The Romney campaign held a meeting at a racy Arizona night club that boasts a “specialty champagne bar in the co-ed bathroom,” according to the campaigns latest filing with the Federal Elections Commission.
[…]In the marble unisex bathroom, a bartender makes drinks while patrons take “socializing in the bathroom to a new level” according to one review of the club.
Call me a wine snob, but I prefer to drink my bubbly somewhere other than the bathroom.
Butch
OK, the best quote in the article and today’s award for absolutely clueless:
Update Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul tells the Huffington Post, “Campaign staffers having dinner is hardly news.”
Valdivia
awesome title DougJ, and so literally appropriate which I never thought would happen with the Romney camp.
beltane
Well, if you plan on drinking in excess to the point where you’ll be sure to vomit, it makes sense to have the bar in the bathroom. I don’t really understand why someone would want to pay money to relive their college dorm experience (we had a co-ed bathroom and it was nasty), but I’m not a Republican so what do I know.
Cacti
Gotta love those fungible Mormon “values”.
Yutsano
@Butch:
Uhh…wow. There are lots of very nice and upscale restaurants in Scottsdale. Their choice of merely dinner venue is…interesting.
rlrr
@Cacti:
In Vegas, casinos are know to employ Mormons…
Gin & Tonic
In all my years on this mortal coil, with travels to various parts of the globe, I’ve never encountered an establishment with a champagne bar in a co-ed bathroom. What have I done wrong?
Brachiator
I try never to drink with Republicans anywhere.
Warren Terra
OK, you’re a wine snob. Happy to oblige.
But doesn’t this make you more of a room snob? For all we know, these déclassé poseurs were drinking the very finest bubbly while riding the porcelain pony.
RSA
I wonder what kind of background music they play, what with all the socializing. Tchaikovsky, maybe?
Ryan S.
That’s like a nervous peer’s nightmare.
Valdivia
Having lived in nyc I have been to my share of decadent places that cater to the obscenely rich I have never ever been to a place that had a bar in the bathroom. Is that supposed to be fetishy or what?
Frankensteinbeck
@Warren Terra:
That doesn’t sound like the riding going on here.
flukebucket
WWMD (What Would Moroni Do?)
Warren Terra
@Yutsano:
Jesus, would it have killed the spokesbot just to say she’s sorry some low-level campaign workers were misusing the campaign’s expense account, and the campaign is looking into it? Wouldn’t have to be remotely true, but it would make the story go away, while the inane quote she did give went straight to Jon Stewart’s In Tray.
PS What’s the betting on this having been one of the Rmoney boys?
Ripley
Politics aside, what state or local government allows a venue to serve drinks in a bathroom? I’m no germaphobe, but honestly, you shouldn’t even have breath mints in a bathroom.
My buddy runs a club, and they have to use shot glasses to cover the spouts on the rail bottles when they wash glasses at the bar sinks.
MikeJ
If you work for a campaign at a level where you are allowed to turn in expenses, do not turn in receipts from bars that serve drinks out of enema bags or hotels where every bed is shaped like a crack pipe or restaurants where they serve drinks in the coed bathroom.
Everything you get reimbursed for goes on the FEC report, they’re all downloadable, and all a snap to load into a database. You’re then one foreach{row: google} away from causing a distraction.
NancyDarling
There used to be a bar/eatery in Phoenix or Scottsdale called The Pink Taco. Wonder why they didn’t hold it there.
Oh, I said “hold it” in a thread about bathrooms.
Warren Terra
@RSA:
Handel, obviously. The Water Music.
Malraux
I do wonder if the bar bathroom is really just a themed bar and there are actual bathrooms elsewhere. That said, it’s still stupid.
Ash Can
The Romney Campaign: Keepin’ It Classy
NancyDarling
@Valdivia: My experience with most NYC facilities is that they are incredibly small.
danimal
@Gin & Tonic:
Absolutely nothing.
Cheap Jim
On the other hand, when coming in out of the heat, with which they are generously supplied in Arizona, a cool shower and a cool drink can be very refreshing. Or did you mean a room where people go to crap? Because that would be disgusting.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
They could have saved a bunch of cash and gotten the same atmosphere at the bathrooms in Volunteer park in seattle.
Plus it’s just up the road from Club Z. I hear they have something called a glory hole maze.
/shudders
Warren Terra
@beltane: Your nasty college coed bathroom was probably a bit different in that both genders were at the dorms to live independent lives, study, and generally deal with their hygiene and elimination needs. I’m guessing that things might be a bit different in a coed bathroom at a strip club complete with champagne bar.
SatanicPanic
@RSA: Fat Joe Make it Rain
desertflower
Romney response to this revelation is now, “staffers having dinner is hardly news” OMG.I can tell you there a MILLION nice places to eat in Scottsdale…and none of them serve special favors in the bathroom….BUSTED!
