Norm Enforcement, Or Not

He well deserved sanctioning. But at least he was wearing a cheap suit and looking like a lowly salesman, right? That, and the fact that he didn’t grasp the objection, gives one that little frisson.

For some reasons I thought this kind of stuff had been cleaned up since my kids were young. Guess some things really don’t change.

Come on, people, “assisted care” has a plain meaning that is not the same as ‘handicapped’ or ‘disabled’. One individual doesn’t qualify; the guy is a parasite.

Meh, even here I would give the guy the benefit of the doubt. When I’m in unobviously handicapped situations, I appreciate the same. A little faith in humanity. Perhaps he’s a diabetic (or has some other condition) and needed a little privacy to dress down while he gave himself a shot. Of course, he might just be a gashole with a wide stance, but I prefer to go through life thinking better of people…

To take a perhaps trite but illustrative example, I used to mock people who went to gyms to run on uber-hightech step and running machines, thinking they should cut off their gym membership and go running instead. Then I suffered a knee injury, and now I’m the one standing there looking like a fool. We all have our reasons…

If your daughter was getting upset, why not just take her into the men’s?

O’Hare even has self-cleaning toilet seats that extrude a fresh plastic cover after every use.

“Not directly related to your story but… Americans are insane, no? What’s with the paranoia that you might, conceivably, come into contact with an object that has, at some point, come into contact with another human being?”

What’s with the knee-jerk anti-Americanism? It strikes me as a form of insanity to jump to the silly conclusion that any random phenomenon one might observe is an indication of some deep flaw in the American society or character.

The first time I ever ran across one of those retractable, self-cleaning public toilets was in Paris 10-15 years ago. There weren’t any in the U.S. at the time. A short while after we’d been there, I remember a story about an effort to install some in New York, but there were problems with wheelchair accessibility. Sure enough — the free NY Times archives are your friend:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D6123FF932A15756C0A967958260&n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,%20Conditions,%20and%20Health%20Topics/Handicapped

There is a bit of insanity in the story, but it’s not prudishness about bodily functions but rather a inflexibly militant attitude in the U.S. toward handicapped accessibility that does not readily allow for sensible compromises (like the excellent idea of having a some number of handicapped accessible units and handing out key cards to wheelchair users).

Yet another instance where the “rules” are thought to apply to someone else, although everyone thinks in their own case (“I’m special”–an egalitarian democratic ethos suffused with an economic model that worships consumer preference satisfaction perhaps inclines to the idea that everyone possesses the authority to observe norms based on their own arbitrary preferences; one reason why we will follow norms of, say, fad and fashion, as they entrench an illusory sense of freedom) it’s perfectly proper to make an exception. Social norms just don’t seem as effective under the conditions of (post-)modern life in affluent societies, where the ability to be relatively anonymous (Durkheim’s anomie) and the freedom from communities, traditions, or “reference groups” discourages norm internalization and enforcement of even those norms folks might otherwise be rationally persuaded to endorse.

Still, it takes some courage to attempt a sanction in the face of a significant power differential, as it inspires those of us who have done likewise but believed we stood alone in our foolishness or perhaps madness.

#17: Speaking truth to power, even in the face of a rolly bag? Zounds! A mighty blow for freedom, and data for Durkheim.

IMHO, a recap: (1) a selfish or at least thoughtless airline passenger; (2) called on it, rightfully and productively, by a frustrated blogger; (3) chastised afterward by a blogger who kind of looked down his nose at the passenger, unnecessarily and in a way that kind of pissed away his moral superiority but in the service of writing a wittier post.

Well, I guess one can never have too many unwritten rules. I had always (foolishly) supposed that the disabled/family signs indicated a certain commodiousness, not that they should remain unused when other rooms were occupied, nor that they were meant to be exclusively used by those who identified with the sign per se. I suggest that KH write to the Chicago Airport Authority and demand that they amend the signage, perhaps with a dire warning as to the consequences attendant on use by the able-bodied.

I have no evidence except that which Kieran supplied but the sign didn’t apparently say “Family and Assisted Care Only Restroom.”

