Why I Hate Urinals

For my male readers who read this blog, this should be a familiar sight to you. You’re out in public, and you gotta go really badly. You have no time for the toilet stalls, so you make a beeline for the urinals. You’re a man. You’ve been equipped with a penis, which makes urinals a fairly easy thing to use.

Normally, the rest is easy. Not for me. According to my dear friend wikipedia, the average male height in Canada, is a grand 5′8! Me? I’m a mere 5′5 man. I’m ABOVE average in Vietnam (5′3), which explains why I tower over my family. But the minute I leave the safe confines of the world, I’m a midget.

So what does this have to do with urinals? Well, since the average male height in Canada is 5′8, I believe they place wall-mounted urinals to adhere to those of this height. If you check out this thread on reddit, they are debating what urinal people prefer: Knee-high or Waist-high.

My answer? Neither. Knee-high comes up to my stomach, waist-high means I have to be on my tippy-toes to even begin to urinate decently.  So that’s one reason why I hate urinals.

But you know what? I’m okay with knee-high ones. With waist-high urinals, a problem occurs. Let me show you a picture to illustrate the point:

As you see, I do not pass the minimal clearance. But notice that protrusion that sticks out? Usually “average” men’s heights allow them to rise above that protrusion, and thus move their bodies closer into the urinal; effectively hiding their junk.  I cannot. Do you see my perdicament?!

I am VERY VULNERABLE to peeping eyes! Now, you must be thinking right now. “But Anton, don’t you remember the number one rule? Keep your eyes on the road!” Yes, I know, but let us use some math to show you something.

The average degree of sight, for the eye, is 60 degrees towards the nose, and 100 degrees towards the ear:

So from the edge of the eye, someone may see something. As you can see, from the corner of your eye, something can be seen. Assuming the average man stands 15 cm from the urinal, and I stand 30 cm from the urinal, then what distance do I have to be, for my “junk” to be seen from the corner of someone’s eye? Let me show you with a graph!

To calculate this, we use similar triangles, with angles of 10, 90, and 80. So to calculate the visibility distance (distance away from the urinal), we use the distance from the next urinal (beside you) as the dependent variable. Thus I get the formula:

Opposite = Adjacent x Tan (10)
Visibility Distance = DistanceFromNextUrinal x Tan(10)

Which means if the distance between urinals were only at least 47 cm apart, then someone standing within 30 cm of the urinal would be exposed!

Gladly, most urinals clear this distance, or it would be a tight squeeze. New urinaters, on the other hand, that’s a whole other story! Maybe I’ll just stick to stalls.