As per usual, the toilet seat argument misses important aspects of the dilemma: the underside of toilet seats are disgusting to look at; it is common practice in long-term relationships to compromise in cases where trivial choices are more meaningful to one party than to another (as opposed to "because my partner might yell at me"). Hence, there are multiple reasons for putting toilet seats down for an undetermined number of male subjects greater than zero.

I have lived in a number of communal houses, and this was always a point of contention until one insightful person pointed out that if you always leave it down, then everyone has to adjust it for themselves, and you're on an even playing field.

That worked.

What men sometimes don't get is that this isn't entirely an aesthetic issue. It's an issue of getting up to pee groggily at 3 AM and setting your behind down in a bowl of cold water. The consequences of unexpected variation are greater for the female party.

Try the system above for keeping peace in mixed-gender households.

I read on metafilter once about somebody who read on the internet once about all this microscopic crap floating up into the air from the bowl when you flush and then getting into your toothbrush and stuff. That heresay was enough for me to change my habits...seat and cover go down everytime now.

Seriously. Everyone close it! It keeps dogs and cats from drinking from it! It keeps klutzy people from dropping make-up and hairbrushes in it! It makes the work equal for all parties involved!

(I always thought it was mainly an aesthetic issue for me until we got an apartment with a split bathroom, so that the toilet has its own little room. With the constant risk of knocking something into it as I get ready in the morning gone, I find that I care less than I was expecting to. Though I still find the underside of the toilet seat exceeding gross to look at. But I also find it aesthetically unpleasant to have the lid open, too. It looks like the toilet wants to talk to you or something.)

I read on metafilter once about somebody who read on the internet once about all this microscopic crap floating up into the air from the bowl when you flush and then getting into your toothbrush and stuff.

If I remember correctly, Mythbusters debunked this a couple years back.

Seriously. Everyone close it! It keeps dogs and cats from drinking from it!

This is my stance, too. My little cat will happily drink out of the toilet if the lid is up. She's a midget, though, which means she has to basically crawl down into the bowl to reach the water. So, when she's done, she leaves little wet paw prints on the seat. Thus, the lid stays down, because it's really unpleasant to sit on a wet toilet seat in the middle of the night. (Or any other time, really.)

I keep my lid down religiously because if the gliders fall in they will drown in seconds. 'Twould be a tragic, disgusting death.

What men sometimes don't get is that this isn't entirely an aesthetic issue. It's an issue of getting up to pee groggily at 3 AM and setting your behind down in a bowl of cold water. The consequences of unexpected variation are greater for the female party.

That's actually the reason I always heard the most often growing up (from mother and sister), but which held the least sympathy for me. The argument "I'm too lazy to even bother to glance at where I'm about to sit my bare ass down," somehow didn't resonate with me when coupled with "How can you be so lazy/inconsiderate to not put the seat down?!" Of course the argument wasn't helped by being from my mother and sister. Complaints by SOs are somehow harder to shrug off.

I keep the lid down for all of the above reasons. And I flush after every use. Makes me a water overuser, I know. But even in an "if it's yellow, let it mellow" house, I simply must flush. Here's why:

When I poop, or pee sitting down (very uncommon for me so far), I don't like the idea of my dropping poop or jetting pee splashing someone else's diluted waste back up onto my privates. Now, I understand that in the course of human events there is some splashback, and that bits and whatnot might be mixed in with that splashback, but as long as it's mine, I can deal. Someone else's pee splashing up my back while I take a dump? No, thank you.

And then there's the other side of the coin: the idea that my pee might in turn splash someone else's body, unbeknownst to me, seems a violation of both our privacy. I shudder with the idea that someone other than me might be walking around with my pee soaking into their underwear. Yuck!

But yeah, in mixed/shared bathroom sitches, I drop both rim and lid so it's an equal pain in the neck for everybody, not just standers in a hurry.

The argument "I'm too lazy to even bother to glance at where I'm about to sit my bare ass down,"

Dude, it's not about being lazy, it's about being half-conscious!

So, by the same token, we should be allowed to piss all over the seat if we have to get up and wizz during the night. We're half-conscious!

Dude, it's not about being lazy, it's about being half-conscious!

I've got up in the night to pee thousands of times. I've never managed to pee in the sink or all over the toilet seat just because I didn't notice it was down.

That's because it's habit for you to lift up the seat before you whiz.

It's not habit for (most) women to put the seat down, or to automatically wipe the seat off with tissue before sitting down. (This is why, when visiting mudpuppie, I sat on little wet cat paw prints when I got up to pee in the middle of the night.)

I've only ever peed on the toilet seat when dried jizz from screwing or jacking off glued my pee-hole shut in the middle, splitting the stream and creating a grave hazard to public order.

I've never managed to pee in the sink or all over the toilet seat just because I didn't notice it was down.

Meh, guys have to check, because for them it's sometimes up and sometimes down. For a girl, it's always down. When I was living alone, it was always down. I admit, there were a few times when a guy friend would visit me, use my toilet, and leave the seat up. Once, I DID get up at 3am to pee and get an ass full of toilet water, because the toilet seat was always down!