Meh, even here I would give the guy the benefit of the doubt. When I’m in unobviously handicapped situations, I appreciate the same. A little faith in humanity. Perhaps he’s a diabetic (or has some other condition) and needed a little privacy to dress down while he gave himself a shot. Of course, he might just be a gashole with a wide stance, but I prefer to go through life thinking better of people…

You must be a fellow Brit, right? I have no sympathy for this sort of thinking. The logical conclusion is that nobody is ever censured for anything just in case there is a hidden justification for their actions, resulting in those of us with kids/disabled relatives perpetually getting the shitty end of the stick.

I reminded of the parents who complain under their breath about the cars parked illegally outside my daughters’ school, but who would simply die of embarrassment if forced to confront the thoughtless bastards responsible. One day, it will be a kid who dies….not of embarrassment, of course, more likely because of severe brain trauma resulting from a collision with a ton of motor vehicle.

At which point, everyone will agree how awful it is.

For all you know he had to work on the ostomy bag that hold his stool. It’s hard to do that in a public bathroom.

Be very careful about jumping to assumptions like this.

Really, it’s not hard to imagine scenarios that are relatively common that would apply here.

When there’s a long line to the regular facility while the special one (“assisted care” or, say, “disabled parking”) is always empty – that’s annoying. There’s gotta be a way to make these things more efficient, give the right people higher priority without wasting resources. So, maybe they’ll have to wait a few seconds – that’s not the end of the world. Make those parking spaces ‘for the disabled or very short term, 5 minutes or less’.

Colostomy bag was my thought also.

Perhaps the disabled should be required to affix some identification as such on their persons, like they do on their cars. Maybe an armband.

Kieran,

Since all the Republican fat cats travel business class, and those lounges have their own facilities,
[You mean YOU didn’t know that?], of what political
persuasion do you think that bozo is?

anon

There are two interesting questions in this issue. One is that, as in many instances of ordinary life, there is an unspoken self-policing rule that a number of commenters are either taking for granted or have brought into question – whether the large person was flagrantly flaunting a rule that concerned a class to which he doesn’t belong, or whether he does belong, but it doesn’t show. In this instance, we don’t have any way of knowing whether or not Mr. large man is a member of the disabled class. I would posit that he is under no obligation to inform us one way or the other. With sympathy for Keiran’s daughter, sometimes there is a line, even at the family restroom.

The second question has to do with the general class of self-imposed rules that one encounters almost daily. For example, here, in Tucson, where numerous roads are always under construction, there are often situations in which a large sign with flashing lights indicates that either the right or left of the two lanes in a particular direction will be forced to merge in a few hundred yards, or as much as half to three quarters of a mile. A local newspaper columnist has mentioned a favorite gripe about those who do not choose to merge early, and maintain their course in the to-be-closed lane until the last moment. At issue is again the unspoken rule that is self-imposed. Rationally, not merging until the last moment moves traffic along much better than merging early – one has a single lane for a few hundred feet rather than for half a mile or more – but there is a strong impulse to conform to the rule of the numbers who have moved to a single lane already, and not a little hostility that can be seen on the part of some of those who have so chosen, toward those who stay in two lanes. I would say this is part of the same issue as the restroom use question, to what extent one can reasonably impose one’s own sense of a rule on others, who are equally free to articulate their own version of the proper mode of behavior. For the record, I would generally merge early, to go, so to speak, with the flow, even if it is logically irrational.

Kieran’s mistake was assuming the average merkin flying asshole would understand sarcasm, especially when he hadn’t realized there might be a problem. Geez, guy, you’ve been here long enough to learn that if you want them to understand, don’t try anything more complicated than “Thanks a lot, Pal” or “Hang around the kiddie toilets a lot, do you?” Your choice, much more elegant, required someone clearly thoughtless to fill in a couple of missing premises. But I definitely applaud when people from polite cultures learn to assert themselves verbally. Y’all do it more entertainingly.

“Rationally, not merging until the last moment moves traffic along much better than merging early – one has a single lane for a few hundred feet rather than for half a mile or more…”

This is mistaken. It’s more dangerous to merge at the last second because people are forced to merge when there may be little space to do so. Alternatively, if they do not force the merge then they are forced to slow down and possible stop, which has the consequence of backing up traffic behind them and creating a long-lasting difficulty in merging for people at the front of the line, including the initiator, because they now require enough room to accelerate from a stop into a merge.