Ash Can
@Ripley: Based on the excerpt cited by DougJ, the “bathroom” in question appears to have been used for, well, non-bathroomy purposes.
Which, now that I think of it, only reinforces your point.
dmsilev
I dunno. Compared to Jack Ryan’s Parisian sex club visits or the Steele-era RNC “lesbian–bondage-themed nightclub” thing, this is lacking a certain something. The bar for outré GOP nightclub scandals has been raised, and this falls flat.
Keith
When did Michael Steele start running the Romney campaign?
WereBear
Stay classy, Mittens!
AA+ Bonds
It is to prevent sex in the stalls as per Chris Rock
Rommie
They’ll have to be efficient in Galt’s Gulch, so a little practice doesn’t hurt.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ryan S.:
“Their Lordships are taking pleasure whilst the House is not in session.”
Valdivia
@NancyDarling:
they are! and even if you wanted to be out there and go for a bit of risk and do something else in that bathroom, I get *that*. I don’t get having a bar in a bathroom.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, obviously, you never went on a Mormon Missionary trip to do the research necessary to find such an establishment.
Southern Beale
Ha! It’s always good news for Republicans! Heads they win, tails we lose! Romney camp having it all ways in Florida!
Liberty60
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, you haven’t really lived until you have sipped bubbly, squatting on the throne pinching a loaf whilst sharing anecdotes about dressage horses with Sheldon Adelson.
I’m sure Sarah Proud and Tall can help us out here.
danimal
Remember this story when you read about the multi-billions of dollars being raised by the RMoney camp.
Raising a metric ton of cash doesn’t do any good if it’s being spent on hookers and blow. (Or, for that matter, the 53rd repetition of an annoying campaign ad, see CA Gov. Whitman).
desertflower
@NancyDarling:
Still here, as far as I know:) THAT would have been too obvious, no?
Violet
A bar in the bathroom? WTF? Where’s the heath department? Oh yeah, state and local budgets have been slashed to the bone, no one left to inspect anything.
MattMinus
This is very similar to an idea I had for a chain of GG Allin themed modern american restaurants.
J.W. Hamner
Co-ed bathrooms are really confusing. Went to restaurant with one in San Diego recently… it was confusingly marked, and was this huge tiled space with sinks in the center and private stalls (with full doors) around the walls. Everyone was like “Oh whoops did I go into the wrong room?!” while you are washing your hands.
So I oppose coed bathrooms because I am against awkward interactions. I would not want to sip champagne there either, but I think the existence of coed bathrooms in the first place is the more pressing matter.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
Maybe Orgazmo was a documentary…
scav
I’m mean, seriously, don’t all real and xian Americans have dressage ponies and expensed dinners with champagne in exotically themed restaurants every night of the week? What’s the all the class and religious warfare going on suddenly?
ETA: I mean, seriously, wasn’t there a scantily clad co-ed serving champers in the background of the Norman Rockwell painting of Real ‘Mercan Dinnertables?
Steve
Even the Tunnel didn’t serve drinks in the bathroom, although people did just about anything else there.
Villago Delenda Est
@J.W. Hamner:
I think the motivation behind the co-ed bathroom is pure greed on the part of the establishment in question. They don’t want to pony up for separate facilities, because the anatomical differences between men and women drive this trend…men stand up to urinate, women do not, therefore ladies rooms need to be larger to facilitate all those women sitting down, otherwise you have potty waiting disparity.
rlrr
@Steve:
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Linda Featheringill
Interesting. Is there a demand for drinks and friends in the bathrooms?
Women socialize in the bathrooms anyway. Do men want to?
I would be a bit concerned about eating and/or drinking in the bathroom.
On the other hand, my concerns are focused little, bitty animals and fungi that can never be seen without evil scientific instruments. And the Bible never mentions these micro-critters, anyway.
A more God-fearing person wouldn’t share my concerns.
wesindc
This is too funny! I recall when I was a wee lad of 18 going to the SF Eagle. My friend told me before entering DO NOT take or set a beer down when you hit the head. I had no idea what he was talking about until I had to use the bathroom. Shudder the thought of all that pasty flabby white skin being served “drinks” in that bathroom.
JPL
Did Romney come out and say..gosh, I running for President, we can’t have sipping in the john?
Snarki, child of Loki
Sorry, but having a bar in the bathroom only makes sense if you’re serving BEER. And a lot of it.
Champaign one should keep for picnics.
lacp
Why would Republicans want coed bathrooms?
J.W. Hamner
@Villago Delenda Est:
On a smaller scale I can understand that… say a neighborhood restaurant with two bathrooms… but this was a swanky place in a really nice hotel and it had 20 stalls at least, so it’s not like they couldn’t have split them in two. It seems like it was purely a stylistic choice… and maybe kids today like to flirt while waiting for an open stall?
MikeJ
@wesindc: We’re not going to do bar bathroom horror stories are we, caused I used the one in CBGB.
