A couple years ago World Hum had a clever little article on how to use a squat toilet. I was glad to finally see some practical advice on the subject, but disappointed with it for two reasons: 1) I had just come up with a similar article idea myself, and had wanted to pitch it to WH; and 2) it was, frustratingly, predictably, once again, annoyingly, written with a male audience in mind — or, at very best, an audience in good physical shape.
Okay, you’ve read the article, giggled a bit, snorted maybe. I did, too, although I still don’t understand men’s infatuation with their asses. Maybe we don’t want to pursue that too far … Anyway, so you’ve thought, “What’s she talking about? Women have to wipe crap out of their bums too, don’t they/we?” Yes, but, cute as the piece was, I don’t actually need instruction on how to wash my bum. The article completely leapfrogged over the fact that women have to squat to pee as well as to poop. Gasp. In general, women can’t stand up over a grate or squat toilet to pee. We don’t have penises.
(Side Rant: I am so freaking sick of any quirky, clever, adventurous travel article, destination or idea being angled toward men. What, just because I’m working on my middle-aged spread and have a baby on the hip means I don’t go to the bathroom outside of a hotel? Hoping the new women’s travel mag Galavanting will redress the imbalance …)
At the time, I’d just returned from two months in frozen Russia, and had spent much of the first two weeks frantically building up my thigh muscles as if preparing for a downhill slalom race. Why? I mean, Russia’s not what you think of as squat toilet territory. Because the toilets at Moscow State University had no seats, just narrow edges. And mid-morning, those edges got into a state where I daily wondered how on earth anyone got that up there.
I’m talking about the fine art of hovering. When traveling, you need to build an entire set of muscles that will allow you to both lower yourself, completely balanced, over a squat toilet or grate, and to hover over all sorts of raised toilet seats for as long as it takes to do your business. When you’re traveling with a kid in a sling, that goes double.
Here’s a few pointers that might help:
-Work on regular exercise squats for at least a couple weeks before you leave, about 20 slow, conscious squats 3 times a day. This will build up those helpful thigh muscles.
-Another thigh workout is stolen from ski training: Put your back flat against a wall, with your thighs out in front at 90 degrees, as if you’re sitting on a nonexistent chair. Try to hold the pose for 30 seconds while reducing how much you press your back into the wall. You want to work up to a point where you can hover using only leg and abdomen strength without touching the wall.
-Nothing will help you more than developing your core muscles, your upper and lower abdominals. These are key to keeping balance and keeping control over your muscles.
-Take up yoga and/or pilates, any form of exercise that works on developing your core muscle system. The focus here is not only strength. It’s about concentration. When you’re lowering yourself over a grate that’s already mucked up, you want to know that you know exactly which muscles you’re using and what they’re doing.
-If you have access to woods or wilderness, practice squatting over the ground. This helps you get the hang of keeping your ankles dry.
-If you’re traveling with a baby, practice doing squats at home with the wee one in your pouch or sling.
-In fact, practice going to the bathroom with the baby attached. Actually, you should do this anyway. Even when not traveling, if you take a newborn out shopping or to a restaurant, there aren’t a lot of options. This goes for men, too. As my husband says, “It’s surprisingly hard when you can’t see what you’re doing.”
-Wear a skirt. I can’t emphasize this enough. I almost always wear dresses and skirts when traveling and it’s a lot easier to keep your balance and hold your pose without pants hampering your ankles. Plus, it reduces splash damage.
-Either keep some tissues in your bra, or practice getting some out of a pocket or backpack while doing squat practices. Plenty of places, as I’m sure you know, don’t provide toilet paper or will be out of it, and you don’t want to be fumbling around for them while dripping and swaying and losing your balance.
-Expose yourself to atrocious odors until you stop gagging. When I was 14 and living in the Soviet Union, we visited a monastery outside of Moscow. When I and my sister needed the toilet, we didn’t need directions. You could smell it from half a mile away. But, raised as I was on the scents of pine trees and Rocky Mountain air, I couldn’t stick it. My parents wasted a lot of time and a few rubles getting us into a toilet at a nearby movie theater because we were too soft to handle the stench. I’m still working on that one.