You can see that it’s more efficient for people to merge earlier because they seamlessly merge when it’s most opportune to do so. As soon as you see one of those construction merge signs, you should merge if you can, or look for the first opportunity.

I suppose it’s possibly you won’t believe me. Imagine, however, if everyone did wait until the last moment to merge. It would only take until the first time there was insufficient space between cars for the merge before someone would have to stop at the merge, which would then accumulate more and more stopped vehicles. (Or, more likely, the new merge point would be at the end of stopped cars, which would then block any of the stopped cars from merging for a long time.)

Finally, another indication that merging early is better is that highway designers advertise permanent forced merges far in advance of the merge, such as three lanes to two. Those merges go fairly smoothly under normal traffic flows (not rush hour, though) while, in contrast, construction merges do not.

It’s best to merge early, not late. It’s a tragedy of the commons when drivers refuse to merge early.

If even people who go to the wrong bathroom are among those first against the wall, will there be anyone left for the second wave? I hope you have a really big wall :-)

Since it’s apparently the Annual Ye Olde Stipulation And Speculation Fayre, I will trump all previous calls by saying that maybe he was trying to remove a bullet from his sternum! that he had just taken in the service of Liberty! from a terrorist! and that he had sneaked into the disabled lavs to avoid upsetting all the kittle kiddies, because he was Jack Bauer, and that’s how tough he was.

Actually, no. And thank god Starbucks were doing a special offer on Grande Grande Venti buckets of “For Fuck’s Sake People”, because I bought a load, and there’s plenty of “Shut The Fuck Up” to eat with it.

I mean, FFFFS:

Perhaps the disabled should be required to affix some identification as such on their persons, like they do on their cars. Maybe an armband.

and perhaps as that means of identification, we could just have the cheerfully announced phrase “Oh I’m sorry you were inconvenienced; actually I have a colostomy”, or some such. If this chap did have any of the invisible disabilities discussed on this thread, then he had the perfect opportunity to make Kieran feel about an inch tall and score his own super-double-reverse zinger by revealing this information, rather than shamefacedly sneaking away.

Now let us spend fifty comments trying to come up with a theory about how he had another set of problems that prevented him from speaking up about the first problem.

plenty of “Shut The Fuck Up” to eat with it

Well, that’s us told.

If there is one thing I hate, it is some idiot barging in on a perfectly civil thread and carrying on as if he is the first person to realise that UCK after F makes a naughty word.

It is not discourteous to use a disabled bathroom when it is free and it does not violate any norm that can reasonably be defended.

(46: One thing to consider here, which I learned from a disabled friend–various medical conditions often lend a certain, er, urgency to the need for a bathroom and/or privacy. And it’s a bit unpleasant to end up covered in your own filth because an able-bodied person wanted the extra space. My friend seemed to think that it was best practice to leave disabled facilities for the disabled whenever possible, simply because the consequences of not doing so, though infrequent, can be spectacularly unpleasant.

Also, I recently saw a little old lady in a wheelchair groaning in pain while she and her attendant waited for the (young, student, peppy, almost certainly non-disabled) person to get out of the disabled stall. That was unpleasant not only for her and her helper but for all around who witnessed it. You really only have to see that sequence of events once to realize that you don’t want to see it again, and that the use of an ordinary stall is a small price to pay.)

There’s plenty of public places in this fine nation of ours which have only two stalls, one of which is “for handicapped and parents”, and some even where there is only ONE stall, also of the “for handicapped and parents” variety (I suspect there’s some regulation which requires there be at least one, or a minimum ratio or something). Since with the two stalls, the “handicapped and parents only” norm would represent a grave inefficiency and waste of resources, and with one stall, the “handicapped and parents only norm” would represent a grave injustice, it is reasonable to conclude that implied norm is actually “handicapped and parents first” not “handicapped and parents only”.

#51

1) I don’t think this kind of concern is why our poster is irritated. Obviously the upshot would be to not allow families to use bathrooms designed for the handicapped either.

2) What if the risk of this happening is extremely low? This seems to be the case most of the time.

3) Depending on context, i.e. service availability and expected usage, you have a point. But this would not be a general norm then. Note that if the poster wanted to apply this contextual norm in the circumstance he found himself in then he also should have gone to the regular bathroom.

If the bathroom is free the worst that can happen is that somebody needs to wait a few minutes.