JGabriel
__
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beltane:
I don’t know, beltane. Even the Romans kept the vomitorium in a separate room. You never can tell when someone barfing up the champagne, foie gras, and Italian Podilica cheese, will set off a mass gag reflex and an orgy of spew in the room.
.
MikeJ
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Champagne is typically sold in establishments that bill themselves (as the Mint does) as offering “Models/Dancers/Showgirls” as a way to get the rubes to buy expensive drinks for women that aren’t going to fuck them.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Apparently you’ve been concentrating your attention on actual eating establishments and not strip clubs.
@AA+ Bonds:
Given that it’s a room in a strip club where “special favors” are performed, I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to prevent sex in the stalls.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve: The Tunnel. Wow. 10 bonus points for *that* reference.
JGabriel
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Ryan S.:
Ah, but these are the peers of the realm.
.
JPL
@lacp: You know who didn’t want coed bathrooms…Larry Craig.
TooManyJens
I’m just glad they don’t have the chocolate fountain in the bathroom.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
Ah, I’ve seen this ploy before.
In Seoul.
In Bangkok, OTOH, the model/dancer/showgirl is pretty much a contractor who cuts the establishment in for a bit of the take (the “bar fine”) and works out her own deal with the john. Not that the drinks aren’t idiotically expensive, mind you, even if they have no alcohol content at all.
scav
Lord Etch-a-Sketch does somehow manage clueless in multiple-dimensions like no one else and seems to attract others of the same ilk. Are the thrones of the correct height m’lud for your usual dinner?
Gin & Tonic
@Linda Featheringill:
In a word, no. It is very rare that more than a grunt is permitted.
Jebediah
@MikeJ:
I remember it being somewhat less than sparkling, but that was a long time ago.
Villago Delenda Est
@lacp:
OK, I see what you did there.
shortstop
Just because you can put a champagne bar in a bathroom doesn’t mean you should. Sure, we have rights, but we also have responsibilities.
Now you kids get off my commode.
J.W. Hamner
@Mnemosyne:
What gives you the impression this is a strip club? I’ll grant you that there will certainly be scantily clad women dancing at it, but the paying for women to get naked part seems more implicit than explicit.
Villago Delenda Est
So, Rmoney is worried about the optics of hiring a Mexican to do the gardening, but doesn’t quite get the problem with optics of campaign aides having a business meeting at a place with a co-ed bathroom that features a bar.
Oooohkay!
slag
Gross creepy people. Did any of the Catholic hierarchy happen to join them there, by chance?
Southern Beale
Twitter is down.
My life has no meaning.
Served
“Get me a mint julep, I need to take a shit.”
beltane
@JGabriel: But these are Republicans we’re talking about. Maybe rolling around in each other’s effluvia, preferably while naked, is the type of thing they find arousing.
The Republican party is nothing more than a bizzaro religious cult dedicated to decadence and depravity, something along the lines of the last month’s of the fascist regime in Italy as portrayed in the movie Salo.
Southern Beale
@TooManyJens:
HA ha ha ha
El Tiburon
A lot of the restrooms Republicans frequent have built-in champagne holes in the bathroom stalls anyway.
Gratuitous Larry Craig reference inserted HERE.
slag
@Southern Beale: When is Twitter not down? I went back there after over a year of avoiding it, and I was honestly surprised to find that it’s still the same craptastic platform it was a year ago. Don’t they hire developers there?
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: Romney is also opposed to stem cell research (Think of the poor embryos), despite the fact that at least two of his son’s produced their children through the use of IVF and rent-a-wombs (Embryos? What embryos)
TooManyJens
@slag: IME, Twitter fails a lot less often than it did two or three years ago. It doesn’t fall over every time there’s a major world event or soccer match (but I repeat myself).
redshirt
@MikeJ: Amen. Been to many a rock club, and the CBGB’s head was by far the grossest and scariest of the lot. RIP old girl.
Amanda in the South Bay
I don’t see a problem with coed restrooms, but then again I come at this from a trans perspective, where cis people make much ado over nothing when it comes to toilets.
Here’s an experiment: Go someplace that has single occupancy, gender segregated restrooms. Find out how many people will freak the fuck out when a man uses the women’s room when the mens room is occupied, and vice versa.
Jebediah
@El Tiburon:
I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but I think that might not be champagne.
beltane
@Amanda in the South Bay: I think the issue people are having is not with the restroom being coed but with there being a champagne bar in the restroom.
scav
@beltane: my dear chap! you simply can’t be going so far as to suggest rules apply! I mean, real-leh.
lacp
@Jebediah: champagne, santorum, whatevs.
trollhattan
A buck says the Rmoney folks will blame the restaurant choice on the Secret Service.
Bada-bing!
Villago Delenda Est
@Jebediah:
As an Army buddy of mine used to love to point out, Anheuser-Busch had something of an advertising FAIL associating draft horses with their product, a yellow foaming liquid.