It's like if I switched the decaf coffee container here at work with the caffinated one - decaf is in the left cabinet, caf is in the right. Sure, people should check first, but if it's ALWAYS on the left or ALWAYS on the right, people are bound to stop checking after a while.

The best solution is to always put the lid down, so everyone is equally inconvenienced, but so far my cohabitant doesn't buy that argument.

Huh.

mr g. leaves it up. I leave it down. Neither of us has ever thought to complain.

The argument always seems to me to be on the level of which way to put the toilet paper on, ie ridiculous. Probably because I've never considered the possibility of sitting down when the seat isn't there.

That's because it's habit for you to lift up the seat before you whiz.

Nope. It's because it's habit for me to look down before I sit down (pretty much anywhere, pretty much anytime), and look before I pee. If that's not a "habit" for women, I respectfully propose that's your oversight, not ours. Putting down the seat or wiping beforehand would not need to be automatic if a simple glance down were.

On the other hand, despite the fact that our reasons are not the same, I did say above that I'm a rim down guy out of respect to Mrs. IRFH, who cares about this far more than I do (and because the underside of said toilet seat is not a pleasant sight). I may not agree with the logic of your justifications, but that doesn't mean I haven't learned to sympathize a little with your cause. I did mention that my lack of sympathy was with my mother and sister while growing up.

If you have pets that unroll toilet paper, there's only one way to put it up (with the end you pull in the back, otherwise chibi-nekko-chan unravels the whole thing, how cute).

I don't have strong feelings about toilet seats, except if you're a visitor to a household comprised entirely of the opposite sex, you should leave the toilet seat in the position appropriate to that sex. They've probably gotten out of the habit of checking.

However, I'm mostly posting to say that Miko's phrase "The consequences of unexpected variation are greater for the female party" is a very funny way of putting things. Thanks. That is all.

Yeah - I agree that "unexpected variation" is an unfair exception to most domestic habits.

Well, IRFH, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I think men are in the habit of looking because sometimes it's left up and sometimes it's left down. For most women, the seat is left down, and checking in the middle of the night does not occur to us. So I still think it's not an oversight on our part, it's the understandable lack of a habit...

It's basically like camping or mountain-biking: "Leave it as you found it."

If you found it with a half-inch thick streak of shit on the back rim that you bleached, wiped, and rinsed before you sat down, it's your duty to replace it with a streak at least as nice before you leave.

I think men are in the habit of looking because sometimes it's left up and sometimes it's left down. For most women, the seat is left down, and checking in the middle of the night does not occur to us.

Perhaps. But I also suspect it wouldn't take more than one or two dunks in the dunk-tank-o-shite for me to make the point to develop some new habits.

Hugh: Disgusting. Thank you.

What's my name?

I wasn't going to go there. Literally.

Altruism isn't always so altruistic. and it can come back and bite you on the ass. that's all I'm saying.

All I'm saying is, this is my kinda thread! Unfortunately, everyone wants to go over ground they've gone over thousands of times (and either solved amicably or decided not to), rather than consider infinitely more interesting phenomena like splashback, or the splitstream, or the kittyroll, or the shitstreak. Can I help it if I'm a visionary?

My thank you was sincere.

I wasn't going to go there. Literally.

Ha ha!

"I'm not joking, it was like my arm."

Are we back on track now?

jonmc, the saying is "no good deed goes unpunished."

IRFH, it's like this. The consequences of you not looking are: you have to wipe off the toilet.

The consequences of me not looking are: I have to get in the shower and clean my whole nether region.

I also plead nearsightedness. I'm legally blind without my glasses. It's 3 AM. I don't have my glasses on. I leave the lights off so as not to bother partner/housemate/etc. Conditions are not favorable to always calling it right, without feeling around (no thanks). If I have to always lift, and you have to always lift, at least we both build the same habit as a protective insurance against surprises.

Plus, if you have never ever pissed all over a closed toilet seat, not even once, then you are a sharper tack than least 50% of my former housemates.

But you know, it only has to work in your own households. I'm just sharing a policy that has brought peace to all my households since.

I read on metafilter once about somebody who read on the internet once about all this microscopic crap floating up into the air from the bowl when you flush and then getting into your toothbrush and stuff.

If I remember correctly, Mythbusters debunked this a couple years back.
If I remember correctly, they confirmed it. But that could just be me, because the obvious reason toilets have hinged lids is so you can close the fucking things! You think it is just there as a backrest? It's got a lid so you can shut it when you aren't using it - how hard is that to understand?

IRFH, it's like this. The consequences of you not looking are: you have to wipe off the toilet.

The consequences of me not looking are: I have to get in the shower and clean my whole nether region.

Exactly. So who has the most to lose by not bothering to look? Women do.

