I thought Labour under Corbyn was pretty pro-trans; I expect that to change now. Some people even speculating that Boris will come down hard on trans rights, in order to start a culture war with Labour. I think Starmer will cave. Agree about generational divide.
As I posted up-thread, a qualified yes to the generational divide.
My androgynous appearance doesn't disguise, to anyone who actually looks,
Hmmm, sorry, I started that but had to stop and thought I’d deleted.
As I understand it, the mooted bathroom law would apply only to those trans people who retain their birth anatomy. Bad enough, especially twinned with dumping self-identification, as the only route to medically approved transitioning requires living as the chosen gender for a period before surgical and hormonal transitioning is approved. However, for the peace of mind of trans people who have transitioned, it’s important to get that right.
I’m not trans. If pushed, I’ll call myself androgynous non-binary. To get the picture, sometimes I hear myself referred to, from a distance, as ‘that lady’ but to anyone who looks properly, I’m biologically male. So, I use male public toilets and it is always an anxious time. In and out as quickly as possible, to date nothing awful has happened but there’s a feeling that one day the odds might catch up with me.
For a trans woman, that would be so much worse, potentially suicidal. Any law requiring to it is just evil, must be opposed.
I’m not trans. If pushed, I’ll call myself androgynous non-binary. To get the picture, sometimes I hear myself referred to, from a distance, as ‘that lady’ but to anyone who looks properly, I’m biologically male. So, I use male public toilets and it is always an anxious time. In and out as quickly as possible, to date nothing awful has happened but there’s a feeling that one day the odds might catch up with me.
For a trans woman, that would be so much worse, potentially suicidal. Any law requiring to it is just evil, must be opposed.
Thank you for your post Argona, especially the last two sentences. To have to risk serious injury or even death just to use a toilet is horrific.
The bathroom bill in N. Carolina was a mess. I wasn't there, but apparently cis women were being stopped, if they looked masculine, short hair, etc. So it seems very difficult to implement. They also lost a lot of money as various events were moved out of state in protest.
As Argona mentions, trans people are supposed to live as that sex, so it basically makes a trans identity untenable, in public at any rate.
There are suspicions that the govt are flying a kite, to see the reaction, and embarrass Labour.
Coffee shops mostly have ungendered toilets, apparently without any problems. Why not pubs, and other public places? It shouldn't preclude having a ladies-only option as well, for women who want that.
How odd. I can't see a problem about ungendered loos, so long as they are based on the sort of thing one has at home, one toilet and a basin behind a lockable door. No shared space, and enough room for someone to change a child. Loos for the disabled manage nicely without gendering. More space required, but that can be gained by not having the range of basins or a row of urinals.
And while they are at it, doors opening outwards.
Isn't the toilet issue a false flag? I mean, it narrates a paranoid fantasy that predatory men will lurk as trans women, waiting to pounce. I hear trans women say that they've been going in women's loos for decades. But penis!
Another issue nagging at me, I keep reading stuff about colonialism having been a factor in the level of transphobia in England. In other words, the English went round the world telling people not to be disgusting, by having same sex sex, or being third gender, or various. In other words, the Empire was into binary.
I have no idea if this is true, although it's interesting, but also, I don't know how could establish it.
There's often a comparison made between low levels of transphobia in US feminism, and high levels in UK feminism. I thought it could also be prudishness.
Coffee shops mostly have ungendered toilets, apparently without any problems. Why not pubs, and other public places? It shouldn't preclude having a ladies-only option as well, for women who want that.
Men's toilets (in pubs, and places other than small coffee shops) typically have a row of urinals and a cubicle or two. Urinals are more efficient, both in terms of space and time, than cubicles. Most women don't want to go into a room full of urinating men.
And it's significantly cheaper (money and space) to build a room with several cubicles than to build several separate single-user rooms.
Having single ungendered single-user cubicles in low-traffic places doesn't seem like too much of a problem, although I've heard complaints about them from men and women - both about men with poor aim, and about smells, from both sides.