Amanda in the South Bay
@beltane:
Yeah, I wouldn’t feel comfortable drinking a glass of anything, while just feet away from me someone is taking a shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jebediah:
As an Army buddy of mine used to love to point out, Anheuser-Busch had something of an advertising FAIL associating draft horses with their product, a yellow foaming liquid.
TooManyJens
@beltane: It’s possible to do IVF without creating “spare” embryos, though I have no idea if that’s what they did.
Villago Delenda Est
Ah, it appears that FYWP is having one of it’s little “let’s duplicate some posts!” fits.
patrick II
Their shit don’t stink.
quannlace
Does the bathroom bar have a touchscreen?
Origuy
@J.W. Hamner: It’s described as “an ultralounge”, which is a somewhat vague term. It sounds like they do hire women to be part of the decor, but they aren’t center stage.
beltane
@TooManyJens: If this involved the sons of a Democratic presidential candidate the right-to-lifers would be demanding a full account of every egg and sperm involved in the procedure. When it comes to the wingnut nominee, however, nothing but crickets from the religious right.
trollhattan
@quannlace:
IC what you did there….
Cliff in NH
it’s in a former Bank, that should make RMoney comfy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoC_MGjmVHs
burnspbesq
@MikeJ:
You’re assuming that the Romney campaign is in compliance with all applicable FEC rules. I’m sure you’ll understand why people might be skeptical.
John M. Burt
Do they allow breastfeeding?
TooManyJens
@beltane: Well, naturally. When you’re on the side marked “good guys,” what you actually do doesn’t matter.
scav
On a tangential theme, I somehow get a snicker out of this photo of our cousins, tailgating at a horsey event. (Don’t miss the front tires. — or some of the hats earlier, for that matter.)
Comrade Dread
I think I’d prefer to drink anywhere other than a room containing farts and microscopic airborne particles of poo.
Then again, I guess having a urinal in front of you while drinking beer would save a lot of time.
Mnemosyne
@J.W. Hamner:
This is what gives me that impression:
As far as I can tell, “ultra-lounge” is usually code for “super-expensive strip club,” at least here in California — the kind of place where all of the actual stripping takes place behind closed doors and all kinds of “extras” are fully negotiable. It may be different in Arizona.
J. Michael Neal
@J.W. Hamner:
I guess I’m not allowed to talk to anyone, then.
J.W. Hamner
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not my impression of an “ultra lounge” from my clubbing days (late 90’s early 2000’s). It was always a place that played electronica and served drinks but had couches instead of a dance floor.
slag
@TooManyJens: My experience is limited, but if I had to estimate, I’d guess one out of three of my very few visits ended in either fail whale or in just really slow, “twitter is unhappy right now” land. And almost any time I try to unfollow using Chrome, it’s a bust. I don’t know if it’s their interface in that regard, but it seems to me to be a ridiculously simple feature that doesn’t work well at all.
Jebediah
@scav:
What is the “fascinator?”
scav
@Jebediah: If I understand them correctly, they’re banning some of the feathery-wavy hat things from certain parts of the track as they scare the horses (horrors!) so yes, those are our betters is full-on protest mode as best I can tell.
Mike in NC
Obviously the staffers were unimpressed by the restrooms at WaWa.
Jebediah
@scav:
Interesting… I would have guessed that the horsey set would be more concerned with the horsies’ well-being and tranquility.
But maybe a hat like that would divert attention from my vanishing hair.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Amanda in the South Bay: My spouse made a good point about these.
She says coed restrooms suck because non-ladies make them filthy.
Her perspective is that the criteria is off. It matters not what swings between your legs, but whether or not you can curtsy properly. If so, you get to use the ladies room. =)
Of course, she realized quickly that this would mean she would have to use the other one.
scav
@Jebediah: This is Lady’s Day at Ascot — far more in tune with the lets drink champers in a bar bathroom (albeit hallowed by tradition as The Day Of Silly Hats) than actual horsey people there for the horses.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner:
I suppose trans folks don’t matter then. Get over being uncomfortable. Welcome to life.
J.W. Hamner
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
What do “trans folk” have to do with it? They can use any bathroom they gender identify with… making people feel like they’ve walked into the wrong bathroom for no identifiable purpose is abject stupidity.
Jebediah
@scav:
That makes more sense. Gah, I am so out of touch with the upper crust!
ETA: Despite being both uppity and crusty.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner: The fact that you have to ask that means I don’t have the screen real estate to explain it to you.
OTOH, I’m glad you feel that way. It’d be nice if everyone did.
J.W. Hamner
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
That’s a mature attitude. You must be a great advocate; always declaring you your time is too valuable to explain anything to anybody else.
Thoughtcrime
There’s no sex in the Champagne Room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLeUTpwFjI
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner: Ahh. The “Why won’t you educate me?” tack. Did you come up with that all by yourself, or did you pull that straight from “Derailing for dummies?“
Captain C
That’s just nasty.
