Things we don’t usually talk about
Putting a naturist mindset to work on privy-related matters
OUR puppy – nearly full-grown, but still boisterous – brought something to my attention about what we do on the toilet.
Hang on, you might ask, why are you mentioning toilets here? In many families, the word toilet[1] itself is something that is avoided like the plague.
And naturism, you might say, is about going about one’s usual behaviour without clothes, not about what one does in private.
Privacy is something naturists do value, although many outsiders wouldn’t see it that way. They sunbathe, swim, hike and do all sorts of things buck naked, but when they use the toilet, they do it in private.
Naturist facilities provide communal showers where men, women, boys and girls wash themselves – their entire bodies – in the presence of anyone else who happens to be there.
But they also provide sexually segregated toilets, usually with cubicle doors, because even when one is naked all the time, there are moments when one needs to be private.
At the same time, naturists who use such facilities have an advantage over your Joe Average with clothes on, since after using the loo[2] they can shower, and be entirely clean – even after you’ve wiped your anus thoroughly with paper, it is not entirely clean. Joe or Jane Average (or Textile, if you prefer) gets dressed afterward to hide the little bit of dirt, but John and Jean Naturist make sure they are clean first, and step into daylight sans either clothing or dirt.
Again, I should mention that naturism is about doing things the natural way – and especially about giving thought to what is natural.
I’m not talking dirty here just to be foul-mouthed: these are issues that naturists need to confront perhaps more than Mr and Mrs Average.
So what was it that my daughter’s pup brought to my attention?
Well, in our house we don’t always close the bathroom door (yes, I said bathroom, but in our house we have flush toilets in both the shower room and the bathroom). My children are a little more fastidious, but my wife and I have made a point of being available even when perched on the porcelain throne, and it certainly hasn’t traumatised the youngsters.
However, the pup has brought another element into this equation. She loves to be near people, and has a habit of rushing into the room and giving you her full attention (demanding yours at the same time). And as we fend her off, we realise that passing water[3] is not the simple function we think it to be, but a concentrated effort of will and muscular focus. Not an easy task when holding a large, bouncy, nosy puppy at bay!
Pondering this detail, brought to my attention by said puppy, I cast my mind back to a Tom Selleck movie called Mr Baseball,[4] in which he plays an over-the-hill professional baseballer who is traded to a Japanese team for what could well be his final season.
Selleck’s character has a shock introduction to Japanese culture, since his interpreter informs him at the end of his first day that he has done everything wrong, and has offended the people he needs to be his fans. Eventually, in the club locker room, he explodes at the interpreter and says: “Next thing you’ll be telling me how to go to the toilet!” . . . and then looks down at the floor, where he notices a bowl almost flat on the floor, obviously filling the function of the white porcelain throne so familiar to Westerners.
(Hole-in-the-floor toilets are common in China, and in other parts of the Orient as well.)
Why, do you imagine, do the Japanese use such facilities? Is it that they are primitive? Many Westerners would jump to that conclusion, yet the Japanese (indeed, the Oriental) culture is highly developed, in many ways exceeding our own.
The critical difference is that whereas we sit quite high off the floor when on the loo, Orientals squat.[5]
And squatting is a highly natural way of performing the functions required.
Medical evidence is growing to support the theory that people who squat on the toilet (whether they use a hole in the floor or simply a much lower bowl) have a far lower incidence of a variety of ailments, related both specifically to the defecatory[6] and urinary functions and to the general condition of the body muscles used (back and leg, principally).
We Westerners are lazy – bone idle – and sitting on toilet seats as high as 430 mm (17 inches) off the ground is not helping our general condition of health.
What’s more, squatting while performing these functions permits greater personal cleanliness, since the anal opening is entirely clear, and unlikely to retain dirt while discharging.
It makes little difference for a man whether he urinates while sitting, squatting or standing (standing is generally preferred, and some macho men teach their sons that sitting is effeminate), but for women, urination while squatting is also a far cleaner exercise, since there is less opportunity for dribbling.[7]
Western women are often unaware that they can pee[8] as straight as a male if their legs are wide enough apart. But they don’t even think of trying, since they have been taught that it is ladylike to sit on a toilet bowl with legs together, and it is impractical to open wide if one is aiming to contain what comes out within the bowl.
It is worth mentioning at this point that an Ancient Greek traveller once remarked on how different the Egyptians were from all the other nations on earth.[9] He mentioned a number of points of difference, but the one that is relevant here is that, he records, the men would urinate sitting and the women standing.
A woman standing to do that? [10] Well, I recall a delightful print of an 18th-century cartoon that hung in a friend’s guest toilet, showing an English stagecoach halted to allow for what might be called a pee break. The coachman up on his high seat is standing, flooding the ground below, as are the horses in their traces. The gentlemen from inside the coach and the working-class men from the outside rear seat are on the ground, similarly flooding the roadside. And two ladies (at least gentry, judging by their clothing) are standing, skirts somewhat lifted and legs wide apart, also producing a flood. The overall expression on the faces is one of profound relief!
It might be thought undignified, but back in the days when women wore petticoats aplenty but no pants of any sort, it was a highly practical means of performing the necessary.
So what are naturists to do about these things?
Certainly the last thing I would advocate would be the creation of integrated toilets (male and female together), nor the abolition of private cubicles in them. Everybody needs their private space – naturists perhaps even more than those who cannot or will not see the benefits of nude recreation – and this aspect of the naturist lifestyle should certainly continue.
Within the naturist community there are as many opinions as there are people, and many will feel that they should make no change.
When I suggested to my wife that bowl toilets ought to be abolished and replaced with flat-on-the-floor toilets, she wailed in protest and asked me what old ladies would do. She defended herself by saying that she was thinking of my mother (79 this year), but she was secretly also thinking of herself (only in her mid-50s).
Some naturist women might want the resorts they visit to install she-inals (see footnote 10), but peeing while standing up is not (from what I can gather) an issue for a great many women.
In many places, men are discriminated against because no urinals are provided, and where bowl urinals are in use, it is necessary to provide lower bowls for small boys (or stools they can stand on). Perhaps lower she-inals might also be a helpful step for small girls.
More important, it seems to me, is a recognition that squatting is a natural and healthy position for toilet functions, and following that recognition, the provision of flat-on-the-floor loos (in addition to, or in place of, the bowl toilet).
Who knows – if naturists in the West take up the trend, it may be possible, a decade or three down the line, to be able to demonstrate with medical statistics that squatting on the loo is a healthier way of life.
– Strandloper
