VERITY LUSH: There's not much relief in the idea of women's urinals

A German team, led by a toilet specialist, has been designing a urinal for women.
Men simply stand, jiggle about, and walk out (Shutterstock)Men simply stand, jiggle about, and walk out (Shutterstock)
Men simply stand, jiggle about, and walk out (Shutterstock)

It always appears laughable

to most females that I know,

that men go and merrily whip out their equipment in front of one another, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, and have the opportunity to watch their peeing partner’s urine stream hit the basin.

Presumably, if said partner is a touch dehydrated, then they can have an even more encompassing experience, including that of their olfactory senses.

Yuck.

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It is also frustrating that the queue for the women’s loos is always akin to the butcher’s shop on Christmas Eve.

We stand for an age, waiting to go, while men pop in, jiggle about, and stroll back out.

I’m not sure if that includes a hand wash or not, and maintain a suspicion that some may be remiss.

Yuck, again.

The women’s urinal is being designed in order to negate some of these issues.

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However, the description of it involves squatting over a basin with your back facing the wall.

Umm, I’m no toilet specialist myself, and maybe I’ve been using one wrong all these years. But, aside from the issue of whether or not one allows one’s bottom cheeks to make contact with the porcelain of the public lav, is it not massively similar to a standard loo?

I have no concept of how this will make things quicker, unless these will be crammed along a wall without the privacy of screens or doors in between.

If that’s the case – and I think I speak for the majority of women here – the female urinal is not going to prove a popular concept.

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The fact that Miss Selfridge had communal changing rooms in the 90s was bad enough.

The mortification of stumbling around, blind with your bum hanging out, while trying to remove a too-tight-top over your head, has scarred many a millennial.

But actually squatting down, shoulder-to-shoulder with a stranger, and trying to even produce a wee, sounds like a special kind of hell, and not one that I shall be visiting in the near future.

IF YOU’RE CAUGHT SHORT, THEN AN ALLEYWAY WILL HAVE TO DO

On the subject of urinat ing and the difference between men and - women, there has been a national outcry about a Dutch woman being fined for having a wee in an alley in Amsterdam.

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The poor woman was on her way back from a night out, everywhere was closed.

And the only option was to go in a secluded alleyway while her friends kept guard.

Given that she may have wet herself otherwise, this seems reasonable in dire circumstances when there is no other option.

Alas, she was caught – by three policemen, no less. Then fined and told that she should have used the men’s facilities.

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Given the obvious difficulties involved with that (see main column!), I suspect a man made that suggestion.

AT £200,000 A CHILD, I COULD BUY ANOTHER HOUSE INSTEAD

Two weeks into term and, excluding new uniform costs, I have totalled up approximately £70 between two children and their school trips and tech lessons.

Add to this the costs of extra-curricular clubs, goodness knows what for a birthday party, and then presents for the birthday girl, and you can start to see why it apparently costs more than £200,000 to raise one child.

One child!

When your kids are babies, they are relatively cheap in comparison.

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That’s until you put them in childcare and have cold hard cash exhorted from your eyeballs for the pleasure.

A nursery place can easily cost you around £1,000 a month – the equivalent of a mortgage, except with nothing to own at the end of it.

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