J.W. Hamner
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Uhm, you are the one who tried to derail the thread, not me… you have seized upon the fact that I think unisex bathrooms are silly/stupid as a way to condescend upon me in some relation to transsexual rights that you will not explain. As far as I can tell there are no laws on the books that require transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they were born with… so what am I missing?
Or do you just want to keep insulting me because I am not familiar with every single aspect of LGBT rights?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner: Next time click the link.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner: You are missing a lot of things. The closest thing I did to insulting you is call you sheltered.
You are whining. Funny how so many men are so good at that. Did I hurt your fee fees?
J.W. Hamner
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
No, I was giving you an opportunity to back off from the complete and utter jerk that you are presenting yourself as. I guess it’s always good to be reminded that even people I share an ideology with can be mean/spiteful for no apparent reason.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@J.W. Hamner: Thanks for the opportunity. No thanks for the presumption that I needed it.
Anyway, I have more important things going on right now. If I had a nickel for every whiny asshole I ever encountered I wouldn’t need good medical insurance.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Yeah, sorry, I have to admit that I also don’t understand why unisex bathrooms are so clearly superior to gender segregated ones that it doesn’t even have to be explained. I don’t see any problem with transgender folks using the bathroom for the gender that they’re currently representing as (if that’s the right term), but having men and women all standing in the same line for a bathroom stall is uncomfortable.
Plus, sorry to say, it can be a safety issue for women. If you have gender-segregated bathrooms, it’s easy to say that the creepy guy hanging around the sinks trying to peek into the stalls doesn’t belong there, but it’s a lot harder to make that complaint if it’s a unisex bathroom.
(Note that having a single room that’s unisex isn’t a big deal — it’s when you have a mixed group of people all waiting in line listening to everyone else’s farts that it gets … awkward.)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: It’s not that they don’t need to be explained. It’s that doing so would take a lot of space, and you probably still wouldn’t get it, unless you were forced into a position where you didn’t have to take bio-normative gender for granted.
The shorter is, we live in a world steeped in gender dualism. Every time we encounter it – seeing as how it’s something that we can’t sign up to – and we are forced to face it, it tends to hurt a bit. Taken in the aggregate it really sucks. Maybe a little like being black in a country full of white people. That is not to mention the plurality of trans people who have rejected gender dualism in the first place.
The other issue is that there are assholes. You want to talk about safety? Try being MTF and forced to use a male restroom as a matter of policy Or try being FTM and being outed in a male restroom – generally this involves finding a restroom somewhere else – or nervously getting in and out of either restroom as quick as possible and hoping nobody notices.
While Cis-Gendered women do have safety concerns of their own, it’s notably far more dangerous for a trans person that gets outed in a situation like this. Even women can be unbelievable cruel, but the fact is they are not generally as physically violent as men – either way, it’s dangerous and nasty.
As far as leering? I don’t know where you hang out – but I’d avoid public spaces where you tend to find a bunch of leering guys. And I really don’t see how gender specific restrooms would solve that problem were you to find yourself in one.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: I should also add, that I am utterly sick of covering this ground nearly every day. Yeah – there’s not many of us, and yeah we have to deal with crap that most people can’t and won’t ever understand because they aren’t faced with it. But it gets really exhausting. At some point, if any of you were to just take something from us at face value it might even shave that 43% attempted suicide rate down a couple of ticks. Living with gender dysphoria is exhausting enough as it is without having to explain every fucking little thing to ever cisgendered person we encounter. Just smile, nod, and move the fuck on.
geg6
@MikeJ:
Heh. I did, too.
I’ve never seen anything like it. And I never want to.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I can understand that but … that’s reality. For the most part, the majority of people identify with one gender or the other, and I honestly don’t think that will change all that much. I don’t know if you ever read As Nature Made Him, but gender doesn’t seem to be as fungible as people believed in the 1960s and 1970s.
That doesn’t mean that society doesn’t need to adjust to the reality that some percentage of the population doesn’t identify with a specific gender, but I doubt we’re ever going to be able to remove gender identification from the equation entirely, because that identification is too powerful in too many people.
In that specific situation, yes. But I think you vastly underestimate how dangerous it is to be a woman in this society at all, cisgendered or not.
I got catcalls in the parking lot of Target, so I guess I should avoid Target since I should avoid public spaces where I tend to find a bunch of leering guys.
I got whistled at when I was riding my bike home from work, so I guess I’d better avoid riding my bike on the public street since I should avoid public spaces where I tend to find a bunch of leering guys.
My coworker got harassed by a group of guys doing lawn work while she was walking to lunch. I guess she’d better stay at the office for lunch since she should avoid public spaces where she tends to find a bunch of leering guys.