Which is precisely the worst case scenario you would be confronted with if you stuck to using the correct bathrooms.

The difference, of course, is that as an able-bodied man, you are in a position to alleviate your minor inconvenience by entering reserved facilities. The disabled person, however, by dint of their handicap, is not.

You know this, but why should you care? You’re a busy man, with things to do, and an obsessional urge to correct the sub-optimal allocation and use of public facilities.

You’re not, however, available for birthdays, parties and bar mitzvahs.

Brownie,

Your are really kicking the crap out of the imaginary opponent you have created (I guess that result is to be expected). But what is your argument against me?

I am clearly not arguing for intentionally making life difficult for anybody. Nor do I see how the norm I have proposed is likely to inconvenience handicapped people.

“How long, exactly, do you think it takes a distressed, disabled person to defecate into their wheelchair?”

Am I the only person here that finds this kind of image advanced in relation to the group ‘disabled’ disturbing. 1) This is not the reality for the majority of people for whom disabled bathrooms are designed (i.e. people in wheelchairs). 2) If someone in a wheelchair has the kind of medical condition that will not allow them to delay defecation for a few minutes they will normally have some other solution to the problem than the expectation that a handicapped bathroom will always be in reach.

Where I live and work there are handicapped bathrooms all over the place. If the availability was more limited I would certainly make a bigger effort to avoid using them, and I do avoid them if there is any indication that somebody else needs them. But if I pass by one that is free I will dash in for a few minutes and not be too bothered by a self-righteous parent waiting for me on the way out.

Bathrooms are not parking spaces for the disabled!

Parking spaces for the disabled could be better utilized as well – for a quick in and out (as I suggested in #29).

The norm? The norm is to be courteous, considered, to sympathize, to help; not to literally obey a sign someone pinned to the wall.

I do avoid [disabled bathrooms] if there is any indication that somebody else needs them.

I’m relieved to learn that in the event a wheelchair-bound person is propelling himself at 30mph through O’Hare screaming, “SWEET JESUS OUTTA THE WAY, I’M ABOUT TO SHIT MYSELF”, that you would give way.

You’re all heart, truly you are.

Brownie,

Are you completely unable to advance a discussion in relation to what others have said?

Are you suggesting that there never can be a situation where it is reasonable to expect that you are not harming anybody by using such a bathroom?

Are you suggesting that a very small risk of someone having to wait two minutes is enough to make it always wrong to use handicapped bathrooms?

I am not suggesting that you seek out these bathrooms and certainly not that one should ignore the interests of others. I think I have made this point pretty clear and maybe you should start considering the source of your own aggression instead of presuming things about others.

Where I work and live the bathroom infrastructure is such that there are many handicapped bathrooms and one regularly can be sure that one is not harming anybody by using them.

In the case the poster presented it seems that the bathroom was free. I do not know what the situation was like so I cannot really say but the comments here seem to suggest that this guy was obviously an incredible asshole. All I was suggesting is that if the resource was not in use it is quite possible that he was not being an incredible asshole.

It sounded like the poster was pissed because they could not use the bathroom at exactly the moment they wanted to, at the same time it did not sound like the guy in question was abusing resources in a situation of clear scarcity. Based on what was described there was a one person line up that lasted a few minutes.

re #39: Not bad for anecdotal evidence but unfortunately actual studies in the real world prove otherwise. A study by the Indiana Dept. of Transportation states, for instance, “A simulation study performed by Purdue University indicated that the Indiana Lane Merge increases travel times, especially under higher volume conditions.” An in depth comparison of early and late merge patterns can be found at
with more info at

So much fuss over an omelet.

I’m sorry but unless you are assisting someone or w/ your kid, you should not use the “Family and Assisted Care Restroom,” which is always separate from the regular mens and womens room, if you are able to use the regular restroom, even w/ a slight wait. It is not an efficient use of resources issue. It would be different if all the other rooms were closed and the nearby ones, too (I’ve been in airports where I’ve had to go to three different restrooms to find one that was actually open). That was not the case here.

That said, johan is correct that there are non-obvious handicaps and I have nil objection to, say, someone who needs to change a dressing on a wound, from using the Family room rather than the regular bathroom.

But I’m unclear on why the sanction was ineffective. The “goggling” does not mean the sanction was ineffective, just unwanted.

Aaron – let’s get back to the ‘why do familes need special toilets’ line. I take it you don’t have small children, so let me explain simply. In a normal toilet you can fit one adult and one small child, if the child isn’t in a buggy, though even then it’s sometimes a squeeze. If you have more than one small child or a buggy, what do you do in a normal toilet cubicle? Leave one or more child outside, leave the buggy outside, or keep the toilet door open? Does it begin to dawn on you why families might want a toilet specially for them to make their life easier? Or do you still think that all that matters is your convenience?

As I said I think family bathrooms are a good idea. What I question is whether or not waiting a few minutes is an example of a noteworthy norm infraction. Do you think a line-up of one that lasts a few minutes is something to write home about?

As I also noted I see the case for avoiding bathrooms with special purposes, but if the bathroom is free it is not necessarily a norm violation to use it. Of course one can do this in a way that amounts to a norm violation, but all these assumptions about the evil motives of people given the situation as described seem a bit too much (to say nothing about the assumptions about me).

Aaron, every time you play down the significance of disabled people being made to wait only a few minutes, you shine a light on your own selfishness, this being the pathetically low price that you would have to pay (and sometimes not even that) if you stuck to the designated bathrooms.

You’re not even a woman, for Christ’s sake. Bar a couple of football matches, the longest I’ve ever had to wait to get into the gents, even at the busiest airport, is…you guessed it…a couple of minutes.

#71: I think the sanction was deemed ineffective for two reasons: primarily, because Kieran felt the guy wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what was said to him by someone smaller than he was; secondarily, because the guy lacked sufficient self-awareness to realize his low status, and to have absorbed the true force of the jibe.

#43: Since you’re so diplomatic and constructive in your remark, allow me a reply. It’s probably fair to assume that someone matching this description had no special need for the designated restroom, and worrying too much about hidden handicaps would deter any kind of policing. So some kind of inquiry, or making the person aware that he inconvenienced someone in need, seems appropriate.

On the other hand, your comment “If this chap did have any of the invisible disabilities discussed on this thread, then he had the perfect opportunity to make Kieran feel about an inch tall and score his own super-double-reverse zinger by revealing this information, rather than shamefacedly sneaking away” is stupid, and makes me want to visit your Starbucks for a single shot. I would think the margin of doubt (e.g., as to a colostomy bag, or what have you) makes it inappropriate to try to embarrass the person, or humiliate them. If you think that someone with a “hidden” disability will be always ready with a zinger in reply (“Well, perhaps you haven’t met Mr. Colostomy! Ta da!”), or that forcing someone to justify themselves that way is costless, you’re not much better than the armband crowd.

This has been an interesting thread. I am taken aback by the number of people who think that their own glancing use of a disabled bathroom is perfectly okay and beyond criticism. At the same time, much of this suggests that those with alternatives (e.g., taking a child into a single-sex restroom and using a stall, or accommodating a “mild” disability within a regular restroom) also have to be on the lookout for who might be inconvenienced.

If you’re such an altruist yourself, why waste your time here?

“Altruist”? I’d wager the majority of warm-blooded, sentient beings with IQs above 70 view the avoidance of reserved facilities no more than minimum acceptable behaviour in a civilised society. I’m quite certain the bar for “altruism” should be set somewhat higher.

That you assert leaving disabled facilities free for use by the, er, disabled qualifies as “altruism”, is not altogether surprising. I’m reminded of how I felt when Liberace finally confirmed he was gay.

I have low expectations of you, abb, which you consistently fail to meet.

In Ireland in busy pubs it is not uncommon for women to resort to the men’s cubicles. By the same token, if I was bursting and the stalls were all full and the disabled one was just sitting there empty, of course I would use it rather than crap myself. This has never yet eventuated because I can normally contain myself till a stall comes free. Remember, folks, you can’t spell “normally” without “norm”.

Holly crap people,

Get serious!

It has never happened to me that a handicapped person has been waiting outside after a quick pee. I realize it could happen, but how often would it need to happen in order for me to change my behavior; namely using HC WCs in large institutional buildings that have lots of HC WCs. Would once a year be enough, once every five years, or once a lifetime? If it starts happen whatever ‘that’ often is I will change behavior, I promise.

