Comments on: Dress optional

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:05:45 +0000

Don't forget the famous bathrooms at the Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz.

By: Anton Sherwood

Anton Sherwood — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:21:09 +0000

Mom once told me about a nun who was working in an otherwise all-male lab: to use the only restroom, she’d put a bow on the door.

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 13:51:52 +0000

Scott – Isn’t there a text by Lacan in which he uses restroom doors as an example to explain his views on the saussurian signifier/signified relation?

I’m not Scott, but you’re right. It’s in ‘The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious’:

“A train arrives at a station. A little boy and a little girl, brother and sister, are seated in a compartment face to face next to the window through which the buildings along the station platform can be seen passing as the train pulls to a stop. ‘Look,’ says the brother, ‘We’re at Ladies!’ ‘Idiot!’ replies his sister, ‘Can’t you see we’re at Gentlemen.’”

(The passage that follows, ‘explaining’ how the sexes enter the symbolic order through separate doors, does severely take the piss.)

By: Jeremy Leader

Jeremy Leader — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 21:57:03 +0000

At Caltech, the dorms were all built before the school became co-ed, and so originally had half a dozen large “men’s” rooms, and one small “ladies” room for visitors. After going co-ed, some door signs were painted over, to switch the gender of some restrooms. In other places, an LP record would be nailed to the door, loosely enough that it could be rotated by hand. The record would be divided typically into 4 quadrents, marked “Men”, “Women”, “Empty”, and “Both (please knock)” or something like that. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of those signs, and I don’t know if they’re still in use (I was there in the early 80s).

By: mj

mj — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:07:44 +0000

Re: SamChevre

I haven’t come across the two triangles signs, but most commonly in Poland the men’s room is indicated by a triangle, whereas the women’s is located behind the door with a circle.

To remember: Women are rounder and softer than men.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:50:23 +0000

jef – Speak for yourself on what you consider a “regular” language.:) I usually hear this about police cars.. while in most countries (at least in Europe) you can guess the word police, in Hungarian it has different roots. Interestingly, the word makes a lot of sense. Police is “rendõrség”, which you get from putting together “rend” = order and “õrség” = guard.

By: goatchowder

goatchowder — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 09:34:52 +0000

A word is worth a thousand pictures.

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 07:19:34 +0000

I remember the House of Lords one differently. It doesn’t say “Lords” but I definitely saw—and nipped into—one marked “Peers only” the last time I was there. The problem there was that one felt there should only be urinals.

By: Jef

Jef — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 06:01:39 +0000

Pike Place Market in Seattle has (or had, it’s been a while) XX and
XY inlaid in the tile in front of the bathroom doors.

It’s good that upi’re finding these symbols in Hungary. Hungary
is the only place I’ve ever been to where I had to wait for someone
to come out of the bathroom so I could assess the gender of the
person and thus know which door to go through. The hungarian
words for Men and Women do not correspond to anything in
any regular language, so it’s impossible to tell from a lettered
sign.

By: KCinDC

KCinDC — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 05:10:30 +0000

Simon, my theory would be that the proprietors don’t speak Italian and figured “uomini” was somehow an Italian version of “women”, while “donne” was just another spelling of “don”, or something. Wonder if I’d get the right door?

By: Eszter

Eszter — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:35:06 +0000

These are great examples and recommendations, I’m going to have to look for them when I’m in the various towns. And as I said, if anyone’s inspired to take pictures when they come across an interesting set of signs, don’t be shy and do share!

By: Big Ben

Big Ben — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:05:08 +0000

There's all sorts of good ones in the existing flickr toilet sign pool, including pink vs. blue ninjas, and peeing bunny vs. peeing gorilla.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:01:37 +0000

One of my personal favorites is an Italian restaurant in Atlanta, which uses the standard international figures for male and female: the feller in trousers and the woman in a skirt. But it also features the words uomini and donne. The problem, of course, is that the words contradict the symbols, leaving the patron to wonder whether they are best-advised to trust the linguistic or graphic representation of their goal.

By: vivian

vivian — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 03:02:41 +0000

New England's clamhouse Woodman's has doors marked "Gulls" and "Buoys" with black-and-white painted images. At least they did ten years ago or so. No pics on their website.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 02:32:30 +0000

Eszter – I don’t remember if I mentioned this last time you mentioned the gender door signs, but if you’re in Budapest again taking pictures, the communist pizza place Marxim has pretty entertaining door signs. I believe the one for men is a bolt and the one for women is a nut. It goes with their whole gritty barbed wire decor. (In case that link above doesn’t work, it’s a couple blocks east of Moszkva Tér.)