Bathroom As Theatre

[plumtreeblossom]

Sorry to be harping about this again, but I was just reading miles of complaints on TripAdvisor.com about hotels surprising their guests with glass bathroom walls that leave the toilet totally exposed. I LOATHE this invasive and presumptuous trend in "decorating." Seeing so many others uncomfortable with it too was validating, but the fact that there were so many underlines the problem of how widespread it's becoming.

Priceline has landed the Wabbit and me in some pretty shi-shi digs for less than the price of a motel. For the first time in my life, I'm considering looking at European-style hotels with shared bathrooms. Its more inconvenient, but at least I know I'll have real walls! Oh, and all of you people who stay at the Pod; stick to the shared bathroom rooms. The en-suites are being rennovated to have glass bathrooms. Some already have them.

You're probably saying "Plumtreeblossom, why are you so up in arms about this when you only travel a few times a year?" Well, because I DO travel a few times a year, and I don't want my comfort levels dictated to me. I know one person who has seen this over-share design in someone's house, so it's not just hotels. I hate it because it seems to send the message "You are bad to want to hide anything about yourself." It also says "If you need an opaque toilet enclosure, you are a hopelessly unsophistocated hillbilly who ought not darken our chic doorway with your parochial sensitivities."

I need to know just how alone or not I am in this rejection of forced exposure. to that end:



[Poll #1398758]

Comments

[anniemarie75.livejournal.com]

I stayed at a place in Bermuda last year where there was a seperate room for the toilet and sink, but the big tub and another sink were not 10 feet from the bed. It was weird and funny at the same time.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I think I might be okay with that arrangement if I was with beowabbit, or certain very close female friends. I have some comfort level with nudity in controlled circumstances. The toilet is the problem. I do NOT share that act with anyone! Even if I was a conjoined twin I would make them put on a blindfold or something.

[anniemarie75.livejournal.com]

I know totally. Some people are so open with it...even my cats want their privacy...well the girl does the boys are ...different :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yep, if I look at my cat when he's using the litter box, he looks at me funny as if he wished I'd go away.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The toilet is definitely the issue, yeah. Lack of any wall at all? Seriously? I mean, all other things aside, what about smell?

BTW, although one of my selections was "romantic partner(s)", I'd have opted for only certain ones. I mean, I've lived with partners long-term... it gets a lot more personal than that, but I won't squick you with details. :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Indeed, the smell. Perhaps the designers are suggesting that it's sexy to share that with your partner while zie is eating hir continental breakfast. (And do we call that an incontinental breakfast? *jazz hands*)

Most of the no-wall bathroom reports were from posh hotels in Asia. If my cultural knowledge is correct (and it might not be), I think there's less taboo there about the fetishizing of toileting. But then, the Tokyo bathrooms I was in had those princess boxes that made white noise to disguise the sounds of elimination, so go figure. In any case, the people reporting on TripAdvisor had been very uncomfortable in them.

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the designers are suggesting that it's sexy to share that with your partner while zie is eating hir continental breakfast.

Clearly, the designers were influenced by "2 girls 1 cup"!

[ron_newman]

I thought of you and your earlier post when I watched We Live In Public at the Independent Film Festival of Boston last month.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh squick, I watched the trailer.

You know, sometimes I'm glad my lifespan is half over. I honestly don't want to know what the total-exposure world will be like for people just being born now.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to the toilet question: I know you use Priceline a lot. Do you generally give it the parameters (want to stay in these areas, this is my top price) or do you have it give you suggestions? I haven't used it before, but your constant raving about it has me thinking I'll do it next time I'm visiting NYC, saving myself the agony of staying with my mom.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I used the "name your own price" deal on Priceline. The way it works is you first pick the dates you want, then pick the minimum star level of the hotel you want, then select all of the neighborhoods where you're willing to stay, then place a bid. For Manhattan hotels I usually start bidding at $110. Priceline will ping every participating hotel in those neighborhood and see if any hotel will accpt your bid. If more than one accepts, Priceline will give you the one with the higher star rating. If no hotel accepts, you then go up by $5 or $10 dollars until a hotel accepts.

Note that you do this AFTER you've given your credit card info, and as soon as a hotel has accepted your bid, you've bought the room. But they screen and monitor their participating hotels very closely, and you will never be put in a dump. The hotels I've gotten from bidding on Priceline were far and beyond the best hotels I've ever stayed at in my life, and I could never have afforded them otherwise. The lovely Murray Hill suite we just stayed in for $132 a night is going for $559 over on Hotels.com.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and some people on TripAdvisor were saying that when you get up at night to use the glass bathroom and turn on the light, it illuminates the whole room and wakes your partner up! That alone is made of fail.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Eh. I have the Japanese (well, the reputed Japanese) attitude towards toileting. Everyone does it, my version of it isn't special, nothing to see here, move along. So I don't really care if (most) people see me toileting. (Business colleagues are a special case, IMO. But close friends, partners, etc.? I will conform to their prejudices, but don't care if they can see me when I'm in the WC).

I don't expect anyone to share my devil-may-care attitude, though. I always assume American bathroom sensibilities when sharing a room. But I grew up in Europe, 30+ years ago; the WC etiquette was different for me than it was for most people who grew up here.

