Them Changes

I have a confession to make.

With my 70^th birthday right around the corner, it’s important for me to be honest about a fundamental transition I’ve made in my life as a cisgender male. Transitioning is never easy and is often misunderstood, even by those who claim to be open-minded. It’s a change that society mostly rejects, as it goes against social constructs and the perceived ‘way things should be'.

I’m not embarrassed to admit to this transition, and in fact I’m happy with my decision and the immediate impact it’s made in my life. I can only hope that my family and friends will understand my choice and support me as much as they’re able to.

I’ve limited the overt display of my transition to my home and familiar environments, because it allows me to lessen any negative impacts it may have.

This essay will be my declaration to the world about my choice to make this transition, with the approval of my wife of 40 years, who supports me in ways that I can never thank her enough for. So here goes:

I’ve decided to no longer urinate from a standing position and have transitioned to urinating from a sitting position on the toilet.

THERE… I’ve said it.

As with so many things in life, the epiphany about this came all at once, even though the realization was long in the making. The tipping point came one day about six months ago while I was cleaning the bathroom I normally use… she uses the one adjacent to our master bedroom, mine is off the hallway. I’ve cleaned bathrooms my whole life and have written about this important activity before.

https://gortnation.blogspot.com/2010/12/hi-my-name-is-bob-and-im-cleaner.html

I was scrubbing and wiping down the toilet when I realized something, maybe for the first time: when a guy pees from a standing position, water and urine splashes on everything – the toilet rim, the seat, the seat lid, the floor, the curtains adjacent to the toilet – literally everything within a foot of the bowl gets splashed with watery urine.

Think about it: peeing while standing is quick and easy but it also means the urine stream falls about two feet to the bowl water, impacting the surface and causing droplets to eject up and out of the bowl. SCIENCE. 

Having this epiphany while sitting on the floor and cleaning my own dried urine was a mental lightning bolt. I thought to myself, “It doesn’t have to be this way!!”

From that day on, I’ve peed sitting down and haven’t regretted it for a nanosecond. The transition didn’t take long, but I learned that old habits are hard to break. I’ve also had additional realizations from this fundamental life change.

While urinals seem to be an easy answer to the splash quotient, most of them exist only in public places and unless you're careful, splashing occurs and impacts the urine-ee and the adjacent urinal separation walls. A quick look at those (usually) metal walls often display corrosion and peeling paint due to the caustic nature of human urine. Males have blithely pisssed in urinal stalls for decades, seemingly unaware they’ve been splashed by their own piss.

I once worked at a job where the bathroom urinal walls were unusually close to the fixture, and they were so corroded by piss that they looked like an ancient archeological dig.

Standing while urinating, whether in private or public, also subconsciously demands the act be performed quickly in order not to have one’s genitalia exposed for too long, a fear endemic to all males. In addition, rushing the act of urination also increases the chance of miscellaneous drippage of leftover urine, which occurs more frequently as men get older and the urinary tract gets lazier. Underwear mitigates the problem, but just barely.

As an aside, I’ve never understood the poor ergonomics of men’s underwear with the front flaps to allow the standing pee to occur with an unzip and penile exposure through the flap. I hated wearing those 'tighty whiteys' as a kid, never used the flap and stopped wearing them 50 years ago.

This I know: shaking it two or three times before stuffing and zipping is no guarantee against drippage, unless you don't care.

Also too, I have an unnatural fear of being an old man who smells like pee.

Now that I urinate while sitting, I'm more relaxed and able to take my time, releasing the initial flow, then waiting a few seconds for my aged prostate to reset and let that last bit go. Liberating might be a bit of overstatement, but maybe not. In addition, my bathroom no longer has the faintest whiff of piss, even if I miss a regularly scheduled cleaning. I can wipe! No more splashing! No more dried urine on the floor!

My decision was recently supported while watching an episode of ‘Girls’, where two of them were talking while one was on the toilet.  After some conversation, the one not peeing asked the other, “Are you done yet? Why are you still sitting on the toilet?” The other says “Yes, I’m done, but I like to wait and make sure every last drop is gone. It makes me feel confident I won’t have any leakage.” YES.

I’ve read this sitting-while peeing phenomenon has been adopted by some men who refuse to clean their own bathrooms and have been asked by the women they cohabitate with to please sit while peeing. It can create discord and emotional havoc if the male involved allows his ego to resist the change. Choices… amirite?

As I age and my soft machine’s functions ramble towards eventual malfunction, I try to stay connected to my physical self and make the changes needed to continue to be a successful and happy human. Sitting while peeing seems like a small thing, but the revelations that resulted have given me more context about my conscious existence.

Plus... no more splashing!

“It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first.” – Miyamoto Musashi, swordsman/philosopher/artist (1584-1645)

All images, Gracias de Google Images; Buddy Miles 'Them Changes' video, Muchisimas Gracias de YouTube.