But I think we're not necessarily disagreeing, here. You're taking equal responsibility by having the lid and seat always down, and so everybody always has a role to play. I think that's a fine solution. I suspect Specklet's objections have more to do with your "consequences of unexpected variation" idea than anything else.

So who has the most to lose by not bothering to look? Women do.

I think with that one, you then run into the fact that leaving it open is causing your girlfriend to have to specifically correct something you did in order not to have something awful happen to her. Which seems qualitatively different from having to correct something your girlfriend did in order not to have something awful happen to the toilet (that is, peeing all over either the lid or the seat). Which is why I think that leaving the seat up ends up coming across as rude, whereas it doesn't seem that leaving the seat down comes across as rude -- inconvenient, yes, but not really actively rude.

On the other hand, given that I like the seat down, maybe I'm missing the rudeness of the gesture.

I almost* would prefer if the seat were always up, because to me the worst thing is when you sit on the seat, detect moisture (eeeearrrrghhhh!), and then have to figure out if it's urine sprinkles, from lazyboy peepeeing with the seat down, or maybe just water that got splashed there from the sink or shower. For the taz household, however, it's a moot point; we somehow almost always end up with these bathrooms that have teeny or oddly positioned toilets whose lids and/or seats just want to flop down.

*but YIKES! - all those stories of snakes, rats, etc., coming up through the plumbing into the toilets? OgodOgod. Let's have the lid down, then!!

The only time I have been confronted with a disgusting toilet seat underside was in the house of pretty girls. Naturally they did not ever have cause to raise the toilet seat, and as pretty girls they also clearly didn't feel it was within their remit to spend much time cleaning the toilet area. But then, i haven't been to North America, where it seems the cleaning of the toilet seat underside is not common. Or maybe it is becuase Americans have bigger turds, and hence spalsh-back, that the underside of the seat is so disgusting? I mean they do say that everything is bigger in the USA!

Let's see if I can remember the argument...
If girls always leave the seat down after using the toilet then boys will often have to raise it to urinate.
If boys always leave the seat up then girls will often have to lower it to urinate.
If boys always leave the seat down then girls don't have to do anything, but boys always do.

This would echo the sentiments above, both the 'girls are lazy' and the 'consequences of unexpected variation are greater for the female party'.

I don't feel strongly either way, but I would suggest that there are other clues to whether the seat is down for the short of sight. Hands are always useful for this. Remember your toilet seat is one of the cleanest places in your house, usually!

If we all used squat-and-shits this problem would not exist. Possibly, Elvis would still be alive as well.

Elvis is alive. He's been tied up in a nuke bunker my dad built in the 60's, curing various animal jerkies in a specially designed underground smoker. My parents haul him out on their anniversary to sing "Love Me Tender" while they have sex. His voice is almost gone.

I wonder if they'll be curing him soon.

So who has the most to lose by not bothering to look? Women do.

I think with that one, you then run into the fact that leaving it open is causing your girlfriend to have to specifically correct something you did in order not to have something awful happen to her.

Sigh. I'm going to try this one last time and then give up.

1) I am not arguing for leaving the seat up.
2) My point has nothing to do with who should do what with the toilet seat.
3) I was responding to the earlier claims that it's too much to ask a woman to even CHECK the position (and condition) of a toilet seat before sitting down.
4) It has been repeatedly pointed out to me that the consequences to women of sitting down on a toilet that is not optimally positioned are greater than the consequences to a man in peeing with the seat down.
5) If it's more important to you than me, then YOU should take more responsibility for ensuring the proper outcome, not less.
6) In other words - I'm happy to put the seat down. I already do. I also always check the seat before sitting down, or peeing. Even at 3:00 AM, after fumbling on my glasses, stumbling in the dark to the bathroom, and closing the door before turning the light on so as not wake my wife. What if the lid's down? Can't just let fly. It's a glance. Takes a fraction of a second...

...so here's the point I just can't seem to get across:

I'm happy to put the seat down. I don't resent doing it. I personally prefer it that way. But I do resent being told that WHAT I'M ALREADY DOING (checking first) is too much hassle to expect a woman to do, even given that the consequences are so much more unpleasant to her. Unless you live alone (and therefore have reasonable expectations of non-changeyness), you should always look before you sit, no matter what your agreed upon up/down arrangements are. Or - if it's really too much to ask to look before you leap, at least don't tell those who already look before they leap that looking before you leap is too much to ask.

*final note*

Any exasperation showing through the above should not be taken as representing the depth of my feelings on the subject (as repeatedly stated above, this is a non-issue in my household). It should also not be taken as representing any harsh feelings toward anyone in this thread, or even any opinions expressed in this thread. My exasperation is with my seeming inability to adequately express my point such that it doesn't require re-stating.

Sorry. I got your point, and I agree with what you're saying about the pragmatic aspects of solving the problem. I was simply trying to point out why the ... I want to say animosity, but that's too strong ... emotional, maybe? side still plays into the whole issue.

Which, like I said, ceased to be an issue for me once I got into a place where the open toilet stopped eating my make-up.