pick of the twitter

Gay Twitter™ is flush with hilarious tweets about urinals

By · 18 comments · Updated on January 26, 2024

Urinals in restroom

Urinals may be welcome sights for anyone with a full bladder, but plenty of people are pissed off, so to speak, whenever they have to use them.

In 2016, for example, Callum McCulloch wrote for The Tab that using a urinal “is the most socially awkward part of being a man.” He wrote:

There is always a bloke who unleashes their junk like they’re lifting a bag of rocks. And is an elongated and alarmingly sexual exhaling of breath really necessary? My distaste isn’t born out of masculine inadequacy — that’s an article for another time — rather, for the peacocking ritual itself. … In fact, I dislike using urinals so much in clubs I will pretend to be on something — sniffing like I’ve just smashed a seven-gram rock — to justify my use of the cubicle (“Is my nose bleeding? Well, it feels like it’s bleeding.”).

And then there’s the phenomenon of “shy bladder,” as Louis Staples detailed for Vice in 2018:

After about 30 seconds of inaction, the panic sets in, soon evolving into full-blown mental catastrophe as I realise that nothing is coming. I quickly improvise a performance of faux penis shaking and hand drying, before exiting sheepishly. … The expectation to use a urinal and to pee standing up are the two biggest downsides of penis ownership. At home, I take a leisurely approach, often sitting down while judging other people’s meals on Instagram. But as soon as I enter a public toilet, I’m out as quick as possible.

(FYI, shy bladder syndrome — or paruresis, if we’re being technical — is a psychological condition in which anxiety tightens one’s sphincter, restricting the flow of urine. And then the failure to pee just heightens one’s anxiety. Victoria’s Department of Health has a whole article about this vicious cycle.)

As PopMatters reports, the urinal was first patented in the United States in 1866, when Andrew Rankin introduced an upright flushing apparatus. Urinals soon became popular in urban centers, where they reduced the space occupied by a restroom and also reduced the time workers spent in the loo.

And cases of paruresis have probably skyrocketed ever since.

Now, please enjoy these funny tweets from people with varying degrees of comfort with urinals.

Related: Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black make a splash together at the urinals

Related: Men’s urinal games could encourage drunken bad aim, ruined shoes

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