same time period. Usage of the outhouse was generally restricted to daylight hours. At night, you would use the chamber pot. One good thing about chamber pots was that no thinking person ever left the lid off. Those things reeked! The privy was a mainstay in the backyards of North Americans since before the pilgrims settled in New England. French colonies in Canada and earlier colonies in Virginia both used outhouses. These noble constructions are not to be confused with the more recent twentieth century invention of port-a-potties, which is pretty much a portable flush toilet in drag, and actually carries the same social problems as a flush toilet anyway. I digress.
The core design of an outhouse was essentially the same everywhere. The building was about the size of a modern powder room. Inside was an enclosed bench about thirty six inches high, with a hole perfectly sized to fit your butt. Often well sanded to eliminate splinters. Children usually used to have to use a stool to reach, so one was usually left inside for that purpose.
Placed conveniently beside the seat on the bench was an old copy of a Sears Roebuck catalog (apparently Canadians used the Timothy Eaton's Mail order catalog). It not only supplied reading material, but when you were finished it was the toilet paper of choice for most of North America .
The more affluent families could of course afford to build a more upscale privy, and a couple of variations ensued. Both of these enhancements came down to a variation in design, often referred to as the 'two holer'. For young families growing up, the second hole was cut to child size proportions and had a small step in front of it so kids could climb up to the level of the 'one height suits all' bench top. The other variation would show up in mature families, where the second hole was up-sized a bit and became the woman's side of the privy. The societal norm was for men to use the left hole, and woman the right. Nobody had to be told, and everyone just knew. One of those weird and wacky mysteries of life!
The true elegance of the design was in the height of the bench top which was generally pretty close to thirty six inches tall. Although this required the addition of a two step stool to rest your feet on when sitting, it pretty much eliminated any splatter caused when men used it in the standing position. The high bench was truly a marvelous concept that the females of the household could appreciate!
The forerunner of the modern flush toilet was first invented in the late seventeenth century by Sir John Harrington, and debuted in the royal palace for Queen Elizabeth 1. (this is likely why we have the expression 'going to the john') This initial appliance held sway virtually unchanged for almost 100 years. In the mid eighteen hundreds, a man named Thomas Crapper invented and patented some significant improvements to the basic design of the water closet. This enshrined him to this day with the expression 'going to the crapper'. (Incidentally, there was never anyone named 'Sir John Crapper' which appears to be an Urban Myth caused by muddling the names of these two innovators together.)
The modern flush toilet has been at the center of most of our improved health for the last century or so. But even with its obvious benefits, it is also at the center of the sexual toilet turmoil that rages under the surface of many relationships. The biggest design flaw is the low height. The American standard toilet is thirty inches tall. Because of this poor choice of vertical dimension, they tried to solve the problem by making the bowl bigger around to minimize splatter issues caused by standers. Unfortunately, increasing the size of the bowl made it so big that you could literally fall into the john. Something had to be done!. So to solve this side effect of trying to solve the design adjustment of a bad height dimension, they designed the flip up toilet bowl seat. The idea was to put an outhouse sized hole on top of the bowl that flipped up for standers so that they would not pee all over the seat! Most people thought that this was an excellent solution, and this design persists to the present day.
Unfortunately this series of adjustments to the basic flawed design had the nasty side effect of introducing a major point of controversy in male-female relationships. This issue is unlikely to ever be solved, but has been a source of strain on most relationships for well over a century now. So you can see that all the issues surrounding the modern flush toilet has to do with the initial poor choice of height!
Looking at the issue from the male perspective, they have to actually touch the seat to lift it. Toilet seats are not the most sanitary thing in the world, but the next place that they put their hand is on their privates . (Many women would not believe that men actually think about such sanitation issues, but it does cross their minds from time to time). In any event, men have been conditioned that whatever position that they find the seat in, they have to move it to the appropriate position for the next operation that they need to do next. This of course is either done by sitting or standing. When done, men will usually leave the seat in the last position that they used it. If the next person in is a man, there is a 50/50 chance that the seat will be in the correct position. Men never complain about the seat being in the wrong position. They just accept the fact that a lot of the time it is in the right position, and sometimes it is not. One big difference between men and women is nighttime behavior. When a man gets up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, they turn on the light. It is an absolute necessity. Because they can now see what they are doing, there are never issues involving falling into the toilet.
Women on the other hand always use the seat down. If they are following a man into the bathroom, there is an 80% chance that the seat will be up, and that gets them steaming. Women at night will seldom turn on the bathroom light. They hate to fully wake up because it gets in the way of their beauty sleep. This means that they feel their way to the toilet in pitch dark conditions, and if the seat is left up, there is an inevitable splash and scream! Since guys never lead with their asses, they never have this problem. (Besides, if guys did have a problem like that, they would invent a rear end camera to avoid such trauma)
So we have now covered both the reason for the problem in the first place, and the different perspectives of each sex to this greatest of social problems.
Now you are wondering why it is that nobody is doing anything about fixing the toilets. People have tried several schemes, the most popular attacks being self lowering seats, or self cleaning seats. Unfortunately the market place has voted against all of these solutions, and none have been widely adopted. But of course the real issue is that all of them were just treating they symptom of the problem and not really addressing the source. Most women are sneaky about how they deal with this. They paint the guest powder room shocking pink, and then force the men of the household to use that exclusively.
To my way of thinking, the best answer to the answer is 'When in Rome, do as the Roman's do'. For men, if you are at her place, put the seat down and stop griping about it. If you are a woman at his place, then just take it on the chin. Whether the seat is up or down, just put it in the down position and be done with it. When you finish, walk out and leave the seat down. Guys never complain about what position they find the toilet seat in, they just do their business and leave. If a man starts complaining about toilet seat position, you can rest assured that the woman has already been going on at him about what position he left the seat in last time.
So end your griping!
Relationships should be about love and romance. Relationships should never be about complaints and other petty crap!
For more male relationship advice:
http://www.top100datingpersonals.com/advice_for_men.php
For more female relationship advice:
http://www.top100datingpersonals.com/advice_for_women.php
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