David Gordon Smith explores the peculiarly German phenomenon of the Sitzpinkler.

The key issue here is, as those of you who live in Germany will know, the position adopted by the man while performing his, er, business. A familiar sight in toilets in doctor's offices, language schools and restaurants all over Germany is a little sticker, affixed to the cistern, showing a standing man urinating into a toilet bowl with a red line or cross through him. Next to the picture of the naughty standing man is a depiction of a chap sitting on the toilet bowl, often shown smiling happily in the knowledge he is doing the right thing. The message is clear to anyone versed in the language of Western signage (although those politicians who worry that a picture of a stick figure dropping a swastika into a bin is ambiguous are presumably also concerned about the comprehensibility of this particular pictogram).

The stickers vary in the level of graphic detail they provide. Sometimes an actual stream of urine and even the concomitant splashing is depicted in the 'don't' box. With a German frankness about the body entirely alien to the British, even genitalia can be shown.

The desire for men to pee sitting down seems to correlate with a left-wing disposition (presumably with an eye to equality of the sexes and the desire to spare women the splash marks they previously had to endure in less enlightened times). This was confirmed when I recently visited the male bathroom at the Berlin arts complex Sophiensaele. Entering the bathroom, I saw on the left a urinal, on the right a cubical with a toilet bowl.

For reasons which now escape me, I went into the cubical on the right, even though a mere number one was in order, whereupon I was reprimanded by a Post-It stick affixed to the wall at head height. "If you're reading this you should be using the urinal on the left" it read. To which some wag had added -- in the way of  toilet graffiti -- "Only Green voters pee sitting down". The disdain evidenced by the addendum is echoed by the use of the term Sitzpinkler (one who pees sitting down) as a term of opprobrium expressing the same lack of masculinity as Warmduscher and Weichei.

While this sign confirmed my suspicions about the political inclinations of the sitting constituency, it muddied the waters as far as the gender question was involved -- if the purpose of peeing sitting down is to spare women, then why get worked up about it in a male-only bathroom? Has a desire to avoid splash marks spread to the male population too?

Of course, as a foreigner this whole political debate can seem somewhat ridiculous. I'm sure I'm not the only male expat who does not always obey the instructions (although if I was visiting your bathroom, Gentle Reader, I would surely sit if sitting was desired). I even once, in the course of doing research into agony aunt columns, stumbled upon this internet page where an anguished American woman writes despairingly that her boyfriend pees sitting down and asks for advice.

But, as Germany swings to the right, perhaps habits are changing. A survey of three local stationery shops during research for this article did not reveal any stickers on sale. Of course, maybe they were just hidden somewhere or kept under the counter -- I confess I did not have the courage to ask the shopkeeper if they had the stickers. I wasn't even sure how to phrase the question: "Haben Sie so einen Anti-Stehpinkler- Aufkleber?" That was surely going to end in tears.

Maybe the toilet sticker is just another relic of the '68 generation, about as relevant to Germany's new neo-liberal incarnation as a Ton Steine Scherben record or the Molotov cocktails of a certain ex-taxi driver from Frankfurt. Can you imagine Edmund Stoiber sitting down to pee? I think not.

Of course, it would be interesting to hear what Angela Merkel as Germany's first female chancellor thinks about the sitting vs standing question. Perhaps, with a chancellor's eye to posterity (no pun intended), she is currently working on legislation to make sure men sit down. After all, what's the point of having a grand coalition if you can't force through radical reforms?

27 November 2006

David Gordon Smith
Editor-in-chief
Expatica Germany
www.expatica.com/germany
david.gordon.smith@expatica.com

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