You know outside of the US most countries bathrooms stalls actually work / fit / don't have peekaboo gaps?
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Yes, and we're incredibly envious of it every time it comes up :(
Al I thought this was a reference to the Greenland MP (I think?) I heard on NPR this morning. He was asked if he thinks the US Government is fascist and he said "if you see a piece of wood with hinges on it, you start to ask if its a door" or something like that
Every time what comes up? Your peekaboo?
Peekapoo*
In a lot of public stalls in Japan, the outer end of the door is rounded. And the wall it connects to when closed is concaved. So even though there’s a gap to allow the door to open and close freely, there no direct line of sight.
That sounds like it would cost 5¢ more to manufacture and install. Won’t someone think of the shareholders?
It's crazy how so many things like this just add up to a shitty life experience in general... Like every single product we use regularly has had its features and design strengths pared down year after year until we're left with a thing that barely does the things it originally did, and it somehow costs more than ever.
If it's just one or two things, it's annoying. But when it's literally everything, it just makes life shit. Capitalism has ruined this planet.
That sounds awesome. Love cool designs like that.
Don't most doors just close against the frame so there's no line of sight without the need for the cool design?
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America? America.
The rest of the world somehow manages to make doors the size of the frame that go pretty much to the floor.
Just the USA, not all of America
In America, the reason is basically “religion”. There are architectural standards which designers refer to for guidance, and the dude who did the architectural standard for restrooms was super hardcore religious. His standard called for big gaps in all the seams, to prevent people from masturbating in the stalls. Basically, he wanted people to be able to peek into stalls, as a sort of modesty check. And eventually, it just became accepted as normal, even though everyone (including Americans who were born and raised with them as the standard) hates the huge gaps.
In modern day, they’re mostly done to deter drug use. I guess the reasoning is similar, with the large gaps intended to allow people to peek into the stalls and see if someone is doing drugs.
If the goal is to allow observation, what's the point in having doors and cubicles at all?
For what it's worth regardless of how it started, it's now enforced by ADA as an accessibility compliance issue, so that a wheelchair users feet can get under the stall door so they can get close enough to reach the latch. Seems like a stretch to me but I'm not a wheelchair user
Sure that explains the bottom gap, but the side gaps are the issue. I've never made eye contact with a grown man that's crawled under my stall. I have made eye contact with someone walking by the stall door through the door crack.
I’ve never made eye contact with a grown man that’s crawled under my stall.
Oh god, for some reason I just pictured this but in the style of the artwork of Junji Ito. Nightmare fuel.
Yeah that's a really good point, one of the bathrooms at my work is particularly egregious and I'm about to buy and install a privacy thing to cover the gap at this point, there's a legit 2" gap between the wall and the stall, and it's right by the door to the bathroom so it's inevitable that you'll make eye contact with someone as they're walking out, so that stall never gets used and instead the wheelchair accessible stall next to it is always used
If there's a coat hanger on the inside of the door, sometimes hanging a big coat (or something else) can cover the gaps. I've done it unintentionally.
I'm not sure what kinda gymnastics the wheelchair user's got to be doing to get on the shitter once they've rolled themselves into a stall backwards... Or why it's only after a shit that they can't use doors
once they’ve rolled themselves into a stall backwards…
I think ADA also requires handicapped stalls to be larger so they don't have to do this.
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Yeah, here in Germany we usually have kinda big (30cm or so) openings at the bottom and at the top, but it's impossible to accidentally look through those due to their position.
The side openings of the doors are usually completely closed or it's a very small slit, you definetly cannot look through them.
I think it's meant to stop people from shooting up and/or fucking and/or falling asleep and/or dying in stalls.
It is fucking annoying though.
Why not let people fuck though?
Because they invariably never clean up after themselves...
But mostly, in the US, because sex is verboten and more dangerous than literal gun violence.
Just put anti-homeless spikes on the toilet seats
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This is absolutely by design, and it is so users can be provided the absolute minimum of Privacy-ish^tm^, but also explicitly so that management can easily verify if a stall is occupied in case any poors/junkies are camping out in there.
It's also so that public bathroom facilities can be spray-down, and you can wedge a brush in the gaps easily without there being crevices for mold/mildew and other... substances... to remain in.
... except the recently renovated bathrooms at the Denver Public Library have individual locking shit-shacks with communal sinks. It's not like junkies avoid the DPL, they have a box of Narcan bolted to the outside of the building.
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It’s for surprise genital examinations to ensure you’re not trans /s
Does anyone else remember that very brief window where places like highway oases were putting in stalls where the door and walls only went up about halfway to the ceiling, making it so that if you were taking a dump, everyone could just watch you from the chest up?
Did people just slowly turn to the other people to make eye contact while blastin a dook?
It was a long time ago, my memory is hazy, but I walked in and walked right back out.
Sheesh, I just imagine imagine happening to walk past around the time some hairy slob is standing up to wipe his ass.
Thankfully I must have avoided whatever business were doing this.
However, I have had the experience of attending schools that had weird urinal designs.
There was one where the urinals looked like regular toilets but without tanks or lids. They also didn’t have dividers and were placed in a position where anyone walking in the bathroom or using the sink got a full view.
There were other schools that had the “trough.” Just a six foot long piss bucket.
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US moment
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