Gent’s Bathroom and Toilet Etiquette

Though not mentioned in Peter Post’s book, there has been great discussion over the years on social media, and in news, on the correct way to hang roll of toilet paper... Whether the paper should hang down in front or hang in back of the roll. When toilet paper rolls were first patented in 1891, the drawing accompanying the patent shows how to place the toilet paper properly for the greatest ease in using the paper. It’s over the front of the role and hanging down in front. It does not hang in back or underneath.

The Toilet Seat

We now come to the all-important issue of the toilet seat. Here's the scenario: it's three in the morning, and your dream's been pretty good. But now you're awake, and you realize that you really need to go to the bathroom.

You carefully slip out of bed-woe to you if you wake her-and head into the bathroom with one thought: to get your business done and get back to bed. The problem is that now, at the ungodly hour of three A.M., you are facing a crucial etiquette challenge: remembering to put the toilet seat down.

Here are the two transgressions you can make in this befuddled state, in order of their seriousness:

TRANSGRESSION 1- You lift the toilet seat, do your business, and then pad back to bed without putting the seat back down. Maybe you just forgot. Or maybe you were feeling a little lazy. "It's only fair," you think to yourself. "I raised the seat— she can lower it." Wrong. This issue has nothing to do with division of labor. When nature calls at an ungodly hour, and a woman settles sleepily into a sitting position, she expects that seat to be down. Anything other than that is a very rude surprise. Think about it: Would you like to sit on the rim?

TRANSGRESSION 2- You forget to put the seat up before relieving yourself. Remember, it's dark, you're sleepy, and even at high noon your aim isn't always perfectly true. That seat isn't dry and clean as a whistle and your wife rises and heads to the same toilet, frankly, I can think of many other places I'd rather be.

Of course, you know the right thing to do in both situations. But merely knowing isn't enough. There are some tasks that men are absolutely required to perform in order to make life easier and more trouble free for everyone. This is one of them. Sometimes avoiding trou ble is the best reason of all for doing the right thing.

Toilet Paper

No one should have to face this sort of thing first thing in the morning. Only two or three sheets were left on the roll. No spare was in sight, and my wife was blissfully asleep.

We all know what it feels like to be in that situation. As men, we should always make a point of knowing where the spare roll of toilet paper is kept, and bringing that spare roll within arm's reach whenever the current roll starts running low. (Many households keep a spare roll nearby at all times, in a knit cover or in some other convenient container.)

Even better: when the roll actually runs out, don't rely on your wife to pop the new roll into the dispenser, but play the unsung hero and do it yourself.

Personal-Care Items

The bathroom is also the ultimate domestic litmus test for how well you and your partner respect each other's "things" and each other's privacy.

Take toothbrushes, for instance. My toothbrush is mine-it's got my own personal germs on it, and I don't want anyone else's joining them there. Your significant other may feel the same way I do. If you suddenly discover you can't find your own toothbrush, before going ahead and grabbing your wife's you should consider exactly how she's going to feel about someone else using her toothbrush. Even if you really think she won't mind, the considerate thing to do is to check anyway by asking her. A trip to an all-night drugstore or missing one night's brushing is better than time spent patching bruised feelings.

The same goes for all other personal-care products, including hair brushes, razors, lotions, and deodorants. Take the time to fully acquaint yourself with your partner's personal idiosyncrasies in these areas, and respect his or her preferences at all times. Sometimes it's better not to "share."

Privacy

The subject of bathroom privacy is more delicate and somewhat more abstract than other bathroom etiquette issues, but it's no less important. When you're living alone, you can leave the door open while you do whatever is necessary and it won't change the universe one bit. Once you begin living in a shared space, however, a closed door becomes important. This is true when you are using the bathroom yourself, and even more true when your partner is using it. A closed door is an unspoken request for privacy, and it should be honored at all times. — From Peter Post’s, “Essential Manners for Men,” 2003

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Japanese Toilet and Bath Etiquette

“Bathroom etiquette might seem universal, but there are quite a few differences in Japan that could surprise you. While modern hotels and cities that handle international visitors frequently are more accommodating to Western concepts, a trip to more traditional or rural areas – or even someone's house – requires knowledge of Japanese bathroom etiquette.” – writer, Umiko Sasaki, (Image source, Pinterest )

Using Traditional Japanese and Western-Style Toilets

There's a big difference between a traditional Japanese toilet and the Western style to which Americans are accustomed. The Japanese toilet is sunken into the ground, with a hood covering part of it to prevent water from splashing up when you flush. To use it, you squat or kneel facing the hood with your legs on either side of the toilet. A lever or button near the hood flushes the toilet.

The Western-style toilet looks almost exactly as you would expect in Western countries but is often electronic and features several buttons with various wash and dry functions for men and women. If the seat feels warm when you sit down, it probably has a heated seat function. The traditional Japanese toilet is still used in the majority of public restrooms throughout Japan, but Western-style toilets are prevalent in metropolitan areas.