The light is a bigger issue for me, interestingly; I don't like waking people up, and I don't like urinating on the floor :-) So that has potential for bad form.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't believe the issue with the light was not considered in the design. Wabbit and I both usually get up to pee a few times a night, and having bright light flood the room would be miserable.

I am so glad beowabbit is onboard with the toilet privacy issue. I had one live-in partner long ago who felt we should keep no secrets from each other, including in the bathroom. He believed that as a couple we should be comfortable doing EVERYTHING in front of each other and he refused to have a lock on the bathroom door. He ruined many a bath/shower for me by coming in and dumping a stinky "big boy" in my presence.

We are no longer together.

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

While I have no problems with toileting in front of my beloved while he shaves or something, I have to say that waiting to use the loo until your SO is out of the shower/bath is just common courtesy.

[saturn939.livejournal.com]

A see-thru shower and sink I'd have no problem sharing with my husband, but a toilet needs walls.

-Dee

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

Btw, one of my friends reported (in her LJ) that the Natick IMAX has those kind of bathrooms too. She was weirded out enough about it to blog about it. So apparently this disturbing trend goes beyond hotels. (It's a one-way mirror I guess so people can't see you, but you can see out and therefore feel like you're on display while you're on the throne.)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

WHAT??? Is this the IMAX at Jordan's, where I plan to re-see Star Trek?

I guess if it's a 1-way mirror it's not so bad, but I'd still feel overly-exposed. WHAT IT HAPPENING TO THIS WORLD???

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

See it at the IMAX at the Reading Jordan's and you'll have your opaque stalls.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

opaque is not transparent. Thank goodness!

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Showering doesn't bug me, but Toilet does. Especially during a special Time of the Month, when I feel like bleah and really don't think it's very romantic for my SO to see what I'm discarding then.

If people are so keen on open toilets, why aren't the actual commodes made out of see-through glass, so all can see a side view of what's being flushed? That's just So Gross.

And the Light to awaken others in a shared sleeping environment is just idiotic. Hotel rooms should be restful, even potentially more restful than at home.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I didn't even think of THAT! You're right, that's a bit of personal care that I can't imagine doing with someone looking.

And check out what I found for you!



I can't believe this is happening on my planet.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

...speechless...

(do the people who made this toilet actually think it's attractive?)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

The plumbing hardware in the tank is very ugly, and if that bowl is made of plastic, within a year it's going to be permanently stained inside. The designer probably thinks that's sexy.

[beowabbit]

(Whoops! This time commenting logged in as myself.)

I didn't even think of THAT! You're right, that's a bit of personal care that I can't imagine doing with someone looking.

Interesting. I have poo squick, but I have little or no mensturation squick, and seeing you (or anybody I was generally comfortable with) taking out a tampon wouldn’t bug me.

(That said, you are EVER SO WELCOME to keep any personal hygiene you want to private. It’s your body!)

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Glass bathrooms seem to me an utterly stupid idea. Like, what's new to watch, man? Ane especially, what's with the apparent lack of warning at these places?

That said, my only reason for discomfort if I think any but a few people will see me nude, or see me using the bathroom in the usual way, arises from my worry about how those others will react. I'd be much happier if we had the sense to threat these things as the simple facts of life they are, rather than as things to freak out about or go gaga at through a glass wall or, maybe, via YouTube.

Mind, I'm private as hell about my sex life, and about some other things a lot of people want to share and double-share about these days. But I'd guess that these glass bathrooms are just one more unhelpful reaction to the illogical collective decrees that certain natural phenomena must be hidden and talked about, if at all, only circuitously.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I used to get Dwell (http://www.dwell.com/) magazine, and I enjoyed it; but I was amazed at the number of transparent bathrooms. Shower stall, bathtub even: sure, why not, with a lover. But toilet? That's ridiculous. I think I'd die of constipation before I'd learn to relieve myself in view of anyone else.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I looked at that link -- I see what you mean!

I agree with you that I could handle an exposed shower, with a lover. But I did decline to join a certain gym because the shower doors were completely clear and the users 100% exposed. Not only would I not want to use one, I don't particularly care to see that much of strangers.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

The people who came up with this fail, who think they are so trendy and edgy, should now have to share such a bathroom with me.

Let's see how they feel about their design after I make a trip to Boston Market for some creamed spinach.

They should be forced to sit there and watch with their eyes pried open like clockwork Orange.

This is what I like to call a degenerate trend¹, and we see it in lots of things these days. Whatever happened to reaching for the heights of design, instead of vying for position on the bottom?

1. I use the term degenerate here in the particle physics sense, not the more common sense.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Now there's an image!

I agree, these designers should be forced to observe the fruits of their "creativity." They should be tied in a chair directly in front and upwind of their free-range toilet and forced to witness as a long line of baked bean eating contest participants each take their turn.

[http://users.livejournal.com/urban_faerie_/]

Well, with my romantic partner as long as we didn't have any other choices and he promised to be on the other side of the room, not looking in my direction, with the TV on and turned up the entire time I was in there. So maybe now that I think of it, that's a NO NEVER!

How cheap is this hotel room again?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That's sort of how we worked it out when we got the hotel room with the frosted glass bathroom wall (which was what originally started me on this tirade). The person not in the bathroom looked the other way, or stayed focused on their laptop or whatever. But I still felt on display, which was every kind of squicky.