I. Love. This. Post.
I personally have a little trouble with the MENTAL aspect of hovering–I just can’t always get my head in the game when I’m not seated. I get world-class stage fright.
You know what helps me? Humming. It can be a little embarrassing in public situations, but there you go.
And going while holding an infant? I’ll never forget the time my hungry infant daughter spit out her pacifier in a skeevy public restroom (it bounced behind the toilet), and then wailed for the next 90 seconds while I finished up. The longest 90 seconds of my life. Good times!
THAT is an awesome story. Oh, lord, now I’m living in fear lest my son do the same. He has his little embarrassments. He can’t talk yet, but makes this blissed-out “aaaah, eee, aaah” noise sometimes and sometimes I hover there in Target not wanting to face the “are you a freak?” looks from the women outside the stall.
I’m with you about the mental aspect of hovering, too. It just feels all wrong! But I’m going to try humming — everyone where I live already thinks I’m wacky anyway 🙂
Thank you Jamie!
Easy there Nellie! Don’t blame the adventure travel writers and editors for pandering to their audience. My local library has at least a shelf and a half of books geared to women who apparently are scared to death of traveling alone. I have yet to see even ONE book like that geared to men.
I have a feeling Galavanting will be lucky to get 1/10 the audience of Outside or Men’s Journal. Just as there are 10 women’s magazines for every Best Life or GQ—all with higher circulation.
And yet … why is it that female travelers are constantly throwing their hands up in despair at the avalanches of women-aimed travel articles that are centered around shopping, spas, and losing weight for the beach? I suppose you could argue that the majority of the audience wants these articles, but what about the market that doesn’t? And there certainly is one, or the Traveler’s Tales collections like “Sand in My Bra” wouldn’t sell so well, nor would Kira Salak’s books.
Should I contend that women are only scared of traveling alone because they’ve had centuries of being locked up in their homes and told they’re weak? Same reason they think they want magazines centered around endless dieting and beauty tips? Okay, that’s stretching things. But I’m banking on the new feminine revolution 🙂
In any case, that doesn’t change the face that women still need to pee when traveling!
One more tip: Carry Purell or anti-bacterial hand wipes, so you can clean your hands afterward (there’s often no sink with running water and, even if there is, the soap is usually disgusting and untouchable).
Good point, Wendy. I’m kind of a nature girl, but have to admit I’m really glad someone invented that stuff. You’ll actually find a lot of it in private bathrooms in Moscow because the city is so filthy.
Loving this article. Just loving it. You go girl.
Debbie, you’re helping me keep the faith! So to speak … 😉
One of my proudest achievements in this context was “navigating” a squat toilet on a moving train in India with success. Going with a baby attached is a major feat. Hats off to you woman!
I can totaly relate to this entry. The only challenge is that we were in China in the dead of winter. We had to wear pants or freeze our southern regions. So squatting was a major winter olympic event. I was lucky though since I had been working out with a personal trainer 6 months before that got me focused on squats/core/pilates/standing on balance ball”bosu” and I was ready for the challenge. The only problem not mentioned is when you get food poisoning in one of those locations with only squat toilets 🙁
My wife got to be a pro at the squat toilet far faster than me. More practice on a daily basis for one thing I guess (including nasty public toilets at home they don’t want to sit on), but also women are more flexible and aren’t used to peeing while standing up. So maybe guys need World Hum’s advice more.
What’s really funny is when you find a western toilet in India in a nice hotel or airport, but it has footprints on the seat!
You should take a picture of that Tim! Footprints on the seat … I found that in Russia, too. Very confusing for people there, since public pay toilets are the squat kind, but you find the sit-down (or hover) ones in restaurants and coffee shops.
ML Chan, it sounds like you really knew how to prepare! I don’t have an answer about food poisoning. We all know it’s horrible and hellish and what can you do but pray to whatever deity you favor that it’ll all be over soon? Ick. But hey, do you think we can get squatting into the Winter Olympics? They seem to let in everything else …
Wendy, so far I’ve only managed one baby-attached in-motion hover (haven’t had to do the squat yet on transport), and that was on a plane. A bit easier since you’re buffeted on all sides by the tiny toilet’s walls. I have hovered on a train with baby attached, but that was in Austria and their trains run so smoothly it hardly counts!