Sound Princess

One function of the Western toilet in Japan is famous enough to warrant its own section. The Japanese, particularly women, consider it good manners to silence any sounds you make in the toilet stall. Because of this, many toilets have a Otohime or "Sound Princess" feature. The Otohime masks all sounds by replicating a toilet flushing. This also saves water, as the user doesn't have to flush the toilet more than necessary.

Bathroom Slippers

The Japanese take off their shoes when entering a private residence and put on house slippers. The bathroom is considered an entirely separate part of the house, and usually family members and guests are expected to take off their house slippers and use a pair of bathroom slippers when entering. Though it might seem a foreign concept to Western minds, it's an important factor when visiting a house or traditional Japanese hotel. Take off the bathroom slippers immediately upon exiting and put on your house slippers.

The Japanese Bath

If you stay in a modern hotel you sometimes have the option of a bathtub or shower, but in a homestay situation or more traditional hotel, you're expected to use the shower first to cleanse your body and the bathtub only for soaking purposes. Not only is it bad manners to wash yourself in the tub, but it's actually unsanitary. To conserve water, every member of the typical Japanese household bathes in the same water, only draining the tub when everyone is finished. By using soap and washing yourself in the bath, you disrespect the people who bathe after you.– By Umiko Sasaki for USA Today

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Etiquette, Custom and Conscience

In the 1980 historical miniseries, Shogun, John Blackthorn, self-conciously bathing with Mariko, is the first English person to arrive in Japan and must find a way to survive in a culture which considers him to be a barbarian due to his European habits (eating the meat of birds he has killed, eating with one’s hands and rarely bathing.)– photo source Pinterest

It is said that “it is conscience that makes cowards of us all,” and there is much talk ot the “whisperings or conscience,” the “wee small voice” and all that; but whence comes that voice? Is there an immutable principal of right and wrong placed somewhere in the mind that tells one of right and wrong? Or is, it not custom —that to which we have been accustomed? A writer in the New York Sun says that travelers in Japan tell of the unconcern with which a Japanese will take a bath in full publicity, and the custom has impressed foreigners as immodest. 

An Englishman who has been long in the country says there is really nothing immodest in the promiscuous bathing of men, women and children from a Japanese point of view. With them, cleanliness is the object sought for, and the etiquette of the bathroom differs from the etiquette of the parlor. With Europeans, he says, the attitude of waltzers is only permitted when the music is played. It is something like this with the Japanese bathers. When the necessary operation of washing or doing other work requires it, to strip becomes a duty. 

On the other hand, a Japanese woman would scorn to appear decollete. To her eye, our ballrooms are an astonishment, and the exposure of the person for display is incomprehensible. This writer thinks that the Japanese are not excelled by their Western brethren in modesty.– Weekly Colusa Sun, 1892

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Kids’ Manners Last to Awaken

Siblings thawing out as the day goes on... “Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one, like guilty sheep that had gone astray.”

Our Children and Morning Manners

Manners are always shy at getting up in the morning. Perhaps they are the last of our accomplishments to waken, but surely, whatever the reason, they are conspicuously absent in the general family breakfast gathering. The children scrambling to be off on time for school, add to the unpleasantness. They are without a shadow of manners before noon! “Shut up!” snaps Jane. “Why don’t you step on my ear?” growls brother George. “Can't you remember there’s somebody else at the breakfast table beside yourself?” flares big sister. “I’m striving hard to forget it,” retorts Big Brother and having for once been equal to the occasion be forthwith unbounds and in beaming good humor passes the sugar to his offended sister. There's something about us that works that way. 

Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one like guilty sheep that had gone astray. There is none among us who has not been guilty and who has not wished and hoped for a happier morning mood. “Perhaps!” we muse, “the children will manage better. Their manners may hold over until the morning. Perhaps!" For the children’s sakes, let’s hope so. It is as hard to be had mannered as it is to bear the bad matters of those who wreak them upon us. What can wo do to prop the children’s morning manners? Begin the night before. Send them to bed on time and in the right mood. Watch them fold and arrange their clothes so that they will be easy to find and put on in the morning. That's a big part of the battle. Call them on time and see that they get their turn in the bathroom. 

Bathroom etiquette has a great deal to do with the good humor and consequent good manners of the family In the mornings. The person who monopolizes the bathroom for shaving or hairdressing or private laundry work is an outcast and an alien, and should be dealt with accordingly. Also the person who splashes about like a mislaid whale and flaps out leaving his watery wake to fluster the next comer. Who wouldn't be snorty at finding the tub one-third full of milky water, with a dreary washrag floating about in it, or a hairknot, with a buuch of hairpins sticking in it, afloat on the edge of the lavatory? Morning manners are always bad, always have been bad, but perhaps we might do a little toward improving them even if it were breakfasting alone when the mood was too bad or staying up all night and prolonging the genial manner of the mellower hours? Anyway try to make It a bit easier for the children. – By Angelo Patri, 1923

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia