The Art Of Hover Pissing

December 3, 2004 5:23 PM

A lesson every woman needs to learn. I myself practise "hovering" and what the article leaves out is how it can work wonders for one's thigh muscles (ha ha). Seriously, for women, going to the bathroom is a complicated process.
posted by livingsanctuary (51 comments total)

Allow me to take this opportunity to thank God that I was born male.

Even "hovering" over most of the public toilets that I come across is more than I could bear.
posted by 27 at 5:27 PM on December 3, 2004

Clearly, you have issues...
posted by rushmc at 5:28 PM on December 3, 2004

At first glance I thought it was the fine art of "Hoovering".
posted by srboisvert at 5:29 PM on December 3, 2004

Clearly, you have issues...

.
posted by The God Complex at 5:33 PM on December 3, 2004

Why not just pee standing up? Sort of NSFW (describes parts down there)
posted by MikeKD at 5:45 PM on December 3, 2004

Who knows exactly what is on, or has been on, the toilet you're about to rest your bottom on?

Yeah, you never know if this guy was on it before you. Yuck.
posted by sour cream at 5:45 PM on December 3, 2004

Sandra Fu needs an editor. Badly edited articles piss me off.
posted by idest at 5:47 PM on December 3, 2004

It is, of course, a myth that you can catch diseases from public toilet seats.
posted by Bezbozhnik at 5:48 PM on December 3, 2004

Hovering is the #1 cause of disgusting, messy toilet seats. Not every hoverer has the strength and directional ability that is necessary.
posted by Miko at 5:49 PM on December 3, 2004

I think that Americans are far too germ phobic in general, but I must say that because of those egregious truck stop pit stops, I've learned to pee standing up. Much easier than hovering.

And yeah, I agree with you, Idest: Fu needs an editor.
posted by Specklet at 5:54 PM on December 3, 2004

Girls, if you hoover-wee, please don't get urine all over the place. Lift the top lid up. Most of you spill everywhere. Especially when you're are drunk.
Always puts the lid up just to confuse the next girl in line.
posted by dabitch at 5:58 PM on December 3, 2004

Hover-ers at my office are the bane of every single other person who uses the bathroom. Pee in the bushes for all I care, but at least wipe the seat if you can't hover properly.
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:05 PM on December 3, 2004

I second dabitch. Nothing much more infuriating than being a trusting sort, sitting on a seat and finding too late that it's covered with pee. Sometimes there just isn't time to check! Worse, still, is a toilet seat covered with some version of paper protection left behind. arrrgh!! If *you* don't want to touch it with your hands, why would I? People can be such inconsiderate slobs sometime.
Specklet, can you end it neatly? That's the trick.
posted by fish tick at 6:07 PM on December 3, 2004

Yeah, what dabitch and fish tick said.

And if you happen to be one of those people who leaves the toilet unflushed because you are scared to touch the flushing mechanism, I am very upset with you. So many people out there are too stupid to figure out how to do it using your foot or a wad of toilet paper.
posted by sophie at 6:12 PM on December 3, 2004

"Clearly, you have issues..."

Yeah, if you're going to have an agenda to push on the front page, this is a pretty gross one.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:17 PM on December 3, 2004

I myself practise "hovering"

There are those who call it "spraying."
posted by scarabic at 6:22 PM on December 3, 2004

Clearly, you have issues...

Don't we all? :-)
posted by livingsanctuary at 6:23 PM on December 3, 2004

It's nice being a point & shoot male. :)
posted by zarq at 6:26 PM on December 3, 2004

Apparently I just don't worry about my health enough. (has never hovered and has no intention of starting)
posted by kamylyon at 6:32 PM on December 3, 2004

Fandango_Matt, are they making brownies in that toilet? How do you get the mix from the toilet to the oven?

I'm glad I can write beautiful calligraphy in the snow. John Hancock has nothing on me.
posted by Frank Grimes at 6:33 PM on December 3, 2004

No no, ladies, you need a whizzy, duh.

And speaking as an editor, with some writers the old saying holds true: you cain't polish a turd. Not only is this topic ancient, but she writes at a fifth-grade level. A stupid fifth grade level.

And guys: keep your smugness, kay? Because when you do have to sit down for important business, you may very well be the guy in that filth-smeared club toilet without a stall door. And it will suck.
posted by emjaybee at 7:11 PM on December 3, 2004

Three cheers for chaps that prefer to sit always! Y'all are goodfellas.
posted by fish tick at 7:37 PM on December 3, 2004

If it weren't for the hoverers, there wouldn't be anything on the seat to avoid.
posted by LeeJay at 7:39 PM on December 3, 2004

I started traveling in Mexico many years before toilet seats were standard equipment. most of the time, you would encounter just the porcelain, and it would be pretty much untouchable. I despaired for a little while until I observed that the thing to do was to climb up onto the toilet, plant a foot on either side of the bowl, and squat over it.