Great post. Especially about wearing a skirt/dress instead of trousers. I made that mistake of wearing trousers when flying over to Saudi Arabia, only to discover that not only did I not want to use the toilets on the plane (never seen toilets in quite that sort of mess before) but when I landed in Jeddah and was desperate to go, I ended up in toilets even more messy…needless to say, the trousers got rolled up to the thighs!!!
The experience made me decide to fly first class out of Saudi Arabia, simply because I figured the toilets on the plane would be cleaner!!! I’m such a softie….
Yeah, Liz, me too 🙂 If it ain’t a spanking clean toilet that smells neither like sewage nor like air freshener, it’s gotta be the woods. In between it’s all just … icky.
Still want to hear more about your time in Saudi–where’s your book?!
This is a great post!
And speaking of footprints on toilet seats, I saw that in NJ at the International Foodmart supermarket, too. They actually had instructions in several languages posted in the cubicles asking people not to climb onto the seat and squat. I have photos somewhere, too.
But back to the topic, wearing a skirt is a great help. And with some practice you can even learn to pee standing up.
Anna, I’ve heard women can learn to pee standing up but never experienced it myself. If you find practice instructions somewhere, send them my way!
Those photos in NJ sound great — says a lot about America’s cultural diversity, eh? Although I don’t really want to mix the melting pot analogy in with toilets … hm.
Hi Antonia!
Hmmm…. instructions for ladies on how to pee standing up… I may try to write them up myself! LOL!
Hi Anna!
Why not? If nobody else has done it, hey, there’s a need and a market! Maybe 😉
Women CAN pee standing up AND keep their travel togs (and ankles, and legs) dry quite easily. Having traveled pregnant and in some otherwise compromising situations, I can tell you — use a cup. Enough prenatal visits to the doctor’s office, and expectant mothers become pros at this. With a little practice and the help of a skirt, you may even become as stealth as the standing man-public-pee-ers among us, and perhaps even more so since you won’t be leaving evidence on the sidewalk!
If you are wearing trousers (or pants to you Americans), and you need to pee, there is only one way to manage this and not smell of pee for the rest of the day: take off your pants. Hang them around your neck.
And how to survive the stench ? Don’t breathe. Seriously, take a deep breath before you go into the bathroom & hold it until you’re done.
Love, love, love your article Antonia. ‘Bout damn time there was a his and hers version of this travel advice!
There’s also the (creepy) option of a disposable “magic cone”. I am planning to try some out. Of course this demonstration is a little sugar-coated and certainly in a more clean and trash-can-stocked bathroom than we are bound to encounter in reality. But nonetheless, interesting idea :).
http://www.rightech-co.com/products-magic-cone-animation.html
But what about on a train, Shelly? I mean, I know I can pee in a cup, but while balancing on swaying transport? Maybe during my next pregnancy I’ll ask the OB to let me try it on a teeter-totter 🙂
I agree, Michelle, it’s just sometimes easier said than done. I’m sure we’ve all been places where we wonder if splattering a little urine on the trouser legs might be a touch less unsanitary than letting said trousers touch the floor. Of course, you still risk falling over and having to put out a hand … tough call.
Hey Kim, all of you at Galavanting are doing the really revolutionary work! Look at He-Mann’s comments above — I’m counting on you women to prove him wrong!
And that cone is … I don’t even know. Even if it works, there seems to be something wrong with a device that says, “We can’t be bothered to keep bathrooms clean. Here, have a penis instead.” 🙂 Still, tempting, I gotta say.
To squat in pants. While standing pull pants down then squat and pull the crotch of the pants forward. You’ll end up holding most of your pants forward with one hand. This will clear the area under you enabling you to see down into the toilet hole. Practice at home and it will be very easy.
Really squatting is healthier for you then sitting.