The idea that one is being an insensitive dick whenever using a handicapped toilet is just silly. I will agree with the view that one should not do it in a very busy place when another easy options are available. I don’t us HC WCs in airports for example. But it seemed to be the original post was a bit much for the situation, and nobody has given a convincing argument that in his case causing a line of one that lasted a few minutes is a big enough deal to warrant the venom spewed in the comments here over the violator and his impious defenders.

The original post was obviously about a different kind of situation than HC WCs issue generally. In the original example I take it that the case for both scarcity and insensitivity are much better. So I will back peddle a bit on that point.

But do not buy into Brownie’s self-deceptive BS that he is the one that is motivated by the principle of treating other people decently and being moved by their interests and integrity. His behavior here clearly shows the opposite, and a lifetime of sanctimoniously avoiding certain toilettes in the name of consideration despite all evidence to the contrary is not going to change that.

It is not discourteous to use a disabled bathroom when it is free unless another easy option is immediately available.

Oh look it just moved million miles.

In my original post I noted that one needs to show more courtesy when there is a lot of people around , but I have yet to have a problem exercising judgment and have yet to cause anybody any inconvenience. But I guess that is beside the point right… as I why I reacted to the discussion here (which I have explained several times).

“there’s one less inconsiderate plank roaming our ariports and malls, pissing wherever the fancy takes him.”

Is that supposed to be description of my position? It is quite plainly not representative of what I have said. You know lying is not nice?

If anybody bothers to look through your posts they will see a bunch of silly analogies and scenarios, and a pile of unmotivated insults. If you had talked this way to people in public someone would have asked you to get a hold of yourself a long time ago.

When I first saw the title of this post I thought that Geras had written another manifesto.

It is not discourteous to use a disabled bathroom when it is free unless another easy option is immediately available.

Well, Aaron, as I mentioned in my previous comment, this is certainly an improvement on:

It is not discourteous to use a disabled bathroom when it is free and it does not violate any norm that can reasonably be defended.

At least now you’re qualifying your use of reserved facilities. The fact is that, for blokes certainly, easy options are almost always available, even in busy places like airports. In a recent comment you’ve even gone so far as to claim you wouldn’t use disabled bathrooms in an airport, airports qualifying as “busy”. Given the original post was a lament on the use of disabled facilities by an able-bodied person in, um, an airport, and given your first half a dozen comments at least were essentially critical of the post, it is simply absurd for you to claim that your position is more or less unchanged. It’s manifestly and qualitatively different.

That said, I still believe “It is not discourteous to use a disabled bathroom when it is free unless another easy option is immediately available” is indefensible. Firstly, you’ve yet to provide any satisfactory definition of “easy option”, but I’m working on the basis that you mean standard facilities are working at full capacity or at least unreasonably busy. However, you’re claiming in recent comments that you won’t use specialist facilities in “busy” places, but this necessarily means that you will only be using such facilities in non-busy places where there is no alternative “easy option”. Where are these places? “Busy” and “no easy option” tend to go hand in glove. You don’t find lines at the standard facilities in non-busy places, do you? You tend to find them in the busy places in which you’ve agreed you wouldn’t use reserved bathrooms. Regardless, in the unlikely event that these non-busy but no easy options places exist, it must be the case that if there is no easy option for you as an able-bodied person, there is none for others like you. Assuming you are not arrogant enough to believe that you and you alone now have an entitlement to use specialist facilities, we have a situation where every other able-bodied person feels similarly entitled. What sort of impact do you think this replication of behaviour has on the accessibility and availability of the reserved facilities?

Of course, the reality is that most able-bodied will not avail themselves of the reserved facilities, so in truth the impact is likely insignificant (albeit there will certainly be times were such naked selfishness does indeed cause distress). But this is precisely the point: you are entirely dependent on the goodwill of other able-bodied people for your behaviour to have only negligible impact on those who have no option about which facilities to use. Your justification appropriated by the rest of the able-bodied community has only one result. If you don’t see this after a 24 hours of discussion, it’s unlikely you ever will.

Brownie,

AS I have noted several times I was arguing against the idea that there was a general norm against using HC WCs. I was also questioning the severity of the supposed contextual norm infraction in the case originally described.

I did not change my position but made a qualification that was implicit in my original view. I also early on in the discussion distinguished between a general norm and a context specific norm.

