YouGov, a marketing company, surveyed a sample of 7,024 men ages 18 and older across 13 … [+]
Apparently many men can’t stand it when they have to pee. Or maybe you don’t want to stand it. In fact – you’re sitting in front of this – 40 percent of German men surveyed by UK market research firm YouGov always sitting down while urinating. Yes always. That’s more than a small number of men. Another 22 percent of German men surveyed usually plant der hintern while urinating on toilet seats. That clearly puts German men number one among men from 13 different countries when it comes to the percentage of men surveyed sitting when they go, well, number one.
Such a position did not sit well with the American men surveyed. A smaller percentage (10 percent) of American men surveyed always sat, while 13 percent sat most of the time, 23 percent sat part of the time, 17 percent seldom sat, and 31 percent never sat. Interestingly, six percent of Americans surveyed didn’t know what they were doing when they urinated. That makes you wonder if they have temporary amnesia of emptying their bladder and after leaving a bathroom say, “Something happened in there, but I’m not quite sure what.”
Take these specific numbers with a toilet bowl full of salt, of course. The YouGov survey polled a sample of just 7024 men aged 18 and over across 13 countries. That meant about 700 men in the US and about 500 men in each of the other countries were surveyed from March 28 to April 20, 2023. So YouGov didn’t have many responses. In addition, YouGov did not specify how they selected the samples or provide further breakdowns of the samples, other than dividing them into two age groups: men ages 18 through 34 and men ages 55 and older. So a big “but” is whether the sample was overrepresented or underrepresented in men who tend to plant their butts on toilet seats when urinating.
After German men, Australia had the second highest percentage of men who are always sitting (25 percent). After the Down Under men, three European countries had the next three highest percentages of men who always sat when they had to pee: 22 percent in Sweden, 19 percent in France and 19 percent in Denmark. This was followed by Canadian (16 percent), Hispanic (14 percent) and Italian (13 percent) men. The same percentage of Polish men (10 percent) always planted their sandwiches like American men. Of the 13 countries, three had smaller percentages of men who always sat: Britain at nine percent, Mexico at six percent and Singapore at five percent.
Matthew Smith, head of data journalism for YouGov, did point out that there’s a rather derisive German term for men who sit down to pee, sitzpinkler, which basically labels them as not very masculine. So if you were to assume that younger men are more concerned about such social labels before they get to the age of who beeps, you might expect that a higher percentage of younger men never sit down than older men. This was indeed the case among German men: 11 percent of those aged 18 to 34 had never sat, compared to nine percent of those aged 55 and over. Similar differences were seen between those men in Singapore (33 percent of younger men versus 30 percent of older men) and Canada (19 versus 18 percent). However, “urine” for a surprise if you thought such trends would continue in other countries. Men aged 55 and over were more likely to never sit down to urinate than men aged 18 to 34 among men from the rest of the countries, such as the British (40 vs. 23 percent) , Australians (38 vs. 24 percent), American (35 vs. 21 percent), and Danish (37 vs. 21 percent) men.
So the big question is what’s the best way to position yourself when you’re watching your pee? Well, there are potential benefits to taking things while sitting. That position can relax your muscles more, allowing you to go more with the flow, so to speak. Plus, sitting can reduce splashing because you bring your you-know-what closer to the bowl. And toilet splashes are not the same as chocolate splashes. Toilets can be full of nasty microbes that you wouldn’t want in your face, mouth, body, or clothes.
Of course, if you’re in a public restroom with only urinals available, you may have nothing to do if you don’t get up and use the urinal. Sitting on or in the urinal would be considered bad form. Therefore, you may need to take a stand in public.
However, apart from conforming to the design of the urinal, there doesn’t seem to be any natural benefit to peeing standing up. Of course, you might be more willing to run if, say, a bear were to attack you. But that rarely happens in bathrooms.
You don’t have to have “pee HD” to realize that not everything we do in society is completely logical and scientifically driven. Current urination conventions may not necessarily be the best way to do things.