Becoming a Sitzpinkler. Or doing my bit to create a fairer world on International Women’s Day. With help from Bob Marley and James!
Date posted: Wednesday 8th April 2015
Question: Are you a Sitzpinkler? If you are a ‘bloke’ (and I use the word advisedly) then the answer is probably ‘No way!’ or ‘Of course not!’ or ‘I stand, therefore I am!’ If you are a woman, then the answer will almost certainly be ‘Yes’. (Unless you regularly use a Shewee.)
The SheWee
What’s a Sitzpinkler? It’s a derogatory term used in Germany to suggest that a man might not be 100% in touch with his male side; i.e. ‘He sits down on the toilet to have a wee wee.’ Kind of harsh, huh? That is serious disrespect. I first heard this cuss when I was reading about a recent landmark legal ruling in Dusseldorf. A landlord took a tenant to court because he had caused 1000 Euro worth of damage to the bathroom floor, because he routinely ‘sprinkled when he tinkled’. Apparently, uric acid can react against certain ceramic tiles, causing unsightly discolouration that just can’t be removed, no matter how hard you scrub.
However, the magistrate found in favour of the tenant, as he ruled it ‘unmanly’ to expect a German male to forego his apparently God-given right to stand up and urinate.
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Not sure what this means? Ask a German to translate for you!
This may seem kind of trivial, or even a bit rude, but I can assure you, it’s not.
I’ve been lying awake all night, thinking about women. I know what’s causing the sleeplessness. I’m in Turin, Italy, in a lovely pensione, high up above the city. It has the feel of an old convent (not that I’ve ever slept in one of those, but I have a vivid imagination.) Unfortunately the walls between the bedrooms are paper-thin, and the old gentleman in the room next to mine must have had more than a few shandies before he hit the sack, because he keeps getting up to go to the loo. Judging from the cacophony of his twice-hourly cascade, he is clearly no Sitzpinkler. And he just has to exert his God-given right to flush the toilet afterwards. (In Switzerland you can be hauled before a judge for doing that in a hotel or block of flats after 11.00pm… and quite right too!). Add to that the enormous church tower next door that chimes every hour and half hour, then it’s no wonder I have only had about five winks.
But the whole problem began yesterday at breakfast. According to Chaos Theory, a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon and a strong wind blows a tree down in Dundee. Murphy’s Law states that if one thing goes wrong when you are flying a jet aircraft, then everything seems to take a turn for the worse. I am now a firm believer in Murphy’s Chaos Theory. I was invited to Turin to address 450 Italian parents and professionals on my favourite subject: ‘Practical approaches to help children with selective mutism or who have anxiety about talking in groups.’ Usually I use PowerPoint slides with photographs and some text. I don’t use notes, as I rely on the slides to give me my cues about what to say. This time I had decided to get the text on my slides translated into Italian.
A butterfly must have been flapping its wings in the Amazon when I came down to breakfast. I was 30 minutes early, so I could go over my speech and get myself in a good frame of mind, so that I could strike the right balance between levity and gravitas. The kindly direttora must have sensed my ansia (that’s Italian for ‘anxiety’), because she offered me my breakfast early. And yes, there was an elderly nun sitting in the corner. (I would need her prayers later.)
I like a cup of coffee for breakfast. It sets me up for the day, with just the right amount of chutzpah. (That’s Yiddish for something; possibly ‘courage given to you by caffeine’?)
My coffee cup was large, and I three-quarters filled it with rich, dark coffee, and a cloud of milk. It seemed a bit strong, but I thought I’d have another cup for good measure. Enter my fellow guests, who were surprised that there were only a few drops of coffee left in the jug. They called for fresh coffee and proceeded to pour a thimble-full of the black stuff into the bottom of their cups and top it up with lashings of hot milk. Then the euro dropped: I had just drunk the equivalent of 12 cups of espresso, and was slowly going off my rocker.
By the time I reached the conference venue, that butterfly must have been giving its wings a few extra flaps. I had a severe case of the shakes and thought I was going to have a heart attack. Normally I enjoy the prospect of public speaking, as long as I’m well-prepared and have only had one cup of weak coffee. Just before I was due to go on, I not only had butterflies in my stomach, but there was a swarm of them fluttering in my bladder.
I rushed to the loo (actually it was a very long walk of shame: akin to the lonely trek of the disgraced footballer who has just been shown a red card, or the cricketer bowled out for a duck. Everyone seemed to turn to see their foreign keynote speaker walking away from his reserved seat in the front row and heading for the John.
Bob Marley: a song in praise of the ‘Stehpinkler’?
I’ve been a Stehpinkler (the opposite of a Sitzpinkler) all my life, but have decided to change the habit of a lifetime, out of respect of the people who might have to clean up after me. So as I rushed into the unisex toilets I was particularly aware of my need to sit down. But I was absolutely bursting, and under pressure to get back to my seat as soon as possible. It is commonly assumed by women that men pee all over the toilet and floor because they
a) Are lazy
b) Can’t ‘aim straight’
c) Are ‘dirty creatures’
This may be the case for a minute percentage of boys and men, but there are certain anatomical considerations that militate against male pee always coming out straight. I’m not going to go into the details, but you can either find out on Google or ask your nearest and dearest male.
