Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls The great toilet seat debate

There's this thing. The toilet seat. Men use it more often in the "up" position, and women always use it in the "down" position.

A lot of men tend to leave it in the "up" position. A lot of women find this annoying. A lot of men are confused and annoyed that women berate them over it.

The way my Mom puts it is that she sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and is too tired to check the seat position. If it's not down, she could be in trouble.

This, to me, seems rediculously lazy. I mean, if I took the same philosophy, deciding in the middle of the night that I was too tired to check the seat, there's a good chance she'd find herself sitting on a wet seat. I'm responsible enough to check, though, and it seems that she should be, too (especially if there's a danger to her).

There's also the fact that the seat isn't a pleasant thing to touch. I'll lift it up if I need to, but it seems a bit much to ask for me to have to be the one to put it back down, too. We don't even know whether it'll need to be up or down the next time.

So, what do you guys think?

Well, I voted and agree with you on all counts, Paul. Have to say that I've never understood the fuss about this one or why it should be a man's responsibility to 'get it right'.

Wasn't there a poll/debate about this a time back? I'm getting deja vu...

LabRat

Well, to me the seat has to be down and the lid shut. So whoever goes (male or female) has a job to do: close the lid. Since closing the lid involves putting the seat down, sorry guys, you have a double task.

Kaethel

It just looks untidy with the seat up, IMO. The design of every toilet I've ever seen makes it clear that the seat was never meant to be left up. Besides, men also need it to be down on a fairly regular basis (unless there's something seriously wrong with them ).

Yvonne

Yes, I'm the deviant who said I was a tree for question number two. I think "put it right" would depend on who's answering...

Lab - were you maybe thinking of the toilet paper poll?

Sara

I'm the deviant who said I was a tree for both questions! Really, you should know better

I vote for leave everything down: seat and lid. Not because of tidiness, but because of animals. I can't count how many times I'd walk past the bathroom only to see a canine head poked through the seat of the toilet. So it became a habit.

However, I, like Paul's mom, learned long ago to check the seat first. After all, while I leave them both down, a 5 year old boy.. and 15 year old, and 45 year old.. may tend to leave both up. Which makes for a very soggy bottom at 2am.

Everything down. Always. Because of the dog. 'Nuff said.

Although, before the dog, he still had to be careful to put the seat down. You can call it lazy but when you sleepwalk like I do, and you're really sick...and you fall into the toilet, your husband tends to feel sorry for you and not do it again. Then the dog came and it was a moot point anyway.

I don't mind if I have to put the toliet seat down. It only takes a couple of extra seconds to do so. Granted, there have been times when I almost "fell" in, but I only ended up laughing about it because I was too out of it to check.

Okay, I think the seat and the lid both have to be down and yes, I do have a valid reason - a gross one, but a valid one.

I read about a study that said that when a toilet is flushed, there is a very fine spray that comes out and disperses over a very wide area. As a result, I ALWAYS flush the toilet with the lid closed to contain the germs.

Irene

I never understood why there's such an issue of men needing the toilet seat up anyway. My father and brothers all use the toilet with the seat down. (Sometimes a little bit of cleaning up is necessary afterwards, but wouldn't you clean it up even if there wasn't a toilet seat? Is putting the seat back down some means of sterilization?)

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

I've heard that, too, Irene, and it grosses me out . For that reason I always close the lid, and I try to impress upon my brother to do the same when we're both living under the same roof (we share a bathroom <g>). If you don't want to touch it, Paul, maybe use a piece of toilet paper? As for the seat itself, someone (my mom?) must have trained my father and brother early on, because I have never come upon a toilet with the seat up at home.

Unfortunately for me, nine months of the year I live in a dorm with coed bathrooms. Guys don't put the lid down here. I'm grateful they flush But then again, it's basically a public toilet, so I don't sit on it anyway. I have hygiene issues . I don't touch the handle, either...

I'm grateful my cats at home have never shown any interest whatsoever in the toilets unless someone's sitting on them, in which case my cat will push the door open and watch... Weird cat

Kaylle

No, not that one, Sara. I have a distinct memory of a debate on this very subject, if not a poll. I seem to recall posting at one point something similar to Irene's post - that I'd heard that it's wise to keep the seat down because you let germs escape if you don't (although Irene fills in the blank of why this would happen, which I didn't know till now <g>).

Also agree with the tidiness aspect. I always keep mine down (and perhaps my ambivulence on the subject is down to the fact that my mother-inlaw (bless her little cotton socks) who had 6 sons, trained every single one of them to put the seat down, so I've never had to yell at Stuart about this one ).

LabRat

What bugs me is my Dad, who always used to put the seat down, until the last couple of years, when he seems to have decided that leaving it up is some kind of statement. I'm still trying to work out whether or not this is related to his drift from the left to the right, politically speaking.

Yvonne

Well, it was driving me nuts, so I went on the hunt and found it:

Male Quirks

Actually a poll about something else which drifted. <g>

LabRat

I definitely agree with the tidiness aspect. I live in an apartment with a relatively small bathroom. The bathroom has a bathtub, but no window. When I take a shower in the bath, the bathroom gets all muggy and moist, so I tend to always leave the bathroom door open. And when I do that, I think it looks just plain gross if the toilet lid isn't down. And of course, when the lid is down, so is the seat.

And Yvonne, I would have become irritated if a man I knew who used to leave the seat down suddenly began leaving it up. I would, indeed, take it as a sort of demonstration of male arrogance!

But there are some people who simply can't change their ways, no matter how much you nag them. My best friend, a woman, simply can't leave the lid down when she's used my toilet. Reminding her simply doesn't work. She'll leave it up again the next time.

But, Paul, I almost answered that I was a hermaphrodite, just so that I could say that I was torn on this issue!

Ann

Regarding the second question, couldn't one argue that since men don't have to pee standing up but women have no choice in the matter, it is the man's responsibility to make sure the seat's down? After all, he could simply sit down and the problem could be avoided altogether.

The *lid* must always be *down* to prevent not only animals trying to drink from it, but to prevent objects from falling in. It's *not* pleasant fishing them out, I can assure you. I'm hyperalert about things falling in, so I almost always put the lid down any time I use a toilet.

By the way, I have to tell you what I read in a Swedish newspaper about a week ago. The paper had tested ice cubes that are put in soft drinks in McDonalds restaurants and other burger bars, and compared the bacteria content of the ice cubes with the bacteria content in the water of a toilet bowl. Guess what? The bacteria content in the ice cubes was hundreds of times higher in the Coca Cola ice cubes than in the water of the toilet bowl!!!

Ann

Arrgh! Ann! I'll never be able to go McDonalds again. *sobs* I diet of junkfood...all ruined. :p

About the toilet-seat issue... Well, I find it a bit annoying when people leave it up. I don't mind that much, though. When you have a little brother whose hobby is to throw stuff in the toilet which *you* have to remove...the toilet seat sort of just becomes a slight annoyance.

There's a current ad on TV over here which claims that most kitchen chopping boards contain more bacteria than a toilet seat...

Just to freak you out more.

LabRat