A crowd of more than 20 men and boys anxiously waited in a line at noon Friday calling for the guys in front of them to hurry up.
One man nervously looked toward the head of the line.
“How much longer?” he asked the men ahead of him.
Another man stretched his neck to try to see around the bend in the line.
“Once you make it through that first door, you’re almost in,” he said to comfort his linemate’s worries.
But these anxious guys were not lined up to enter Tiger Stadium for the Arkansas game. They were waiting in line for the men’s public restroom at the Athletic Ticket Office.
A man in his 60s waited more patiently and told stories from his younger days about public restrooms.
“When I was about your age, I could get it done a lot faster,” he joked with two 20-something college students. “I feel sorry for who ever’s behind me.”
To women, the older man’s comments might sound merely like crude bathroom humor.
But most women are inexperienced when it comes to situations in men’s restrooms and are unfamiliar with what many men refer to as “the unspoken rules” men abide by when relieving themselves.
Michael Sykes, President and CEO of the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette located in Stanford, Calif., started a Web site to help educate men on the do’s and don’ts of relieving themselves in public restrooms.
“I don’t ever want to stop educating people as long as there is a single man who doesn’t quite get what’s going on,” Sykes said via e-mail. “I do however think that most men have at least a rudimentary grasp of the general concepts of urinal etiquette.”
At www.icbe.org, Sykes and his staff have forums for discussion of instances of improper bathroom etiquette as well as answers to frequently asked questions ranging from whether talking is appropriate in the bathroom to a strategic plan for which urinal to stand at.
Sykes says on the site that talking while waiting to go into a restroom is OK, but some male University students disagreed.
Steve Jarreau, a mass communication sophomore, said his practice is to never talk.
“I keep quiet,” he said. “I might give a head nod – no spoken language.”
Another unspoken rule according to the ICBE and many University men is to never use a urinal directly beside another man.
“I just know you’ve got peripheral vision, and I wouldn’t want to see anything down there,” Jarreau said. “I find a spot on the wall and look at it.”
ICBE suggests on its Web site that compromises in etiquette are made at large gatherings of men such as an LSU football game. Compromises include men peeing right beside each other because of long lines.
Peeing in Tiger Stadium means using “troughs” – multi-user urinals that resemble livestock feeding troughs.
Jonathan Stock, a mechanical engineering sophomore, said using troughs does not bother him, but he knows other men who don’t like to use them.
“I’m not paranoid, but it’s no place to socialize,” he said. “You do what you’ve got to do.”
On the Web site Sykes says troughs are “difficult to manage within the realm of proper urinal etiquette.”
“Troughs are scary!” Sykes said. “Personally I would rather pee behind a bush than use a trough.”
One rule that seemed to hold true for the ICBE and University males prohibited wandering eyes or “peekers.”
Stock said he had never been the victim of awkward glances, but said people would “think stuff about you” you if you took a peek at another guy urinating.
Sykes suggested punishment for peekers.
“You could always pee on him,” he said. “Actually scratch that – it would only give him a better look.”
Sykes said the ICBE does not advocate violence.
“Peekers are usually harmless,” he said.
Understanding the norms of men’s bathroom behavior was a difficult subject to analyze.
University men said they practice the unspoken etiquette because it has always been that way, and ICBE staff said bathroom etiquette is simply common courtesy.
Jarreau said he knows bathroom etiquette for women is different.
“We get in and get out and continue conversations afterward,” he said. “For women it’s like a break – a ‘rest’ room.”
Cassie Palmer, an education sophomore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, was at LSU Monday to take an upper division test for education majors.
Palmer said she was unfamiliar with any rules for men’s bathrooms but had an idea of why men had rules.
“Guys size each other up,” she said.
Lauren Burleigh, a business management senior, said she knows about the rules because she grew up with four brothers and heard their discussions.
Burleigh said men are more self-conscious because their restrooms have less privacy than women’s.
“[Women] don’t have to pee in front of each other,” she said.