I do happen to often use HC WCs without harming anybody (for reasons I have explained). In general people have been offering plausible reasons for why using HC WCs does not necessarily amount to harming the handicapped. You have not respond to this reasoning in an intelligent way. That is why people do not take you seriously.

aaron_m, do you routinely use the women’s toilet if it is closer to you than the men’s? I mean it’s not going to harm anyone, right…? Or is it only HC (“handicapped”, right?) people who get the special privilege of being bumped out of their facility by your sensitive consideration of the rules of established norms?

Kieran et al,

I am a proponent of sanctioning / norm enforcing as social red lights and green lights are ultimately conducive to discourse etc. Intervention however should be appropriate to the situation, and the “enforcer” should trouble himself/herself to understand what motivates the norm-violator.

With respect shared social norms, I am suprised at the thread’s toleration of ascribing attitudes and behavior (and dare one say, class), based on one’s looks or appearances. That slippery slope would seem to be far more dangerous than the original offense.

Intervention however should be appropriate to the situation, and the “enforcer” should trouble himself/herself to understand what motivates the norm-violator.

I take the point, but Kieran was probably more interested in getting his already distressed 3-year old into the toilet that she should have had an opportunity to enter minutes before. Priorities, and all that.

Yes, there’s a remotely possibility the gentleman in question had good reason to be using that facility and upon being challenged for so doing simply chose not to justify his use of it, albeit he could have done so without going into any embarrassing detail. I’d say there’s are rather more likely explanation: it was an Aaron clone who was using the facility because he could.

He’s lucky he escaped with a sarcastic remark, imho.

“The more I read of your justifications, the more convinced I am that it’s a case of wherever and whenever. Yes, you don’t throw disabled people out of cubicles or stand in a queue to access the disabled facilities, but other than that, “if it’s free”, in you go”

Is that what you get from reading my comments or is it from imagining someone you can take out your frustration on.

“How many times is the other option somehwere else?”

Often, not everybody lives at the center of the universe like you. Get some perspective.

“Do you know why you tend not to see lines of disabled people queuing for the bathroom? Because the vast majority of the many times more populous able-bodied community do not use these facilities.”

Empirically false where I am from.

not when you have had a serious stroke they aren’t, Abb1. A lot of people out there with serious stroke-related disabilities – including incontinence – need to be able to use the disabled toilet in there time, not aaron_m’s. Also I might point out that to many people – older people, people recovering from cancer, people with crohn’s disease – bowel problems are essentially a disability, and do require that a toilet be readily available.

The person I know with these disabilities has a carer who obtains maps of toilet facilities online. They have to plan ahead for disabled toilets wherever they go. Regularly in shopping centres, cinemas, libraries they find disabled toilets (and parking spots) in use. In cinemas we have to ask able-bodied people to vacate the chair next to the wheelchair spot. Even though in some of these instances (getting out of the lift, moving from the wheelchair spot) the request is easily made and always granted, it isn’t nice that someone (the disabled person) has to be constantly forced to remind the world that they are “special”. And in the case of disabled parks and toilets, this inconvenience can be quite catastrophic (many people cannot even get out of a car unless it is in the disabled park, for example).

Fair enough, SG, and I’m not suggesting that they should look for a regular parking space. What I often see, however, at least in the US, is a whole row of empty invalid-parking spaces and no other spaces within 500 meter radius. If all I need, for example, is to use an ATM, not being able to use one of those spots is extremely annoying. And this is something you experience regularly, perhaps a few times a week. If the trade-off is that once in a blue moon a disabled person will have to wait in his/her car for 3 minutes (amount of time comparable with waiting for a traffic light), I’ll say it’s a sensible compromise.

Toilets are not that different. See comment 53 above, it describes a rather typical setup with two stalls: one small, the other for the disabled. Assuming that 95% of the visitors are not disabled, we have pretty much the same problem. Again, this is strictly US-specific; we might be talking about two completely different environments here.

kathryn that was a ridiculously ignorant post. Sure “the handicapped” are never at risk of shitting themselves… I imagine your idea of “preventative measures” against this would involve their staying at home where they belong, right? Or did you have some kind of nappy in mind? Fuck…

Actually, “nappies” were exactly what I was politely referring to. If you are incontinent and you cannot wait for a short time for the restroom, then you know this fact about yourself (most likely) and will, like a responsible adult, have taken measures, like adult diapers, to ensure that you do not soil yourself. I am saying that this is what a responsible person does when faced with a medical condition such as this. Additionally, I do not think that incontinence is an issue which warrants the use of a handicapped stall. They are designed, not to be immediately available, like some people are implying, but to be large enough to accommodate wheelchairs, etc.