When I was in Amsterdam last summer, restrooms typically were either one-hole-one-door, or had a row of floor-to-ceiling doors on one side of the room which contained nothing but a toilet, and a long sink or row of sinks on the other side of the room.
Just a repeat from the last time we had this discussion--in parts of the US (large parts!) the individual cubicles/stalls are not particularly private from the larger area of the restroom. I've seen some (public parks, for example) with no doors at all. Even if they do have doors, there is often a gap up to half an inch wide between the door (on all sides) and the framework supporting it. So basically, there's almost no privacy, and people walk with eyes averted to avoid seeing their co-workers in an embarrassing state.
Some people can't cope with that, and do themselves damage "holding it" all day long till they can get home to privacy. And that's people who are under the impression that it's a single-sex/gender restroom. If you raise their anxieties in any way (say, by suggesting that all restrooms become unisex), OR by feeding them false narratives about transpeople, the number of "Just going to hold it all day" people will rise sharply, and their anxieties are going to pop out in other forms too (political, or God forbid, violent).
Yes, this could all be solved by retrofitting toilets across the US to be nothing but individual, totally private and enclosed spaces for a single person at a time (not even shared sinks, as some women need to wash out menstrual appliances). But who has the money?
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless. Sure - if you magically get rid of body taboos, there's no reason to have more privacy for defecation than for eating. But that's not going to happen any time soon. Real solutions have to deal with the society we have.
I'm not all that surprised by your girlfriend - when I was growing up, we had a single family bathroom. It was normal for multiple people to use the bathroom at the same time - you'd be brushing your teeth at the sink, and someone else would come in and join you at the sink to brush their teeth, and yet another person would nip in for a wee. But we were family. It would have felt weird to do that with strangers.
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless.
It is useless to expect to happen magically, but not useless to work on it. Look at sex. Despite older people in general having a fairly puritanical view on sex, the younger generations have a much more liberal view of it. Views can and do change if there is a focus on it.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
Despite older people in general having a fairly puritanical view on sex, the younger generations have a much more liberal view of it. Views can and do change if there is a focus on it.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
Fair enough. Although I'd say that with respect to trans people, or race issues, there are obvious people being hurt, and so a compelling need to change people's views. I'd say that views on sex were similar, actually - a lot of the "puritanical" views on sex are really asymmetric ones that judge men and women differently.
What if you don't WANT to work on it? I see no advantage to becoming comfortable with whipping my top off in a public place, or with holding conversations with my son while atop the porcelain throne. Perhaps there is a minute gain in efficiency because I don't have to postpone the conversation by 5 minutes, but some things are just unpleasant to watch. So why should I work on getting society to feel comfortable with (say) public defecation?
What if you don't WANT to work on it? I see no advantage to becoming comfortable with whipping my top off in a public place, or with holding conversations with my son while atop the porcelain throne. Perhaps there is a minute gain in efficiency because I don't have to postpone the conversation by 5 minutes, but some things are just unpleasant to watch. So why should I work on getting society to feel comfortable with (say) public defecation?
The modern concept of privacy and modesty are relatively recent in many aspects. Their value is almost entirely imaginary. Not wanting to change what we are comfortable with is a perfectly normal human aspect we are all typically afflicted with once we reach middle age - all arbitrary and meaningless though they are.
Not wanting to change in mid-life is part of why phobias are highly comorbid with age.
I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to show my bits of in public either. But that doesn't mean I pretend that should be normal
Hiding one's body isn't natural. Being ashamed of bodily functions isn't natural. They are adopted behaviours with some disturbing connotations. Classism, sexism and religious control at least.
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless.
It is useless to expect to happen magically, but not useless to work on it. Look at sex. Despite older people in general having a fairly puritanical view on sex, the younger generations have a much more liberal view of it. Views can and do change if there is a focus on it.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
What older people are you referring to? Your parents? Your grandparents? What younger people? Your kids? Your grandchildren?
