Oh boy, in 40 minutes I'm going to start Swimming... :-/

[sniffnoy]

Blech blech. Yesterday at the meeting it was revealed that, after the "trial period", someone had voted against coed bathrooms, and about half the house (said Bill, "I wonder which half...") voted against the use of urinals. The vote has to be unanimous, so, well, I'll just repost Fiona's email.

---

Hi all
Just to clear up any questions:
The toliets and sinks in the 3rd floor bathroom are for men's
use only during the hours of 7am-7pm. It seems reasonable to
allow urinal use on the 3rd floor during these hours as well,
since those with objections would not be in that part of the
bathroom.
The toliets and sinks in the 4th floor bathroom are for
women's use only during the hours of 7am-7pm. This means the
urinals on the 4th floor should not be used!
The showers are on both floors are co-ed at all times.
During the hours of 7pm-7am, the bathrooms are comepletely
coed. The only restriction is that the urinals should not be
used.
Bill and I came up with this compromise based on your input
and we feel that it best respects the feelings of all
concerned. Thus you are disrespecting your fellow students,
not us, if you break these rules. We will respond to
complaints (slipped under the door or in person), but we will
not be "checking up" on you.
I just wanted to end by saying if you have concerns about the
present situation, please do not hesitate to bring them up.

Thanks

Fiona

---

OK. There's something very wrong here. Whoever voted against coed bathrooms voted against *sinks* and *toilets* but not *showers*. Let's examine this. Firstly, sinks. What the fuck? Oh no, I can't brush my teeth or wash my hands next to members of the opposite sex! And no, whoever voted against didn't do so out of some religious objection; Bill and Fiona said, the first day, if anyone has some reason like that that they really cannot use a coed bathroom, tell them immediately and they won't even do the trial period. Next, toilets. The toilets are in stalls. They've got nice, strong walls between them. I find even less to object to here than in the case of the sinks. Thirdly, showers. OK, I can understand voting against showers; they've only got curtains between them, so I'm a bit nervous using them at all. I didn't vote against them because A. I don't want to have to shower on the 3rd floor, B. people haven't found it objectionable in the past so I assume it's fine, C. it means more showers for all and D. honestly, if something goes wrong and someone *does* see me showering, I'm already going be sufficiently embarrassed that it really won't matter much if it's a girl or a boy. But the one thing this person (or these people) *didn't* vote against was showers. If you're not going to vote against showers, why would you vote against stalls or sinks?

Then there's the urinals thing. Alright, so I suppose some girls might uncomfortable with a boy at the urinal next to them... oh that's right, I forgot, girls don't use urinals. Again, why would anyone vote against it?

In other news, everyone's favorite pirate today explained what stars next to a statement on the board mean. Most common is 2 stars, which means it's homework, prove it by Monday. Occasionally there will be just 1 star, meaning it's optional. And 3 stars means it was a 2-star problem, but he misstated it such that the result is an unsolved problem.

-Sniffnoy

Comments

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

What about the bathrooms on the first and second floors?

We have co-ed bathrooms here...the showers are in big heavy stalls with separate dressing areas. And we don't have urinals at all. But then, the dorms here were built as women's only in the first place, so they never bothered to install urinals for obvious reasons.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

The first and second floors don't house our rooms; basically, the second floor consists of a long lobby connecting the entrance area to the actual tower, and the first floor is, the entrance area and the cafeteria. No bathrooms on the second floor. Way too much trouble and the bathrooms there are small and stinky. Much easier to go between 3rd and 4th floors.

Now you didn't mention the possibility of going *up* and stealing Henderson's bathrooms, which naturally suggests itself once you think of leaving the house, but again, easier to just remember which floor's bathrooms are for which sex than to go up to the 5th/6th floor. (There's much easier passage between floors of the same house as you can go through the lounge instead of the staircases, which are better at disguising themselves as ordinary doors.)

[mushroom-bobble.livejournal.com]

right...and all things revolve around your feelings towards girls and boys...indifferent when it comes to washing.

[ashleyisachild.livejournal.com]

Dude, people who don't like using coed bathrooms are uptight and have issues. It sucks that everyone in the house has to be inconvenienced just because one person is squeamish. And it's even lamer that HALF of your house is so squeamish they don't want guys even using the urinals, geez. Like, oh no, you'll have to walk past a guy who's peeing, how traumatizing. The arrangement that Fiona person proposed would suck for everyone too, because what if you really have to pee but your room is on the opposite side of the house from the bathroom that permits your gender? You're supposed to run to another floor? Man, lame. I would hope whoever had such immature issues manages to change their mind about it. Otherwise, you should start some transgender activism group in the house where everyone's like "I refuse to be bound by gender labels!" and just use whatever bathroom they want.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

It seems that right now what people (including me) are actually largely doing right now is just ignoring the rules. It's easy to forget them, and it's up to us to enforce them, meaning unless we actually end up in the bathroom next to whoever voted against coed bathrooms, nothing will happen. And nobody seems to actually care when anyone uses the urinals.

[ashleyisachild.livejournal.com]

That's good.
Who are Fiona and Bill? The RH's, I assume? Were they in Thompson house before or soemthing?

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're the RHs. No idea if they were in Thompson before, I just know they were in Tufts last year. I'll ask them.

Also, right now the 3rd floor bathroom is out of comission, so the 4th is coed by necessity. :P

oh boy!

[dopamineblue.livejournal.com]

showers should really be sturdier! It's even more private than peeing!
maybe you can wear a "shower skirt" or something that is permeable to everything but light since your showers are so flimsy.