Also, no one has yet responded to my argument that the situations in which one is justified in using a handicapped stall are ones in which no one (even a handicapped person) has a right to expect an immediately available restroom. Additionally, there are other norms one might think apply to allow the handicapped to move to the front of the line in these circumstances.

The handicapped have requirements which the able-bodied do not, and as a result they have been accommodated for and should be allowed to use these accommodations first when they need to. But there’s no good reason that has been offered (short of the equations of handicapped and incontinence) as to why they should have an immediately available restroom at all times.

none of the toilet Nazis on this thread is arguing that people should pee into their pants whilst standing alongside an empty reserved facility. We’re talking about habitual use which, to my mind, is completely unjustified.

No, we are talking about norms and how there should not be a norm requiring able bodied people to use only non-handicapped facilities if there are none others available. It has been stated over and over again, despite you pretending it hasn’t, that no one is claiming that the able bodied should use handicapped facilities when there are others readily available.

Since I enjoy pouring from the empty into the void as much as the next fellow, I’ll note that the deviation in the thread to “handicapped/ disabled” is a ways from the original description of family/ assisted. I also note that, given the description above of the lengthy process possible that might be involved in an assisted situation (re #91) it’s gratifying that Keiran was waiting for a (supposed) able-bodied person rather than one for whom the room seems to have been designated.

Before anyone breaks down following Kathryn’s gut-wrenching lament, bear in mind that a matter of hours earlier, she lectured the “handicapped” thus:

And last, this talk of the handicapped “shitting” themselves is just offensive. Anyone who cannot wait a few minutes for a restroom stall, handicapped or not, knows full well that they should take preventative measures for situations where they may not be able to immediately use a facility.

Will the real Kathryn please stand up.

Forgive me for not using the most up-to-date politically correct term for people with disabilities. However, not that it matters, but your inference to the conclusion that I know no disabled people is a false one. I don’t think I should parade my friends in front of you to gain permission for my use language. I thought we were having a discussion about norms and rights, but apparently you were holding a secret test of who is least biased based on vocabulary usage. Forgive me my innocent mistake.

If a commenter apepared in a thread and referred to adults under 4ft 6ins as “midgets”, I’d lay money s/he was having little or no interaction with sufferers of dwarfism. If you use a term like “handicapped” and use it as often as you do, I’d say it’s a sure-fire bet you don’t have anything approaching an intimate relationship with anyone disabled. They’d have set you straight by now if you did. I think you’re disabled friends must live in Aaron’s equally mythical non-busy environments in which standard restrooms are curiously unavailable and where he uses the reserved facilities often.

Kathryn, you marked your arrival saying “Brownie, get a hold of yourself” and announced that you’d read the entire thread. You went on to question in the same comment something which was provably false, as anyone who had indeed read the entire thread could have told you. Pardon me, but your slip is showing.

As for “attacking character”, I’m afraid that when commenters proudly announce “I used disabled bathrooms all the time…if it is free I see no reason why one ought not to use it”, then their character becomes an issue. I have no compunction about this. That said, as Aaron has distanced himself from this original claim, so have I refrained from attacking his character.

I’ve contributed more keystrokes to this thread than anyone else. If you want to pretend that they’ve all been expended attacking character and “straw men”, avoiding what you would regard as the issues, I can’t stop you. I have no need to stop you. I’ll put my faith in the literacy of other readers, whether they share my views or otherwise.

My final word: there are exceptional circumstances where use of *any* facility is perfectly justified. Outside this, able-bodied people using specialist facilities is unadulterated selfishness. Shame on you.

Amazin….I score it Brownie 21 points; aaron_m 14 points; abb1 8 points. Kathryn: alway interesting, but took time off in the middle rounds (the pause that refreshes). Perhaps a CT Golden Key Award, opens any airport stall anytime, for tendentiousness, or is it tedium ?