Quite a generalization. Culturally bound as well as tied to a particular society.
Thanks for the age swipe, RooK--gives lilbuddha something else to go off on me about. Whatevs.
Seriously, though, why should it be automatically regarded as a good thing for everybody to toss modesty to the four winds? A lot of what bodies do is un-aesthetic. Taking a shit is natural, but I don't want to see it just before lunch, and I don't see why changing that attitude is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
As for the naturalness or otherwise of "hiding one's body"--
It's worth considering just why clothes are darn near a human universal across cultures. Is there any other animal that does anything similar? I submit that humans are and have been "unnatural" for pretty much as long as we've been human. It could be considered one of our defining traits.
So saying it's "natural" does not automatically equal "It's good." Plenty of things are natural and not good, including various forms of violence, abuse, and neglect.
The thing about shame, too, is over-wrought. When I get dressed in the morning, I am not doing it while quivering with shame. If I'm taking a crap and my son happens to walk in on me, this is not a major catastrophe, or anything to take up more than 10 seconds (long enough to say "Knock next time!" and shut the door). I see no lasting emotional damage to me as a result of my modesty, or to my son as a result of occasional lapses.
You who want to change human attitudes toward privacy, I don't think you've made your case.
God no, the arguments between the scrunchers and the folders, the between the legsers and reach round the backers, the look to see what you've doners and the why would you even do that?ers, once people can see which tribes you belong to...
Not wanting to change in mid-life is part of why phobias are highly comorbid with age.
I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to show my bits of in public either. But that doesn't mean I pretend that should be normal
Hiding one's body isn't natural. Being ashamed of bodily functions isn't natural. They are adopted behaviours with some disturbing connotations. Classism, sexism and religious control at least.
I'm not sure a desire for privacy necessarily arises from shame. Fact is everyone's shit stinks and the desire to be shielded and shield others from foul smells is perfectly natural. The fact that for much of history folk just had to put up with it doesn't make avoiding it "unnatural".
Public nudity I think is more readily a matter of shame, simply because most of us have body image issues. It's telling, I think, that even naturists tend to have private bathroom facilities.
Sex is different again. I don't think that's (primarily) about shame, I think that's about the personal. Just as people tend to keep love letters private they also want to keep sex private. Even in places where folk share sleeping space and parents may be having sex where children are sleeping I'm pretty sure it is still not common to engage in intimate behaviour in front of non-family.
I'm amused by the older/younger attitudes to sex idea. I'm 70 so I'm prudish? But 70 means l'm a child of the 60s - and we invented sex.
As to bodily shame - long past that, don't give a damn. But I still want privacy, be it constructed via a space or via clothing, because there are things I want to do or be - and I'm not talking exclusively of bodily functions - without the scrutiny of others.
Public nudity I think is more readily a matter of shame, simply because most of us have body image issues. It's telling, I think, that even naturists tend to have private bathroom facilities.
I have always had a bashful bladder, but no problems in showering in public after a rugby game, at camp, or on any other occasion.
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless.
It is useless to expect to happen magically, but not useless to work on it. Look at sex. Despite older people in general having a fairly puritanical view on sex, the younger generations have a much more liberal view of it. Views can and do change if there is a focus on it.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
What older people are you referring to? Your parents? Your grandparents? What younger people? Your kids? Your grandchildren?
All generations, sort of. Though over time, sexual norms have gone back and forth. Of currently living people, older generations generally have a more conservative view about sex. Not sure why that is at all controversial.
I'm amused by the older/younger attitudes to sex idea. I'm 70 so I'm prudish? But 70 means l'm a child of the 60s - and we invented sex.
Yes. Mostly the younger people of the 60's. We've had discussion on sex here and the vast majority of the Ship, which skews towards people of a certain age, and those free=loving hippies are in short supply on SOF.
As to bodily shame - long past that, don't give a damn. But I still want privacy, be it constructed via a space or via clothing, because there are things I want to do or be - and I'm not talking exclusively of bodily functions - without the scrutiny of others.
For you? I can only guess, but in general bodily shame and stigma on nudity are not exactly the same thing.
Not wanting to change in mid-life is part of why phobias are highly comorbid with age.
I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to show my bits of in public either. But that doesn't mean I pretend that should be normal
Hiding one's body isn't natural. Being ashamed of bodily functions isn't natural. They are adopted behaviours with some disturbing connotations. Classism, sexism and religious control at least.
I'm not sure a desire for privacy necessarily arises from shame. Fact is everyone's shit stinks and the desire to be shielded and shield others from foul smells is perfectly natural. The fact that for much of history folk just had to put up with it doesn't make avoiding it "unnatural".
Public nudity I think is more readily a matter of shame, simply because most of us have body image issues. It's telling, I think, that even naturists tend to have private bathroom facilities.
Not wanting to step in it or smell it is different to the feeling typically felt when discussing it.
Sex is different again. I don't think that's (primarily) about shame, I think that's about the personal. Just as people tend to keep love letters private they also want to keep sex private. Even in places where folk share sleeping space and parents may be having sex where children are sleeping I'm pretty sure it is still not common to engage in intimate behaviour in front of non-family.
I'm not suggesting sex in the open and talking about one's lover is different to talking about sex. When the idea of a sex topic was floated for The 8th Day, the virtual sound from SOF was akin to being amongst a colony of pistol shrimp with collective sphincters snapping shut.
Clothing developed for protection. That is why the San wear less of it than the Inuit. It later became a tool for social control.
No, though I've heard it referenced. What I have been around for is the many Sex is for marriage, with small side order of committed relationships comments that dominate discussions on sex.
It could also be resolved by removing out taboos about the body and its natural functions.
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless.
It is useless to expect to happen magically, but not useless to work on it. Look at sex. Despite older people in general having a fairly puritanical view on sex, the younger generations have a much more liberal view of it. Views can and do change if there is a focus on it.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
What older people are you referring to? Your parents? Your grandparents? What younger people? Your kids? Your grandchildren?
All generations, sort of. Though over time, sexual norms have gone back and forth. Of currently living people, older generations generally have a more conservative view about sex. Not sure why that is at all controversial.
Long history of. I have unfortunately photos of bare bum grandparents from the 1920s in Berlin at various lakes and parks. (Which I don't look at.) Working in the Tiergarten area, nude sunbathing at lunch time. that sort of thing.
I apologize if I did not adequately make the notion of ossifying sensibilities suitably inclusive. I can recognize how it is happening to me, too. And, generally speaking, it is well-documented psychologically that humans - as cultural groups - tend to fixate on what was experienced in their earlier life as being "right" or "good".
Of course, we here are all exceptions, because we're all exceptional.
Also: every generation seems to think they invented sex. Tell it to the Romans.
I highly highly recommend the book Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr. In it she looks at the correlation between the shift in "swearing" from religious to bodily ("God's thumbs" to "Oh fuck") and the rise of personal modesty/privacy. Along the way she discusses things like souvenirs for Canterbury pilgrims in the shape of a vulva being carried on a litter by four penes, and the king's two-hole outhouse for doing business while doing his, um, business. (What king? Read the damned—er, fucking—book!)
Groom of the Stole i.e. Groom of the Stool - which is to say the guy who was there to wipe the royal arse - was a coveted position. It gave you access to the monarch at his most relaxed (provided he didn't have piles).
This is all a bit beside the point as there isn't really a bathroom problem for cisgender people - as in a major risk of violence. More to the point is what can be done to make sure those who do have well-grounded fears of violence because they are not cis (trans or non binary or not perceived as cis) are kept safe.
