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Chicago made history last year when city parents entertained design proposals to architecturally note the homosexual contribution to building that burg's big shoulders. Predictable opposition to anything "too gay" left the Windy City's North Halsted district with multi-colored accents meant to signal rainbow pride that could equally as well be the color scheme kicking off a new line of clothing or a bank opening.

But Chicago's proposal and redesign process did spark an intriguing debate: just what does "gay architecture" look like? What would be the indicators of a gay-designed city? Does DC's Washington monument suggest anything about the proclivities of designer Robert Mills? Are Toronto's and Seattle's towering needles meant to signal civic priapism? Do glass-curtained buildings bring a wall of head-turning mirrors down to pedestrian level in order to facilitate on-street cruising?

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Or would good gay design evince itself in more substantive ways? Surely a well-drawn city infused with gay ethos would encourage the loitering and pedestrian mingling that so many municipalities now seek to discourage and tightly regulate. Gone would be Mayor Giuliani's park and street spy-cameras. Curfews would be repugnant. Open-air markets and street musicians would be encouraged with wide sidewalks and generous subsidies. Police would patrol to protect, not harass. All-night eateries and establishments would be welcomed. And full accessibility would be everywhere evident: curb cuts and ramps would welcome wheelchairs and strollers, cross walks would talk to the ill-sighted, and public transportation would be free.

Surely gay design would encourage people to connect carnally as well as commercially (and would recognize that the two are not mutually exclusive). Promenades would encourage al fresco "shopping," and suitably nook-and-crannied parks would offer space to connect and "close the deal."

Truly gay urban design, thus, would have as a prime directive catering to people's social wants and needs. And while including recognition of the biological imperative to get it on sexually may be a challenge for the uptight, liberationist planners have at their disposal an enormously powerful tool to force more open-minded consideration of pro-libido city design: the promise of more and better public bathrooms.

The toilets of tomorrow

Camille Paglia has suggested that feminism signaled its demise when its leaders revealed their Puritanism by attacking Playboy. Instead of recognizing the bunny's liberationist message that the girl-next-door could like sex without being a trashed as a slut, Gloria Steinam, et al, labeled playmates of the month as exploited victims, essentially calling them stupid sluts. Indeed, this insistence on lady-like behavior has crippled much of the sexual liberation movement. And ill-advised reverence to proper gender roles is revealed in another debacle of "feminism."

When the Equal Rights Amendment was gathering momentum in the mid-70s, Steinam's sister lady Phyllis Schlafly elevated herself (with help from fundamentalist patriarchs) to national gadfly status by charging that the 52-word amendment was a plot to force communist-inspired unisex bathrooms on God-fearing Americans. She invited her audiences to imagine the inevitable horrors if males and females were required to defecate in adjoining stalls. Her crusade was remarkably effective at putting ERA proponents on the defensive. "Oh, no," they lamely countered, "that's not what this is all about."

Well, why not? Unisex toilets would address one of women's most common complaints: inadequate places to pee. But ERA backers were fearful of appearing to endorse the very challenge to gender segregation and sexual propriety they should have been trumpeting. The time has come for the gay movement, itself beset with "leaders" eager to appease the sexually uptight, to not only seize the initiative by campaigning for toilet equality, but to lead our culture to a new vision of what public bathrooms can be.

More than just a T-room

A campaign for better public toilets would start with the demand that the "W" and "M" signs, akin to the "White" and "Colored" placards of Jim Crow America, come down. An end to steering people to their proper places would serve myriad civic and practical goals: women would have relatively more facilities at their disposal, small businesses would be spared the expense of over-installing segregated plumbing, and the transgendered among us would find bodily comfort in their new equality.

But the benefits of gay-designed toilets wouldn't have to be limited to making laudable-- and practical-- political statements about gender parity. Our T-room aficionados could serve as a perfect focus group to test ideas aimed at making public bathrooms more fun to use.

First must come the recognition that we simply need more public restrooms. Fear of the homeless and modesty about eliminatory functions are not acceptable excuses for transforming those with small bladders or stricken with diarrhea into agoraphobes. And even the tautest sphincters and most voluminous waste-waiting organs don't alleviate the nervousness felt by many when venturing into America's poorly-facilitated cities. It need not be so! More public toilets would mean a less anxious nation, and a grateful people would thank whoever brought them such relief.