Even doing this, I feared for the soles my shoes. Fortunately hygiene has made major inroads in the last 20 years, at least in the cities. Still, Americans may ponder the liftable plastic toilet seat, and consider themselves fortunate.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:21 PM on December 3, 2004

Personally, I like dirty toilet seats! It's like a visit to the zoo!

But seriously, this thing about women peeing standing up... it's like some kind of urinary revolution to me...
posted by buriednexttoyou at 8:22 PM on December 3, 2004

I'm surprised given the progress and power gained by women over the years that there hasn't been a push for those nifty Japanese toilets to be installed in more public bathrooms. That or the toilets that automatically replace the seat with a new disposable plastic cover that I've seen in some airport restrooms.
posted by gyc at 8:37 PM on December 3, 2004

Yes, ladies who don't want to sit on toilet seats are a little annoying, but what pisses me off is that they don't lift the toilet seats if they consider their thighs too precious to touch a spot I touched. Seats are for sitting on. If you don't sit, lift the seat. It is extremely simple.
posted by mdn at 8:44 PM on December 3, 2004

Theres a certain thing called a Prince Albert piercing....

And when you don't wear a ring there anymore, well, it's a good thing I've studied Pythagoras, and have a working knowledge of triangles and angulation...

My wife doesn't mind....
posted by Balisong at 8:47 PM on December 3, 2004

Three cheers for chaps that prefer to sit always! Y'all are goodfellas.
posted by fish tick at 10:37 PM EST on December 3

Do you mean chaps as in men? And if so, are you kidding? And if not, are you just complimenting them on the gymnastics they go through to keep the affair neat?

*thoroughly confused*
posted by Firas at 8:50 PM on December 3, 2004 [1 favorite]

Oh come on.

If you're really THAT worried about germs, please refrain from all human contact, ever.

Or refrain from going to places with visible yuck on the toilet seats.

Your entire torso and all your limbs are a huge bacterial breeding ground. Comparatively, your butt actually is relatively clean. So if you're going to "hover" over toilets, for the love of god, don't sit on chairs in restaurants, rest in motel beds, brush up against another human being accidentally, use a computer keyboard, walk barefoot anywhere, touch handles on public sinks, or touch bar counters or tables that aren't in your own home.

Jesus christ, people. A little bacterial resistance is good for you.
posted by u.n. owen at 9:28 PM on December 3, 2004

The other thing is, this woman basically admits that "Hover-Pissers" are often responsible for peeing on the goddamned seat. If they're so concerned about hygiene perhaps they could just cover it in toilet paper or somesuch, rather than hovering and pissing all over the seat for the next person?
posted by u.n. owen at 9:31 PM on December 3, 2004

Not one single dive bar or club I've gone to has ever supplied toilet seat covers.

Here's your problem. *Showing* You frequent the wrong places.
posted by NewBornHippy at 10:04 PM on December 3, 2004

complete with the scattered remains of indigestable airplane food

If it's that bad, I'd just piss in the corner.
posted by sian at 11:40 PM on December 3, 2004

And another thing. She acts as if I would be wiping my very girly bits themselves with the remains of another woman. It's just a damn buttcheek.
posted by sian at 11:45 PM on December 3, 2004

Didn't K-Tel make the HoverPiss back in the 70's?

You got one of those spiral potato cutter thingies as a bonus if
you "ordered now".

Either that, or I think HoverPiss was a Jethro Tull album.
posted by Darkman at 12:47 AM on December 4, 2004

This is our second urination FPP this week, both brought to us by livingsanctuary.

Just thought I'd mention it.
posted by mek at 12:53 AM on December 4, 2004

Everyone in China hovers! Flush with the floor it is really pretty genius but takes some getting used to. On a moving train it is a bitch. Oh, don't put the toilet paper in the toilet and you better have some of your own.

My apartment has a western style toilet
posted by geekyguy at 1:25 AM on December 4, 2004

MikeKD, Thanks for the standing up link. That seriously (and I'm not being sarcastic) an interesting bit of information. Certainly more helpful that a lot of other stuff I read in the news.
posted by Spencerinc at 2:11 AM on December 4, 2004

geekyguy:

Everyone in China hovers! Flush with the floor it is really pretty genius but takes some getting used to. On a moving train it is a bitch.

You hovered on a train? You're a better man than I. On a sleeper from Qifu to Beijing I took one look at that hole with the track whistling underneath and clenched my sphincter for the duration.

