By Patrick F. Cannon

Warning: This article includes references to naked fellows and other distasteful stuff. Read at your own peril!

When I was a young lad, bathrooms were not considered a fit subject for discussion. No longer. Indeed, the courts and legislatures seem to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy deciding who can enter them. Let’s put all that aside for the moment, so I can share my own experiences with this room we all must enter regularly (unless we live in the woods).

            First, why is it called the bathroom when we visit it more often to use the toilet? Some people are more inclined to use the word “facilities,” which seems more inclusive. The Brits often call it the “loo.” This comes for the French phrase “gardez l’eau,” which was shouted (hopefully) before the contents of the  chamber pot were tossed out the window into the street below. A rough translation would be “look out!”

            The term WC is also used. It’s short for water closet, which makes no sense to me at all. When I was born in 1938, many folks in rural America still had to brave the weather to use the outhouse. Being urban folk, we always had a bathroom. Just one, shared by five people. You may not believe this, but I don’t recall that sharing it was ever a problem. In fact, the  first time I lived in a house with two was in the late 1960s, when I moved into a new home in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

            The bathroom as a communal phenomenon didn’t enter my life until I started playing high school football. Those of you who have experienced the agony of football practice will recall the locker room shower. Dripping with sweat, and covered in muck and mire, you welcomed a post practice shower with your fellow sufferers. No privacy of course, just a large room with multiple shower heads. It was a real education in the variety of human shapes, colors and – dare I say – capabilities?

            The typical men’s public bathroom does have a bit of privacy. There are stalls with doors for defecation, and usually a row of urinals (the word itself is descriptive of its use), sometimes with a small partition between for a modicum of privacy. Although I haven’t been there for some years, Chicago’s Wrigley Field had (or still has) a men’s room with a long sheet metal trough instead of urinals. Using this legendary space between innings is a unique experience. The ladies, alas, have no such facilities – they must use stalls and thus wait in endless lines.

            My next experience with communal bathing was courtesy of the United States Army. I did my basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Our barracks had been slapped together during World War II and had minimal creature comforts. The bathroom had rows of sinks, and a communal  shower room. As I recall, there were eight toilets, four on each side, with no partitions. Imagine, if you can, four lads facing four other lads, all doing their business while pretending they were somewhere else.

            Speaking of the Army, when I was stationed in France in 1961-62, I found their methods of elimination interesting. More than once, I came upon a bus stopped by the side of the road with the passengers pretending a farmer’s field was a bathroom. Public WCs were usually meant for both sexes and were often serviced by ancient women who expected to be tipped. More than once, I used a bathroom – usually in a café – with no actual toilet, just a hole in the floor with a place for your feet.

            To France, we also owe a debt of gratitude for one of their native son’s turning a plumbing fixture into a work of art. I speak of Marcel Duchamp,  who displayed a urinal in an art gallery, called it “Fountain,” and signed it R. Mutt. You could replicate Marcel’s bold statement for about $200. If you do so, I suggest you put a sign near it saying “This is a work of art. Do not use!” If you’d rather not spend so much, I have a Campbell’s soup I can let you have for $25, including shipping in the United States.

Copyright 2025, Patrick F. Cannon