My point was that it is easier to change people’s minds if you know where they’re coming from. And in the US, that place is a severe lack of privacy which some people cope with only by clinging to the mantra “we’re all girls here” (don’t know if guys have anything similar). So once they feel threatened on that concept (rightly or wrongly), they’re going to flip out. It would be easier and more efficient to campaign for true privacy than to lecture such people on the nature of gender. (True cubicle privacy would also make it possible to install security video and glass doors and windows, none of which are possible psychologically with the current stalls. And thus would destroy another favorite objection, the one about safety.)
This is all a bit beside the point as there isn't really a bathroom problem for cisgender people - as in a major risk of violence. More to the point is what can be done to make sure those who do have well-grounded fears of violence because they are not cis (trans or non binary or not perceived as cis) are kept safe.
This is the irony about these debates. I mean, the anti-trans lot say that cis women are in danger from predatory trans women, whereas trans women are often in danger anyway. Imagine a trans woman going in a male loo, or changing room. Trans men often seem to "pass" better, but they are nervous about being forced to go in women's loos, although how this would be done baffles me, (anatomical checks?). As I said above, the N. Carolina bathroom bill seemed a disaster, with cis women being challenged.
I think experience does bring a greater caution. We've simply seen more ways in which things can go wrong as well as right.
But resistance to change is not necessarily age-related. Openness to different ways of looking at things seems to me to be more a matter of personality. Some people seem to find greater security in the status quo. At 77 I regard the status quo as simply a description. And not of a three chord rock band.
I'm still learning and wouldn't want it any other way. My personal touchstone has never been better expressed than by Bob Dylan (from Its Alright Ma).
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying
Closing the mind rather than looking to learn. Every time we do that, we die a little.
This is all a bit beside the point as there isn't really a bathroom problem for cisgender people - as in a major risk of violence. More to the point is what can be done to make sure those who do have well-grounded fears of violence because they are not cis (trans or non binary or not perceived as cis) are kept safe.
This is the irony about these debates. I mean, the anti-trans lot say that cis women are in danger from predatory trans women, whereas trans women are often in danger anyway. Imagine a trans woman going in a male loo, or changing room. Trans men often seem to "pass" better, but they are nervous about being forced to go in women's loos, although how this would be done baffles me, (anatomical checks?). As I said above, the N. Carolina bathroom bill seemed a disaster, with cis women being challenged.
Would it help if it was at least acknowledged that just as some sick, evil men will go into women's toilets/rape /put women in danger that yes a very, very small number of trans-women may look to likewise. Being trans doesn't automatically = being good anymore than being gay, or black etc etc.
And some sick, evil men may even pretend to be trans to get access to women or children in the same way that they use the church, or scouts etc.
To automatically tell people it won't happen and they are bigots for thinking it might seems to miss the point. Far better to add an additional, lengthy hate crime element for pretending to be trans/smearing the trans community in addition to whatever charges for rape/assault etc?
Would it help if it was at least acknowledged that just as some sick, evil men will go into women's toilets/rape /put women in danger that yes a very, very small number of trans-women may look to likewise.
No. Because it feeds the bullshit rhetoric of the anti-trans.
Far better to add an additional, lengthy hate crime element for pretending to be trans/smearing the trans community in addition to whatever charges for rape/assault etc?
Would it help if it was at least acknowledged that just as some sick, evil men will go into women's toilets/rape /put women in danger that yes a very, very small number of trans-women may look to likewise.
No. Because it feeds the bullshit rhetoric of the anti-trans.
Far better to add an additional, lengthy hate crime element for pretending to be trans/smearing the trans community in addition to whatever charges for rape/assault etc?
Would it help if it was at least acknowledged that just as some sick, evil men will go into women's toilets/rape /put women in danger that yes a very, very small number of trans-women may look to likewise.
No. Because it feeds the bullshit rhetoric of the anti-trans.
To automatically tell people it won't happen and they are bigots for thinking it might seems to miss the point.