William Butler Yeats reminds us that "Love has pitched his mansion in/The place of excrement," and gay designers would not ignore that our excretory components beg for more than one kind of relief. It makes enormous sense, therefore, to formalize both in design and mission the sexual function of bathrooms.

A wonderland of pee and play

Presently, design elements making for a good sex bathroom are confined to A) a noisy door and/or lengthy entrance corridor to provide warning, B) stalls that balance privacy with peep-potential, and C) good sight lines. A more liberated, gayer approach to bathroom design reveals virtually infinite room for improvement.

Stalls would remain available for the pee-shy, but gone would be urinals flanked by absurd modesty panels. (An exception might be Barcelona's airport bathrooms wherein clear glass urinal partitions mock their supposed function by inviting peeping, a brilliant example of form imploding function.) Instead, pee-ers would be invited to show off against water-rinsed walls and communal gutters. Twelve-person circular troughs sporting center flushing fountains would draw urinary exhibitionists and admiring voyeurs. Establishments with the suitable wherewithal could install Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions that sent balls rolling and bells ringing when stainless steel beakers were filled to the appropriate level by well-aimed urethras. And women need not be excluded from the merriment: with the right labia-spreading technique, most can pee standing-up, a fact lost on the many who've not seen the female urinals now growing in popularity in Europe.

Though unwalled, military-style toilets should be offered for those who get off on shitting in front of others, a variety of stall designs should be available to the more reticent. The usual inter-toilet partitions that stop sixteen inches from the floor would allow for the sitting, splayed leg gift to a neighbor that T-room traditionalists might continue to enjoy, but such acrobatics would be unnecessary with the introduction of the "honeymoon gloryhole," or HMGH. Every adjoining stall would have a well-carved, smooth-edged, appropriately heighted hole equipped with a soft-spring-loaded cover that pops shut whenever the stall door is closed. The HMGH between two stall users, thus, would initially begin with its two covers in the closed position. Both parties would have to slide the cover and latch it open for the HMGH to function, thereby avoiding any complaints of unwanted attention.

European-style floor-to-ceiling walls and doors would provide not only more privacy, but would allow for couplings (and triplings, etc.) that are impractical or impossible with the HMGH alone. Such stalls could also be offered with handrails and a simple bench but without the cumbersome toilet for those restroom goers who make no pretense of wanting to shit.

A more perfect union

Turning all toilets into full-service facilities would drastically boost workers' productivity as fewer hours would be wasted waiting for no-show nookie, and assignations could be more efficient since there'd be no need for fornicators to scramble into poses of elimination when the outside door opens.

And employment opportunities would abound with such a plumbing revolution. Correct mirror placement, appropriate color schemes, efficient layout, and clear multi-lingual signage would be all-the-more important as an appreciative public clamored to access the new "comfort stations"-- a boon to interior designers. Elderly citizens looking to supplement their meager pensions could pocket extra money serving as attendants, ready with extra toilet paper, baby wipes, condoms, lube, and-- catering to cock (and pussy!) hounds camping out for the day-- refreshing beverages and nutritious snacks.

Of course, innovation would be inevitable as commercial establishments and tourist-hungry municipalities competed for comfort station patrons; the market niche is bound to grow. Public showers would probably be an early adjunct, and here again, the gay touch is called for. Communal (co-ed, of course!) shower rooms could open onto corridors with small, loosely-curtained showers on either side. Showerees could, thus, select the desired degree of exhibitionism, and-- as with the HMGH-- no one could complain of unwanted attention so the uptight could be told to shut up.

Eventually, metropolitan toilets will come to resemble well-laid-out bathhouses. And with gender-integrated facilities, the best of ancient Rome and modern gay culture would be afforded to the entire society. There are bound to be naysayers-- today's bathhouse owners will undoubtedly carp, but they will, like the auto industry, simply have to adapt to survive. Protectionist whining must not halt our campaign for better, gayer bathrooms. Let us build them both to create a more commodious present, and to cause future archeologists brushing the dust off an HMGH device to exclaim, "Now here were people who knew how to live!"

Author Profile:  French Wall
French Wall is the managing editor of The Guide
Email:	french@guidemag.com