You don’t seem to realize that “a bunch of leering guys” is in EVERY GODDAMNED PUBLIC SPACE A WOMAN GOES TO. You learn to ignore it most of the time because you can’t refuse to go to the grocery store just because some asshole is going to make a comment to you while you’re trying to go about your daily life. But that’s reality for most women in this country. I realize that it’s not a reality that you understand because you haven’t lived most of your life as a woman, but if you’re going to pass, you’re going to learn awfully goddamned quick that any public space fills up with leering guys a helluva lot quicker than you realize.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
BRAVO!
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
If I had to avoid any public place that might have a bunch of leering guys, I’d be a shutin who hadn’t left the house in over 30 years.
Mnemosyne
Though I suppose having unisex public bathrooms would somewhat reduce the incidence of perverts putting cameras in the stalls so they could watch women peeing like in Indiana and Oregon.
That’s right — I said “perverts.” I don’t give a damn what consenting adults do with each other, but if you like to involve unsuspecting people in your sex life, you’re a pervert.
Mnemosyne
Also, I’m not trying to play Victim Olympics here, because I wouldn’t even qualify for the bronze — life is a lot harder for transgendered and other differently-gendered people than it is for me as a cisgendered woman. But it does kind of drive me nuts when people who are not my gender try to tell me what it’s like to live my everyday life as a woman in this country and give me “simple” instructions for how to avoid those problems.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly. Being transgendered doesn’t mean you can’t be a sexist asshole. People are people, no matter what gender or variety of genders they are.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Agreed completely. Most men have no idea, how much on your guard you have to be as a woman, doing just about anything. Something as simple as walking to your car in an almost empty parking lot after working late, for example.
I would rather not have to be on a heightened state of alert when I am in a public rest room.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Agreed completely. Most men have no idea, how much on your guard you have to be as a woman, doing just about anything. Something as simple as walking to your car in an almost empty parking lot after working late, for example.
I would rather not have to be on a heightened state of alert when I am in a public rest room.
Gravenstone
@J.W. Hamner: Why am I picturing the milk bar from A Clockwork Orange?
bjacques
Frankly, I’m disappointed. I expected more toilet humor, like in the epic comment thread on the Guardian story about a desperate Gerard Depardieu overfilling a liter water bottle aboard an airplane stuck on the runway.
I give this bar no stars and I won’t be returning. Anyway, if it doesn’t feature on ratemypoo.com, it simply doesn’t exist, in my book.
wesindc
@MikeJ: LOL Brave man!
Gin & Tonic
@bjacques: Well, there’s a URL I won’t be heading to.
wesindc
I don’t understand the issue with unisex bathrooms. In SF most of the gay bar bathrooms turned unisex by the end of the night. Also in Europe it’s very common that both sex’s share a bathroom, maybe not at the same time but only one WC for everyone.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne:
Specifically my concern is that our society encourages policing of other’s gender identification. Bathrooms are a part of that – a rather large part in fact. Not only is it hurtful, but it’s dangerous.
Really? I never even said anything to make you believe that I underestimated any danger. But let’s compare notes sometime. Okay? Want to count assaults?
Yeah – me too. That’s the easy part. Aside from the catcalls, I get insults, physical attacks, and what have you. Less since I pass – but that’s pretty damned stressful as well – especially since my voice doesn’t.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: My edit button broke.
Hey, on the comment about target? I’m not denying that. But lets not kid ourselves that it’s far less likely than in places like bars and nightclubs, or wherever you get a lot of alcohol-infused men together.
And on my last comment. When I say sheesh. Well, I’m glad you at least didn’t say I’m some ugly freak who would never get any attention (wanted or otherwise) from men. In reality, I’m 5’10 (maybe 5’11) and a size 6. I look like I’m in my mid twenties. I assure you, I’m well aware of the dynamic.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I don’t think you understand that we’re talking about two different things. The harassment you get for being transgender is NOT the same harassment I get for being a cisgendered woman. The harassment I get for daring to be a woman acting as an autonomous person in public is NOT the same as being harassed for not conforming to gender expectations.
As far as “being well aware of the dynamic,” do you really understand what the dynamic is of being a 12-year-old who developed early who has grown men following you around to try and get you to “talk” to them? And discovering that it never, ever, goes away, and that you will be a middle-aged woman walking through a Target parking lot and some jackass still feels the need to holler at you?
Oh, honey. You haven’t been a woman nearly long enough to understand just how all-pervasive it is and how you can be standing there minding your own business when some asshole decides you need to entertain him in the grocery store line because that’s why chicks exist. You are public property, and if you don’t smile and make nice, you’re a fucking stuck-up bitch who’d better watch herself.
As I said, I am sympathetic to the problems that transgender people face and agree that they’re much, much worse than mine, but my point is that the issues you deal with are not the same as mine, even when the face you’re presenting to society is female.