No, it is exactly the point. Bad actors are going to be bad actors and they are not going to worry about laws.
Exactly. Where is the evidence that trans women may behave abusively in women's spaces? Will an actual male predator, prepared to impersonate a woman to access a women's space, be deterred by a law banning entry for trans women, when any offence he'll commit there will be far worse, and long in the statue book? To suggest so is a disingenuous nonsense.
Several countries already have Gender Recognition reform of the sort being discussed by the UK on the books. They don't show any uptick on sexual predation in toilets or anywhere else as a result.
Similarly, the idea that a powerless, at-risk minority will 'predate' on the women and children of the majority was a trope not just of lynching in the American South, but of European Anti-semitism. It ought to ring immediate alarm bells as a very dangerous form of prejudice historically used to legitimate violence. When people from powerful majority groups want people to talk about this in relation to at-risk minorities, it's never neutral.
Just to be clear, that goes for saying 'some tiny percentage of people of x minority are bound to be sexual predators' as this is framing. It does its mischief by helping the concepts to get or keep being associated.
And here we are talking about this instead of how to help the people who are really at risk stay safe - so you see, it really does harm.
Several countries already have Gender Recognition reform of the sort being discussed by the UK on the books. They don't show any uptick on sexual predation in toilets or anywhere else as a result.
Similarly, the idea that a powerless, at-risk minority will 'predate' on the women and children of the majority was a trope not just of lynching in the American South, but of European Anti-semitism. It ought to ring immediate alarm bells as a very dangerous form of prejudice historically used to legitimate violence. When people from powerful majority groups want people to talk about this in relation to at-risk minorities, it's never neutral.
A very good point. It hadn't struck me how a powerless minority can be fantasized as threatening and lethal, but as you say, Jews and black people in some countries have been seen like that, and still are. There is also a point made in depth psychology, that oppressed groups can seek out other groups to oppress in turn.
Comments
Hmmm, sorry, I started that but had to stop and thought I’d deleted.
As I understand it, the mooted bathroom law would apply only to those trans people who retain their birth anatomy. Bad enough, especially twinned with dumping self-identification, as the only route to medically approved transitioning requires living as the chosen gender for a period before surgical and hormonal transitioning is approved. However, for the peace of mind of trans people who have transitioned, it’s important to get that right.
I’m not trans. If pushed, I’ll call myself androgynous non-binary. To get the picture, sometimes I hear myself referred to, from a distance, as ‘that lady’ but to anyone who looks properly, I’m biologically male. So, I use male public toilets and it is always an anxious time. In and out as quickly as possible, to date nothing awful has happened but there’s a feeling that one day the odds might catch up with me.
For a trans woman, that would be so much worse, potentially suicidal. Any law requiring to it is just evil, must be opposed.
Thank you for your post Argona, especially the last two sentences. To have to risk serious injury or even death just to use a toilet is horrific.
As Argona mentions, trans people are supposed to live as that sex, so it basically makes a trans identity untenable, in public at any rate.
There are suspicions that the govt are flying a kite, to see the reaction, and embarrass Labour.
And while they are at it, doors opening outwards.
I have no idea if this is true, although it's interesting, but also, I don't know how could establish it.
There's often a comparison made between low levels of transphobia in US feminism, and high levels in UK feminism. I thought it could also be prudishness.
[redacted]
Men's toilets (in pubs, and places other than small coffee shops) typically have a row of urinals and a cubicle or two. Urinals are more efficient, both in terms of space and time, than cubicles. Most women don't want to go into a room full of urinating men.
And it's significantly cheaper (money and space) to build a room with several cubicles than to build several separate single-user rooms.
Having single ungendered single-user cubicles in low-traffic places doesn't seem like too much of a problem, although I've heard complaints about them from men and women - both about men with poor aim, and about smells, from both sides.