P.S. It's a shame that women who hover suffer from self-absorbtion when what they should be absorbing is the piss they leave on the seat for the next person.
posted by Reverend Mykeru at 4:17 AM on December 4, 2004

meta, though not MeTa-worthy: I fucking hate when the content of a post is a commentary of the link posted. Please make a description of the link in the post and save the comment for the comments.
That is all.
posted by mr.marx at 6:33 AM on December 4, 2004

You do realize, of course, that you're far more likely to get germs when you touch either the door handle or the knobs on the sink, right?
posted by drezdn at 7:37 AM on December 4, 2004

at least wipe the seat if you can't hover properly.

Yeah, because smearing urine around on the seat with paper really makes it more sanitary!

Sometimes there just isn't time to check!

Really? REALLY?? Wow, it must suck to be you.
posted by rushmc at 8:11 AM on December 4, 2004

Yeah, because smearing urine around on the seat with paper really makes it more sanitary!

Actually, unless you carry a bottle of bleach with you, a little urine is likely to be the best germ-killer handy in a public restroom. If you want to get technical.
posted by squidlarkin at 9:01 AM on December 4, 2004

Average Desk Harbors 400 Times More Bacteria Than Average Toilet Seat - MedicalNewsService.com
Also watch out for door handles and hand rails....
posted by samlam at 10:44 AM on December 4, 2004

Pee-sprayed seats seem to be most common in hyped-up, hipster downtown bars that're suddenly attracting a more upmarket clientele. Ladies, if a bar's good enough to drink in, it's good enough to piss in.

P.S. The AIDS is not waiting on the toilet seat to crawl up your bum. Just bloody sit.
posted by Tomatillo at 3:05 PM on December 4, 2004

Whatever happened to those disposable funnel-&-hose things I dimly recall reading about a few years ago, so a chyk could stand up to piss like a d00d? Something like one of these (as previously posted) "Pee-Zee" things.

Or you could just carry around a funnel and rinse it out in the sink after use. There are also disposable paper funnels by some gas stations' pumps that are meant to be used for oil.
posted by davy at 3:50 PM on December 4, 2004

Sometimes there just isn't time to check!

Really? REALLY?? Wow, it must suck to be you.

In the restrooms in our office building, it's not a matter of having time to check, it's a matter of poor lighting. The ceiling lights are placed just so the stalls throw a shadow over the entire toilet area, and it's like having no light at all. Can't see if the seat is wet or not.
posted by Oriole Adams at 5:03 PM on December 4, 2004

Hover-pissing is a fine example of the tragedy of the commons in action.

Someone hovers because she doesn't want her delicate butt to touch a (perfectly clean) toilet seat--therefore, she sprays pee all over the place, so the next person either has to clean up after her or hover herself, and so on, and so on.

THE HOVERING MUST STOP! What we need is a Sitzpinkel-Manifest for women.

someone: Sometimes there just isn't time to check!

rushmc: Really? REALLY?? Wow, it must suck to be you.

rushmc, you're a man, right? Because if you were a woman, you would have had this experience many times. The problem with women's restrooms v. men's restrooms is that men's restrooms generally have the same number of stalls as women's, PLUS urinals. Hence, men who have to pee rarely have to wait.

I have a healthy bladder, and still when I go to, say, a nightclub, even if I head for the ladies' room line as soon as I feel the first urgings of pee, the time I spend in line often turns the sensation from "H'm, need to go to the bathroom" to "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO PEE THIS VERY SECOND! DON'T THINK ABOUT PEEING! HELP ME, JESUS! I CAN'T PEE MY PANTS IN A FANCY NIGHTCLUB!" etc.

I can assure you that, at that point, all regard for sanitation has gone out the window, and I am reduced to a gibbering shadow of my usually germ-phobic self.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:45 PM on December 4, 2004

Squatting to use the toilet has been linked with increases in systolic blood pressure and an added risk of stroke.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on December 5, 2004

Hovering is nasty but common. Spraying pee all over the seat? Aw gee thanks, you shouldn't have. I'm going to start carrying alcohol wipes (not because of the seat itself but for the pee all over it).

Worse sin: Not washing your hands when you're done! Kee-rist almighty, that's disgusting. I see it at clubs all the time, but sometimes, tho rarely, my co-workers walk out without stopping at the sink. And we work at a hospital. Sickening. I wanted to out signs up that all staff must wash their hands, but the P-T-B wouldn't let me. I may just do it anyway.

Wash your hands, people!
posted by NorthernSky at 3:53 PM on December 5, 2004

drezdn, that's why I wash the handles with soap and use a paper towel to open the door. (Yeah, I have issues...)
posted by MikeKD at 7:06 PM on December 5, 2004