The street toilets in Amsterdam (sorry ladies, they are only for men) are cheap and smart. They probably could have made hundreds of them for the same price as this one. Check them out at: http://www.mobypicture.com/group/verliefdop020/vie...
On occasion on a club night, Central Square provides similar facilities, on side streets off Mass Ave.
Clubgoers may stop on the sidewalk, turn 90 degrees, and recycle their beer onto a resident's flowers or fence.
I have also seen an SUV in the city parking lot behind Harvest Co-op being watered in this manner. ('Can't say I fully disagreed with the sentiment, but it was still gross.)
public urination can be charged as open and gross lewdness, which is a felony. but it's only the second time (assuming you're not a juvenile) that can get you the label of sex offender. i guess the first one's a freebie.
It's shockingly common for Dept of Mental Health consumers to have a sex offender record for indecent exposure. Then you ask the person's family or the staff at the person's previous residence what exactly happened, and you find out that the person was peeing, didn't have great hygiene, was muttering to himself, etc., and some xenophobic person visiting from the suburbs called the cops and said that some horrible homeless person was whipping it out, whipping it out near children, making comments while whipping it out, etc. The courts don't actually do an evaluation to see if it's in this person's behavior patterns to do sexualized stuff in public. They just have a hearing where some rich über-offended person with lawyers goes on about how traumatizing this was, the alleged perp mutters something incoherent, and ends up with a charge of a sex offense.
who loved to pee all over parked cars. he kept getting the cops called on him, who understood and would just call me to get him.
until he peed on a cop car.
then we had problems.
ideally the laws are written so that somebody can determine the intent of the action. if there was a reasonable expectation of privacy (which can include delusional beliefs) and if the urination was not intended to be lewd, the courts *can* choose to not charge it as a sex offense.
There was a case in which a woman, tired of long bathroom lines at some event (stadium?), went into the men's restroom and made use of a urinal. IIRC, one of the men present sued her for emotional trauma.
Unless someone using a restroom is actually specifcally sexually harassing someone else in it, no one should be able to win a lawsuit because they were uncomfortable with the dress/grooming/physique/genitalia of someone else who was using the restroom. Very few localities actually have a statute making the gender signs on the restrooms legally binding. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that there are judges and juries who see gender as totally binary and who also would side with someone who claimed to be traumatized by someone else not fitting into his own ideals. But it doesn't make it right.
Kind of reminds me of people who are opposed to laws that specifically protect transgendered and/or intersex people from harassment when they use restrooms that match their external presentation. These people claim that if these laws get passed, straight cisgendered men will then be free to march into the ladies rooms and rape the women. Because we all know that men are horrible, predatory creatures, and the only thing keeping them from rushing the ladies rooms en masse is the stick-figure-with-a-skirt on the door.
I can't see how anybody would have a problem with this extremely necessary facility in a city with very few and very poorly signed public toilets. This is a great location to put a restroom, as there are no other consistently available public facilities in the area (long wharf one is tiny and catch as catch can and the hotel blocked off access a couple of years ago).
It would have been so very Boston to continue to avoid even thinking about the need for a sanitary place for bodily functions - even most minor playgrounds have a restroom in most cities, and most park planners at the end of the 19th century put flush toilets in the big parks in this country for hygienic reasons. Thank heavens somebody had the good sense to figure out the needs of humans who are passing through the area and leaving tourist money.
Comments
0
here you go
O no
Thanks, I must've dropped that last 0 on the composing-room floor.
Could save a lot of $$ doing it Amsterdam style
The street toilets in Amsterdam (sorry ladies, they are only for men) are cheap and smart. They probably could have made hundreds of them for the same price as this one. Check them out at: http://www.mobypicture.com/group/verliefdop020/vie...
This is America - we have
This is America - we have laws against things like that.
Who needs privacy panels
On occasion on a club night, Central Square provides similar facilities, on side streets off Mass Ave.
Clubgoers may stop on the sidewalk, turn 90 degrees, and recycle their beer onto a resident's flowers or fence.
I have also seen an SUV in the city parking lot behind Harvest Co-op being watered in this manner. ('Can't say I fully disagreed with the sentiment, but it was still gross.)
Hoors
That's who needs privacy panels. What a great place to turn tricks.
Public urination = Indecent exposure
Which earns you a place on the Sex Offender Registry for the rest of your life.
which is downright stupid
which is downright stupid
only the second time...
public urination can be charged as open and gross lewdness, which is a felony. but it's only the second time (assuming you're not a juvenile) that can get you the label of sex offender. i guess the first one's a freebie.
Unless you look disheveled
It's shockingly common for Dept of Mental Health consumers to have a sex offender record for indecent exposure. Then you ask the person's family or the staff at the person's previous residence what exactly happened, and you find out that the person was peeing, didn't have great hygiene, was muttering to himself, etc., and some xenophobic person visiting from the suburbs called the cops and said that some horrible homeless person was whipping it out, whipping it out near children, making comments while whipping it out, etc. The courts don't actually do an evaluation to see if it's in this person's behavior patterns to do sexualized stuff in public. They just have a hearing where some rich über-offended person with lawyers goes on about how traumatizing this was, the alleged perp mutters something incoherent, and ends up with a charge of a sex offense.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
i used to work in mental health and i had one consumer
who loved to pee all over parked cars. he kept getting the cops called on him, who understood and would just call me to get him.
until he peed on a cop car.
then we had problems.
ideally the laws are written so that somebody can determine the intent of the action. if there was a reasonable expectation of privacy (which can include delusional beliefs) and if the urination was not intended to be lewd, the courts *can* choose to not charge it as a sex offense.
sadly, this often doesn't happen :(
Pee for yourself!
I'd imagine they'd be for anyone who can pee standing up, regardless of sex or gender.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Liability!
There was a case in which a woman, tired of long bathroom lines at some event (stadium?), went into the men's restroom and made use of a urinal. IIRC, one of the men present sued her for emotional trauma.
That's ricockulous
Unless someone using a restroom is actually specifcally sexually harassing someone else in it, no one should be able to win a lawsuit because they were uncomfortable with the dress/grooming/physique/genitalia of someone else who was using the restroom. Very few localities actually have a statute making the gender signs on the restrooms legally binding. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that there are judges and juries who see gender as totally binary and who also would side with someone who claimed to be traumatized by someone else not fitting into his own ideals. But it doesn't make it right.
Kind of reminds me of people who are opposed to laws that specifically protect transgendered and/or intersex people from harassment when they use restrooms that match their external presentation. These people claim that if these laws get passed, straight cisgendered men will then be free to march into the ladies rooms and rape the women. Because we all know that men are horrible, predatory creatures, and the only thing keeping them from rushing the ladies rooms en masse is the stick-figure-with-a-skirt on the door.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Or Boston could continue to join the late 19th century
I can't see how anybody would have a problem with this extremely necessary facility in a city with very few and very poorly signed public toilets. This is a great location to put a restroom, as there are no other consistently available public facilities in the area (long wharf one is tiny and catch as catch can and the hotel blocked off access a couple of years ago).
It would have been so very Boston to continue to avoid even thinking about the need for a sanitary place for bodily functions - even most minor playgrounds have a restroom in most cities, and most park planners at the end of the 19th century put flush toilets in the big parks in this country for hygienic reasons. Thank heavens somebody had the good sense to figure out the needs of humans who are passing through the area and leaving tourist money.
And in Sweden....
http://www.thelocal.se/10436/20080312/
J Geils Fans?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cgm7G5O2Ig
p
much ado about P = nothing.