Lyrebird
@J.W. Hamner: Way too late here, but the other reason to figure this is another sort of ultra-lounge, perhaps more towards the strip club or lingerie bar end of things, is the simple fact that they put a bar in a bathroom. That means they expect to make money off of it. Which ain’t gonna happen unless there’s another attraction going on, e.g. full or partial stripping, or whatever else I don’ wanna think about. (Not judging others, this is just So Not My Thing.)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne:
No I don’t. And the goal posts are now SO FAR away from the potential for being leered at in a unisex bathroom as to be absolutely beside the point.
Or maybe you care to explain what experiencing something as a 12 year old girl has anything to do with anything.
And some of our issues are the same. To the degree that they have anything to do with your target comment, they sure as hell are. And as I said above, the goal posts are not only off the field – they’ve been moved into the next county.
Please reflect on the last several comments and how they relate to what I said in the first place: I get tired of going down this road with people. I didn’t have enough screen real estate to get into it. You’ve demonstrated why. If I weren’t so used to this crap by now, I’d have just told you to fuck off. Instead, I think I’ll just express that you make me tired inside.
I’m out. I have so many more important things to do than to continue down this road with you.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I am not worried about being “leered at” in a unisex bathroom. I’m worried about being groped, sexually assaulted, or raped in a unisex bathroom. This seems to be one of the issues we depart on since you don’t seem to realize that being leered at would be the least of my worries in a unisex bathroom.
You mean other than trying to explain that cisgender women live with the knowledge that they could be sexually assaulted or raped any time they end up alone with a strange man? Heck, even with men who aren’t strangers — I got into some hairy situations with my brothers’ friends a few times when they caught me alone. One friend of mine was nearly raped in her own bed in her own house because her brother’s friend snuck into her room during a party.
So, yes, you may think it’s a ridiculous fear, but I would be very uncomfortable sitting on a toilet with my pants down knowing that there’s a strange man on the other side of the door who may decide now would be a good time to kick in the door and rape me just for the hell of it.
ETA: And, yes, I am saying that your fear that someone will find out you’re transgender and rape or murder you because of that is different than my fear that someone will decide to rape or murder me just because I’m a convenient woman-shaped target to take their rage out on.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: Anyone that was looking to rape you or assault you isn’t going to let an icon with a dress on it prevent them from doing what they do.
I tried looking for some numbers to back up your fear, but all google managed to produce is a bunch of sites from right-winger assholes (american “thinker”) for example that were short on facts, and long on fear. Interesting ideological company, in any case.
Your fear (show me the numbers) is unfounded. And the reality is, you are FAR MORE LIKELY to be assaulted in any other situation. Walking home at night for example.
If you choose to live in such fear, maybe you should lobby for single occupancy bathrooms across the board. That way you have a lock between you and a predator.
OTOH, despite our much smaller numbers, I can point you to tons of links of discrimination and assault of trans folk who want nothing more than to use the most appropriately gendered bathroom they can find. I guess your unfounded fear trumps that huh? Nice values you’ve got there.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Sigh. Yes, yes, us hysterical females just get so upset about the possibility of being sexually assaulted (in many cases, again) when we should just calm down and look at the statistics. After all, only 1 in 4 women are sexually assaulted by the time they get to college, so, really the odds are low, amirite?
Never mind. You’re never going to get it.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne:
There are very few statistics available for the rate of rape among transgender individuals. One small study showed that 13.7% of transgender respondents had experienced rape or attempted rape. Another study shows that 50% of transgender respondents had been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner — and among all groups of people sexual violence is a common form of intimate partner violence.
Neither of these studies give large-scale data. Both also fail to separate out rates of rape for trans men, trans women, and genderqueer individuals. Anecdotal evidence in the trans community, however, suggests that rates of sexual violence are much higher than among cisgender (non-transgender) people. The rates of rape for trans women are believed to be much higher than the rates of rape for cis women, and the rates of rape for trans men higher than the rates of rape for cis men. Many of the assaults are hate crimes. And due to the high rates of police abuse or dismissal against trans individuals, the crimes are also extremely [ likely ] to go unreported.
http://blogathon.thecurvature.com/?p=124
There are many other links.
It’s you that doesn’t get it.
1 in 12 transsexuals are murdered in this country.
…one expert estimates that transgender individuals living in America today have a one in 12 chance of being murdered. [1] In contrast, the average person has about a one in 18,000 chance of being murdered. [2]
1. Kay Brown, instructor for “20th Century Transgender History and Experience” at the Harvey Milk Institute in San Francisco, Washington Blade, Dec. 10, 1999.
2. Based on the FBI’s “Uniform Crimes Reports, Crime in the United States 2000,” showing the murder rate of 5.5 people per 100,000.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
And I expressed any discomfort at all with sharing a bathroom with transgender women … where, exactly? My worry is sharing a bathroom with cisgendered men, which you’re saying is an unfounded fear I need to get over because, really, what are the odds that I could be raped?