Some people can't cope with that, and do themselves damage "holding it" all day long till they can get home to privacy. And that's people who are under the impression that it's a single-sex/gender restroom. If you raise their anxieties in any way (say, by suggesting that all restrooms become unisex), OR by feeding them false narratives about transpeople, the number of "Just going to hold it all day" people will rise sharply, and their anxieties are going to pop out in other forms too (political, or God forbid, violent).
Yes, this could all be solved by retrofitting toilets across the US to be nothing but individual, totally private and enclosed spaces for a single person at a time (not even shared sinks, as some women need to wash out menstrual appliances). But who has the money?
I had a girlfriend who liked to keep the conversation going whilst she was using the loo and kept the door open. Despite being intimately familiar with her each and every part, that felt very uncomfortable to me. And that is mad.
This statement is both true, and useless. Sure - if you magically get rid of body taboos, there's no reason to have more privacy for defecation than for eating. But that's not going to happen any time soon. Real solutions have to deal with the society we have.
I'm not all that surprised by your girlfriend - when I was growing up, we had a single family bathroom. It was normal for multiple people to use the bathroom at the same time - you'd be brushing your teeth at the sink, and someone else would come in and join you at the sink to brush their teeth, and yet another person would nip in for a wee. But we were family. It would have felt weird to do that with strangers.
Or the topic of this conversation. People are not expecting views to magically change, but are doing the work to change them.
Here in rural UK everything is smaller so in our churches and coffee shops there is only the one toilet anyway.
No problems.
Fair enough. Although I'd say that with respect to trans people, or race issues, there are obvious people being hurt, and so a compelling need to change people's views. I'd say that views on sex were similar, actually - a lot of the "puritanical" views on sex are really asymmetric ones that judge men and women differently.
The modern concept of privacy and modesty are relatively recent in many aspects. Their value is almost entirely imaginary. Not wanting to change what we are comfortable with is a perfectly normal human aspect we are all typically afflicted with once we reach middle age - all arbitrary and meaningless though they are.
I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to show my bits of in public either. But that doesn't mean I pretend that should be normal
Hiding one's body isn't natural. Being ashamed of bodily functions isn't natural. They are adopted behaviours with some disturbing connotations. Classism, sexism and religious control at least.
What older people are you referring to? Your parents? Your grandparents? What younger people? Your kids? Your grandchildren?
Quite a generalization. Culturally bound as well as tied to a particular society.
Seriously, though, why should it be automatically regarded as a good thing for everybody to toss modesty to the four winds? A lot of what bodies do is un-aesthetic. Taking a shit is natural, but I don't want to see it just before lunch, and I don't see why changing that attitude is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
As for the naturalness or otherwise of "hiding one's body"--
It's worth considering just why clothes are darn near a human universal across cultures. Is there any other animal that does anything similar? I submit that humans are and have been "unnatural" for pretty much as long as we've been human. It could be considered one of our defining traits.
So saying it's "natural" does not automatically equal "It's good." Plenty of things are natural and not good, including various forms of violence, abuse, and neglect.
The thing about shame, too, is over-wrought. When I get dressed in the morning, I am not doing it while quivering with shame. If I'm taking a crap and my son happens to walk in on me, this is not a major catastrophe, or anything to take up more than 10 seconds (long enough to say "Knock next time!" and shut the door). I see no lasting emotional damage to me as a result of my modesty, or to my son as a result of occasional lapses.
You who want to change human attitudes toward privacy, I don't think you've made your case.
I'm not sure a desire for privacy necessarily arises from shame. Fact is everyone's shit stinks and the desire to be shielded and shield others from foul smells is perfectly natural. The fact that for much of history folk just had to put up with it doesn't make avoiding it "unnatural".
Public nudity I think is more readily a matter of shame, simply because most of us have body image issues. It's telling, I think, that even naturists tend to have private bathroom facilities.
