Toilets in Clubs: Why can’t they be better?

by Banana Bread

With three nights to attend in Dalston this evening, I should be very excited; two birthdays and a lesbian night, all in the same little enclave of what an acquaintance referred to as ‘art school Tenerife’. What japes! But I’m facing the evening ahead with apprehension.

I’m not worried about bumping into an ex. I’m not worried about running into an ex’s ex. In fact, turning up to a club and succumbing to the realisation that every single lesbian is doomed to shag then dump one another unceremoniously in a vicious cycle of fingerfucking and butchery is actually quite a thrill.

What really has me dreading a night out east is the prospect of going for a piss. As soon as you visit a bathroom of any club holding host to a lollygaggle of lesbians, you know you’re in for an epic and dangerous journey to rival the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.

First, there’s a queue to contend with. While you’re waiting, the toilets overflow. Your calves strain as you attempt to tiptoe through everyone’s pissy water. People barge past you to get to the broken sinks and cracked mirror. Hairspray gets in your mouth, and if you’re lucky, the smell of piss is slowly consumed by the fug of shitty air and probably some spilt alcopop.

When you do get to the toilet, you succumb to the meanness that has been imposed upon you for the past half an hour. You know what it’s like for the fifteen people outside, clamouring to do something as simple and menial as a wee, you’ve been waiting impatiently in the queue yourself, begging for every cubicle inhabitant to hurry up. But as soon as you’re let into that hallowed cupboard, you want to take full advantage of what you’ve earned. Oh, and remember to drip dry. The toilet paper ran out before the club even opened.

But why are they so awful? Don’t clubs have a duty to let their attendees urinate efficiently?

As women, we’re mostly lucky with toilets; we’re allowed to talk to one another in the powder room, whereas straight men are cold-shouldered when they try to strike up conversation at the urinals. Yes, from Kent to Cumbria from Gower to Dundee, women are free to chatter away to one another in toilets. But when it comes to the bogs in a town with one of the densest concentrations of lesbians in Europe? We’re left to awkwardly shudder at the sight of our own tampons littering the floor. At straight clubs, people who are likely to fancy one another are separated when they visit the toilet. But lesbians all pee in the same place, so please give us a little dignity, club managers. Don’t relegate us to a brightly-lit hallway sodden with indistinguishable liquids while the object of our affection is inside a cubicle vacating her bowels. We think we’re afforded true equality by having access to clubs where we can snog a girl in public without retribution, but when we must all suffer the grim reality of the ablutions in such haunts, are our human rights really being satisfied?

Don’t give us your unisex toilets, where men just wee on the seat and spend extra time in the powder room thanks to cubicle doors. Give us more toilets, cleaner toilets and a she-pee or two. We won’t be afraid to use them.

If you want to see more from Banana Bread – check it out here: Lip Service: Banana Bread’s take on BBC 3′s lez drama

If you want more graphic descriptions of bodily functions, check them out here: Tuesday Top Ten: things to do when periods CLASH

photo: landii