WHY YOU SHOULD LEAVE THE SEAT UP

WHY YOU SHOULD LEAVE THE SEAT UP If a man leaves the seat down when he urinates, there is a very good chance that he will “splash.” If the seat is upright, then any errant droplets will be on the rim. Therefore, if a woman enters a bathroom and sees the seat up, she is guaranteed that when she lowers it, she will have a sterile seat for her own use. I discovered a fascinating 2002 study, “Up or Down? A Male Economist’s Manifesto on the Toilet Seat Etiquette” written by Jay Pil Choi an economist at Michigan State (https://www.msu.edu/~choijay/etiquette.pdf), that analyzed mathematically why the toilet seat should be left up. His final economic analysis looks like this: Vuf =fMaxó− cf + óuf [ä{áVdm + (1−á)Vdf }] + (1−á)Vdf }] + (1−óuf )[− cf + ä{áVdm + (1−á)Vdf }]f and makes sense after one reads the entire 18 page investigation. He was very clever in pointing out that if the seat is left in the down position, a man must lift the seat up and then put it down when he is done. He has two steps to perform; while a woman only has one to perform if she has to lower the seat and does not return it to the original and upright position. His opening remarks in his treatise say, “ I show that the “selfish” or the “status quo” rule that leaves the toilet seat in the position used dominates the down rule in a wide range of parameter spaces including the case where the inconvenience costs are the same. The intuition for this result is easy to understand. Imagine a situation in which the aggregate frequency of toilet usage is the same across genders, i.e., the probability that any visitor will be male is ½. With the down rule, each male visit is associated with lifting the toilet seat up before use and lowering it down after use, with the inconvenience costs being incurred twice. With the selfish rule, in contrast, the inconvenience costs are incurred once and only when the previous visitor is a member of different gender. The worst case under the selfish rule would occur when the sex of the toilet visitor strictly alternates in each usage. Even in this case, the total inconvenience costs would be the same as those under the down rule if the costs are symmetric.” Why all the talk of returning something to its original and upright position? Because Japan’s All Nippon Airways announced that starting in March all international flights will have a women-only lavatory after a survey of women fliers identified it as the second most attractive service they desired with the first being offered desserts.

"We received many comments that having a women-only lavatory would be a factor in differentiating our airline from others," said an ANA spokesman. The spokesman denied that the new service was introduced following complaints about men soiling the bathrooms, telling AFP news, "Those opinions may exist, but we do not have that data on hand." Since 2006 ANA has pursued a one-month awareness campaign each year in which it asks domestic fliers to visit the bathroom before boarding to reduce their body weight and therefore cut the plane's carbon-dioxide emissions.

According to CNN, “One women-only lavatory will be designated in the rear section of the passenger cabin and will display a pink version of the universal sign for a ladies' room as a way to let male travelers know to look for another option. Women can still use any other lavatory. While restricting men from using the women-only bathroom, the airline has spelled out exceptions to the rule, such when required for safety reasons or when a passenger is not feeling well or when there are very few female passengers and the women-only designation has been lifted for the flight."

To repeat an earlier statement- All Nippon Airways is making this change because a survey of women fliers identified it as the second most attractive service they desired with the first being offered desserts. What kind of survey could this have been to get such stupid answers? There must have been a finite list of (a), (b), and (c) choices for one to choose from because otherwise in a survey of what one would like changed in an airline, the first choice would have to be more leg and arm room. Who would choose a free dessert instead of more space? An illustrious institute like the Pew Center for Research must not have been involved or All Nippon would have gotten better survey results. Sounds more like the Pepe Le Pew Center did the study.

In Judaism, chazakah is the Halachic (law) status of permanence that is established when an event repeats itself three times. So if a man leaves the seat up three times and the woman does nothing; then “seat up” is what becomes accepted as correct.

Since men and women are heterogeneous (consisting of dissimilar elements or parts) their use of the equipment in the bathroom is quite different. So who will win the war in the “up” or “down” battle? Probably the hermaphrodite; because they can go either way.