Sex is different again. I don't think that's (primarily) about shame, I think that's about the personal. Just as people tend to keep love letters private they also want to keep sex private. Even in places where folk share sleeping space and parents may be having sex where children are sleeping I'm pretty sure it is still not common to engage in intimate behaviour in front of non-family.
As to bodily shame - long past that, don't give a damn. But I still want privacy, be it constructed via a space or via clothing, because there are things I want to do or be - and I'm not talking exclusively of bodily functions - without the scrutiny of others.
I have always had a bashful bladder, but no problems in showering in public after a rugby game, at camp, or on any other occasion.
For you? I can only guess, but in general bodily shame and stigma on nudity are not exactly the same thing.
Clothing developed for protection. That is why the San wear less of it than the Inuit. It later became a tool for social control.
By western you mean English? German Nacktkultur, Freikörperkultur, naked culture, free body culture for example. One info link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur
Long history of. I have unfortunately photos of bare bum grandparents from the 1920s in Berlin at various lakes and parks. (Which I don't look at.) Working in the Tiergarten area, nude sunbathing at lunch time. that sort of thing.
Of course, we here are all exceptions, because we're all exceptional.
Also: every generation seems to think they invented sex. Tell it to the Romans.
...who did, of course, practice communal shitting.
I have a colleague who is soon to retire, who is well-known for his ripe language. I think you just found me a retirement gift. Thanks!
Lamb Chopped,
You are the one making personal attacks currently, not lilbuddha or anyone else. Don't.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
This is the irony about these debates. I mean, the anti-trans lot say that cis women are in danger from predatory trans women, whereas trans women are often in danger anyway. Imagine a trans woman going in a male loo, or changing room. Trans men often seem to "pass" better, but they are nervous about being forced to go in women's loos, although how this would be done baffles me, (anatomical checks?). As I said above, the N. Carolina bathroom bill seemed a disaster, with cis women being challenged.
But resistance to change is not necessarily age-related. Openness to different ways of looking at things seems to me to be more a matter of personality. Some people seem to find greater security in the status quo. At 77 I regard the status quo as simply a description. And not of a three chord rock band.
I'm still learning and wouldn't want it any other way. My personal touchstone has never been better expressed than by Bob Dylan (from Its Alright Ma).
Closing the mind rather than looking to learn. Every time we do that, we die a little.
Would it help if it was at least acknowledged that just as some sick, evil men will go into women's toilets/rape /put women in danger that yes a very, very small number of trans-women may look to likewise. Being trans doesn't automatically = being good anymore than being gay, or black etc etc.
And some sick, evil men may even pretend to be trans to get access to women or children in the same way that they use the church, or scouts etc.
To automatically tell people it won't happen and they are bigots for thinking it might seems to miss the point. Far better to add an additional, lengthy hate crime element for pretending to be trans/smearing the trans community in addition to whatever charges for rape/assault etc?
Because someone like that is going to be stopped by laws? The way no one rapes or molests now because that is illegal...
No, it is exactly the point. Bad actors are going to be bad actors and they are not going to worry about laws. Not an either/or situation.
Exactly. Where is the evidence that trans women may behave abusively in women's spaces? Will an actual male predator, prepared to impersonate a woman to access a women's space, be deterred by a law banning entry for trans women, when any offence he'll commit there will be far worse, and long in the statue book? To suggest so is a disingenuous nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that a powerless, at-risk minority will 'predate' on the women and children of the majority was a trope not just of lynching in the American South, but of European Anti-semitism. It ought to ring immediate alarm bells as a very dangerous form of prejudice historically used to legitimate violence. When people from powerful majority groups want people to talk about this in relation to at-risk minorities, it's never neutral.
And here we are talking about this instead of how to help the people who are really at risk stay safe - so you see, it really does harm.
A very good point. It hadn't struck me how a powerless minority can be fantasized as threatening and lethal, but as you say, Jews and black people in some countries have been seen like that, and still are. There is also a point made in depth psychology, that oppressed groups can seek out other groups to oppress in turn.