Yes, my fear of being raped if I’m alone in an enclosed space with a strange man is completely unfounded.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Do I really have to talk about being molested as a child, or how I was sexually assaulted as a teenager (short of rape, thank god), or how many of my friends were assaulted or raped, before I’m allowed to say that my fear of being assaulted is rational?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
You misunderstand my statement. I’ll clarify. Gendered bathrooms create a target for hate crimes and descrimination against trans people. They encourage gender policing. I can back that up, both anecdotally, and with data. By the same vein you can’t back up the fear of an elevated risk of assault or discrimination in a unisex bathroom by a man. Apparently, if it happens, the statistics are so infinitesimal as to be defy attempts at reporting the numbers.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: Well, I’ve been lucky to avoid rape, although I’ve had to use weapons to fight off attackers. Some of my friends and family haven’t been so lucky. Still, unless you were raped in a unisex bathroom, you’re missing the mark. Both of my little sisters and my mother were raped and/or molested, and none of it took place in a bathroom, much less, a unisex bathroom. You are connecting apples and oranges.
OTOH, I’ve been attacked in a gendered bathroom, as have my queer friends. And in more than one case, it was directly spurred by the fact that they were using a bathroom some asshole thought they shouldn’t use. I won’t weigh in on my own experience, since the attack on me wasn’t preceded by the statement “Fuck you freak, you shouldn’t be in here” although I tend to take that on implication.
Stop moving the goalposts. It’s really dishonest of you.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Yes, the statistics couldn’t possibly be so small because we have so few unisex bathrooms in this country. It must be because unisex bathrooms are safe for women to share with men, so there’s no reason not to have them.
You further realize that you have no statistics to back up your assertion that unisex bathrooms would be safer for transgender people and wouldn’t increase the chance of harassment.
You’re asking me to risk my personal safety on the off-chance that it might increase yours. Show me some statistics showing that unisex bathrooms (a) increase the safety of transgender people AND (b) do not increase the chance of sexual assault.
And just to be clear, I have very little fear of being discriminated against in a unisex bathroom. I am afraid of being fucking raped. I don’t know how many times I have to say that to make it clear to you, though I suppose you’ll just tell me again that my fears are overblown because transgender people are raped more often than cisgendered people, so I shouldn’t even worry my pretty little head about it.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Oh, FFS. Yes, the fact that I personally was not raped in a unisex bathroom proves that it’s impossible and unisex bathrooms are totally safe for everyone and any fears that anyone has of being assaulted or raped there are totally irrational.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne:
I’m in fear of being assaulted in a gendered restroom because, you know, it’s actually fucking happened to me, and to friends of mine.
It’s never happened to me in a unisex bathroom. Why? Well I imagine because most of the time, unisex bathrooms are not in fact co-ed, but single occupancy.
Furthermore, You’re playing the rape sympathy card, absent facts, and yet although I’m statistically more likely to be raped than you are (assuming the only available numbers are to be believed) it’s okay for you to do so, but fuck me for doing the same?
I’m afraid of being raped, everywhere I go.
FTR, I’m also afraid of committing a crime, or even being accused of one and arrested for it, because heaven forbid I go to jail, where it’s a damn near certainty I’ll be fucking raped. Probably every day.
Boo fucking hoo. That doesn’t mean I get a pass on the facts, and neither do you.
http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2008-01-29_690
A thought experiment
google
are unisex bathrooms more dangerous
are unisex bathrooms safer
this is why sites like safe2pee exist, BTW
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Do you not realize that the bathroom under discussion is actually “co-ed”? And that you’ve been advocating for “co-ed” bathrooms and telling me that my fear of being sexually assaulted in a “co-ed” bathroom is unfounded?
If you mean something completely different by “unisex” bathroom that does not include men and women standing in the same room waiting for the same stalls, you need to say it, because that’s what’s been under discussion in this entire thread.
ETA: I doubt your odds of being assaulted in a co-ed bathroom — which is what we’ve been talking about this entire time — would be much lower than in a single gender bathroom.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: I’ve never actually seen one of these. In fact, co-ed bathrooms in strip clubs are probably a bad idea for anyone. For a myriad of reasons.
Personally, I thought that was a settled matter by the time the first comment was posted. Outside of the perverts, that is. FTR, I’m against gender divisions in bathrooms. It’s harmful.
Go ahead and move the goal posts on our sub discussion though. You said unisex numerous times in your own posts.
“And just to be clear, I have very little fear of being discriminated against in a unisex bathroom. I am afraid of being fucking raped.”
Like this.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I didn’t realize that you thought “unisex” and “co-ed” were different things. They’re used interchangeably by most people and “unisex” was used to mean “co-ed” in most of the comments before mine (including the one by JW Hamner that pissed you off so much), so you really needed to specify what you meant if you did not mean to say that men and women should all be lining up to use the same stalls in the same large room like they do at the unisex bathroom/bar at the Mint that people were criticizing.
John M. Burt
Admit it, people: Mitt Romney is clearly the candidate you would rather share a glass of champagne with in a co-ed restroom.