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The arrival of the dreaded American-style loos in the UK.
Posted by Peter B on 7/2/2010, 5:59 pm
I recently visited a public convenience on the Embankment in London, adjacent to the Embankment tube station. I was horrified to find that, although I had to pay 50p to use the facility, the cubicles had saloon-bar type doors – just like the ones in the USA.
Although, unlike the American ones they are lockable, the door only covers about half the height of the opening. Any average size adult can easily look over the door and there is a very wide gap at the bottom.
When I visited the facility it was not particularly crowded so I was able to urinate, albeit with difficulty. However, I also suffer very badly from Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I found it impossible to defecate under such exposed circumstances. I shudder to think what it would be like if the room was crowded and people were looking over the doors to see when people would be ready to vacate the cubicles.
I would be interested to here if any of my fellow Paruresis sufferers have experienced this new abomination and what you think of it.
Re: The arrival of the dreaded American-style loos in the UK.
I too have seen this type of toilet and must say it also gives me a lot of problems trying to properly use it as I also get the same worry of someone peering over the door to see if anyones using the loo.
If that happened to me I would be totally thrown from going to the toilet and would totally lock up. It's almost like they design the toilets that way on purpose just to cause us problems!
I'm glad someone else also noticed this problem! They need to consider us a bit more!