In my defence, I momentarily relaxed my new resolution and ended up wiping the floor with copious amounts of toilet paper. (More wing flapping…) As I stood up from mopping the floor, I banged my head against the metal toilet tissue dispenser, and used the rest of the toilet roll to stem the flow of blood from my forehead. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when someone uses all the toilet paper and can’t be bothered to replace it with a new roll, thus leaving the next visitor with an awful problem. So I went in search of more loo roll. (Flap, flap, flap…) I could see a stash of rolls on a shelf just out of my reach, so I knelt on a nearby sink, so I could just knock one down with an outstretched finger. Just then a cubicle door opened and an italian female psychotherapist looked at me with an expression that would loosely be translated from the Italian as ‘WTF!!!’ *
I panicked and nudged the toilet rolls a bit too hard and the whole pile fell on my head.
What would you have done if you were me?
a) Shrugged and walked out
b) Tried to explain in detail
c) Said, ‘’I’m sorry. Please forgive me, I’m English?
a) Asked for help to put the rolls back
* ‘I’m feeling slightly uncomfortable with this situation.’
I did three of these. I made it back to my seat, in a state of high ansia, just as the second speaker was winding up her presentation. The conference chair seemed oblivious to the state that her foreign presenter was in. My anxiety, and heart rate, went through the ceiling when I realised that I couldn’t remember what the Italian script on my PowerPoints meant in English. I had a quick conflab with an English speech and language therapist sitting next to me. She saved my bacon by suggesting that we try and arrange a pausa caffe straight after this presentation, so that I could pull myself together, mop my bleeding brow, and try and hide the tell-tale wet patches on my trousers and shoes that are the hallmark of the dyed-in-the-wool Stehpinkler.
And that’s what happened. And thanks to my wonderful Italian simultaneous interpreter, the talk went well.
James: stating the case for ‘Sitzpinkling?
So what’s all this nonsense about men peeing? Well, there are several very good reasons for drawing this subject to everyone’s attention. In many parts of the world, there has been a lot of progress towards equality between men and women. Unfortunately, on International Women’s Day, there are still many public buildings in the UK where there are just not enough toilets for women. (I was once at a brilliant conference about babies. The huge audience was 99% female. The event was held in an institute for engineers, where there were a minute number of toilets for women, and acres of space in the gents. The conference was nearly a disaster, until the organisers arranged for the women delegates to take over the men’s room. A brave decision, but the right one.) I often visit early years settings where all the staff are female, and there is only one toilet. That doesn’t seem right to me. There are schools where men and women staff share the same toilet, and one of the main topics of conversation in the staff room is about the mess that the male staff have left the toilet in. This often leads to female staff putting up crazy signs like ‘We aim to please, so you aim TOO please!’
In many parts of the world, women are vulnerable, because they have no indoor toilets and have to walk to a field, if they live in the countryside, or to a private spot, (if they can find one) in the city. Often, when I lead a course in a conference hall or professional development centre, there are very few male delegates, and often there are just not enough cubicles in the women’s toilets. So I always ask if the delegates would like an extended coffee break, or see if I can arrange for the women to take over the gents’. It seems a bit trivial, but I think it’s important. We men have it easy in so many ways, and never having to queue for ages for the loo is one of them. Personally, I don’t think we can ever say that we are working towards equality between the sexes until every public building has enough toilets for females.
Maybe we need to have a small module in teacher training and early years practitioner courses that covers ‘etiquette in a shared toilet situation’. This should include discussion of
a) Seat up or seat down?
b) Not sprinkling when you tinkle
c) Being a sweetie and wiping the seatie
Finally, in the light of this discussion, maybe we need to reinterpret the meaning behind the lyrics of Tammy Wynette’s classic song, Stand By Your Man. You can Google that one yourselves.
Take care out there
Michael
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4xoxFrRA2Q
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A simply glorious account.
Thanks John! The issue of having adequate toilets for women is the litmus test of a fair society, don’t you think?
Best wishes
Michael
Michael- you know never to drink coffee
Yes Rosalind, I know. It was you who first pointed out that my behaviour deteriorated immediately after drinking coffee, and for several years after that it was only Lady Grey tea for me!
Thanks for responding and I hope you are all well.
Michael
Loved this blog! As the oft-called “Dr Poo” of Brookfields School, IOften gave the advice for young boys to sit to wee (and have extended this to include men getting up in the middle of the night – you can have a variety of nasty accidents if you are standing half-awake!)
On a lighter note, I took my daughter, a drummer of then 15 years old to watch a drum clinic by the legendary Carl Palmer. The hall was filled with 240 drummers and at the ‘comfort break’ at half time, she was surprised to find the only time in her short life when she had all the ladies cubicles to herself while 239 men formed a long queue outside the gents. But that was quite a few years back so I suspect more women have taken up drumming since and more men have taken to sitting!
Hi Trevor!
Thanks for your comments. I wonder if you saw my post about 1000 drummers and Golden Earring in Rotterdam? There seemed to be SOME girls drumming there, but maybe they had a shorter queue for the portaloos as well.
http://www.talk4meaning.co.uk/2014/01/yoi-dudu-doi-dudu-doi-dudu-doi-dudu-om-bom-ba-or-how-children-develop-speech-sounds-with-help-from-focus-golden-earring-and-1000-drummers-in-rotterdam/#.VTDbB40cTmQ
Do you remember The Honeycombs and their hit ‘Have I the right?’ I think they were a band that Joe Meek was involved with. Anyway, I think it was around 1963 and they were famous for having a female drummer. A few years ago I heard an interview from that time between a posh BBC reporter and the drummer. He asked her, ‘Don’t you find it very tiring playing those drums?’ To which she replied, in a broad Cockney accent, ‘No mate. Why should I?’ You could almost hear her chewing gum as she put him in his place. Great stuff!!
The ‘Sitzpinkler’ issue is an important one, and most members of families with boys will have strong views on the subject!!
Great to hear from you!
Michael