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Comment by tartoran | Hacker News Reader

Men's use of urinals is quite efficient and timely. By un-separating bathrooms it would mean removing them as I see no other way around it and this would not benefit anyone. Unseparating the washing area is okay by me though again, men and women have different habits and comfort zones. I'd say the least disruptive option is to add gender neutral bathrooms.

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No, you do not need to remove the urinals. The standard way of solving this here in Norway. Is to put the urinals at the inner end of the bathrooms around a corner. So you can’t see in at them from where the stalls or the sinks are. Works like a charm.

Exactly. Or not even hide it. What, are you afraid that a girl will see your pee pee? Oh noo, poor boy.

Out of curiosity, why would a combined bathroom require removing urinals?

They could still exist, and have the added benefit of anyone regardless of their presenting gender being able to use them.

Not to defend the other person's point of view (I don't have a horse in this race) but there are already open air urinals in festivals or even in Paris:

https://parishistoryofourstreets.com/2021/03/22/the-last-pub...

There's actually one by Vauxhall station in London: https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/disgusting-...

I've personally been extremely grateful for it on multiple occasions, coming back from a night out.

In cities where no such facilities exist (public toilets of any kind), you better not walk in quiet alleys off the busy streets if you have a sensitive nose...

I know open air urinals used to exist in Amsterdam in my lifetime- I don't know if they still exist or not.

I'm pretty sure the idea was drunk men were going to urinate in public on the street no matter what the authorities did so they might as well be directed to a urinal.

Urinals are an unsanitary disaster anyway, and shouldn't exist; regardless of the genders involved.

Unsightly, maybe, but I don't see how they're unsanitary. Urine is nearly sterile.

If you're standing up, it's also a lot easier to "hit the target" into a urinal vs. a toilet. Having a bunch of people peeing standing up into normal toilets would be a lot more gross than urinals.

TO BE FAAAAAIRRRR

Urine is not sterile[1] - BUT by itself is not a huge concern.

But you know what urine is? Full of vitamins and minerals. An ideal medium for bacteria.

Urine + Time = Ew.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25766599/

> Having a bunch of people peeing standing up into normal toilets would be a lot more gross than urinals.

So.. sit the fuck down?

How exactly are they unsanity disasters? I would much rather use a urinal and never need to touch anything (besides myself, which unless I myself am unsanitary that should be clean) than need to either sit down and make contact with a surface a bunch of other people have made contact with or need to lift down and raise a lid to use that if I am standing.

Looking online I can't find anything about how they are any less sanitary than just a public bathroom is to begin with.

Men peeing into toilets always results in urine sprayed all over everything. I don't see how urinals could be worse.

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