{"id":3512,"date":"2015-05-02T21:22:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T21:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3512"},"modified":"2016-08-17T05:23:10","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T05:23:10","slug":"what-the-writing-on-the-bathroom-wall-reveals-about-sex-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-the-writing-on-the-bathroom-wall-reveals-about-sex-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"What the writing on the (bathroom) wall reveals about sex and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pamela Leong<\/a>, Salem State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Scrawls, doodles and stylized text adorn the walls of public bathrooms in places ranging from elementary schools to dive bars: poems penned by forlorn lovers, pleas for advice and cartoons meant to elicit chuckles.<\/p>\n

The graffiti is usually anonymous. It\u2019s often personal.<\/p>\n

While bathroom stalls are spaces of privacy, the graffiti is very much aimed at future occupants. And unlike most forms of written communication that appear in public spaces (books, newspapers, even graffiti on buildings), these images and messages are intended for the eyes of the same<\/em> sex.<\/p>\n

As a sociologist, I was curious about the content of the graffiti text and artwork, the patterns in the response and replies \u2013 and whether these responses would vary by gender.<\/p>\n

So I entered ten single-sex bathrooms (five men\u2019s rooms and five women\u2019s rooms) on five floors of a northeastern state university\u2019s academic building. Each bathroom contained multiple enclosed stalls, and I photographed each stall that contained hand-written or hand-drawn graffiti.<\/p>\n

Out of the 202 graffiti collected and analyzed, 59 (29.2%) were in the men\u2019s bathrooms and 143 (70.8%) were in the women\u2019s bathrooms. (This finding seems to contradict reports that females are less inclined to vandalize<\/a>, due to their inclination to conform to social conventions and norms.)<\/p>\n

Poring through the images, I also noticed that the graffiti \u2013 aside from its obvious entertainment value \u2013 contained<\/a> deeply held, gender-specific cultural beliefs.<\/p>\n

Sex, insults and more sex<\/h2>\n

Sexually explicit graffiti mainly populated the men\u2019s bathroom stalls, as did humorous graffiti. There was also no shortage of insults.<\/p>\n

In fact, insults comprised the largest category of graffiti in the men\u2019s bathrooms, and characterized much of the response and replies to images. These slights often centered on evaluations of the artistry and accuracy of the sketches; a drawing of a topless woman, for instance, received the critique, \u201cNice rack but man, only a face a mother can love. Shessh!!\u201d<\/p>\n

A separate sketch of a vagina elicited a number of disparaging comments. One person felt the drawing resembled more of a silverfish insect than a vagina. Others insulted not the image\u2019s artistic integrity, but personally attacked the artist. Another lobbed insults against the artist\u2019s mother (\u201cWell it is your mom\u2019s pussy\u201d), while one respondent claimed to have had intercourse with the artist\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The doodles in the men\u2019s bathroom stalls were overwhelmingly sexual in nature, with rudimentary sketches of women\u2019s breasts frequently drawn, followed by sketches of gigantic penises and female genitalia. Of the 59 distinct images or text appearing in men\u2019s bathrooms, only three were of a nonsexual nature: a doodle of a cat up to bat, a goateed male face and a marijuana joint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In the author\u2019s study, most of the graffiti in men\u2019s bathroom was sexual in nature \u2013 in fact, an image of a joint was only one of three images that were non-sexual.<\/span>
\ntorbakhopper\/flickr<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Support, poetry and\u2026poop?<\/h2>\n

In contrast to the male graffiti, female graffiti contained fewer vulgarities and sexual content. A tiny sketch of a penis pointing to verses from Psalm 23:4 was the only sexually explicit drawing. On the other hand, flowers, stars, faces \u2013 along with poetry and advice in stylized, swirly font \u2013 were prevalent.<\/p>\n

Curiously, female graffiti contained more scatological content than the men\u2019s graffiti did. Such graffiti included explanations for what caused the artist to defecate (coffee, the campus dining service), references to flatulence, and the obvious: that they were currently on the commode and, in some cases, were in the process of defecating (\u201cSitting on the toilet Hahahah\u201d).<\/p>\n

Although this finding was unexpected, health studies<\/a> do<\/em> suggest that women are both more knowledgeable and more forthcoming about health matters and bodily changes than are men. Gender differences in health disclosures and the reporting of health symptoms and physical manifestations could explain why there were more scatological content in female graffiti.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Budding poets abound in women\u2019s rooms.<\/span>
\nJo Morcom\/flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are also cultural assumptions about femininity, which demand that women suppress open discussion of their bowel movements.<\/a>. However, in all-female spaces \u2013 away from the male gaze and surveillance \u2013 women may resist these cultural pressures through explicit dialogue about fecal matters, a freedom traditionally allotted to men.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, philosophical and poetic graffiti dominated the graffiti of women\u2019s bathrooms, followed by supportive graffiti and relationship-oriented graffiti. In sharp contrast to the insults that dominated the chain graffiti in men\u2019s bathrooms, the response and replies in women\u2019s bathrooms tended to be supportive of the original artist. Absent were insults.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Graffiti in women\u2019s bathrooms tended to be more supportive.<\/span>
\nQuinn Dombrowski\/flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Replies included affirmations, such as \u201cAMEN!,\u201d \u201cThank you\u201d and \u201cThat was deep. Keep preaching sister!!!\u201d Some responses offered emotional support (\u201cIt will be [better]. I promise. Don\u2019t ever give up.\u201d), while others expressed shared understanding: \u201cSame here,\u201d \u201cSamesies\u201d and \u201cMine too.\u201d<\/p>\n

While insults did not typically occur in female graffiti, there were corrections. Replies to the posting \u201cNothing is forever\u2026except for love\u201d included various corrective quips: \u201c+ herpes! LOL\u201d; \u201cExcept God\u201d; and \u201clol tattoos are.\u201d<\/p>\n

One person wrote, \u201cLove, it is the greatest thing to the human race,\u201d which was similarly met with (humorous) responses and corrections, including: \u201cCan I return it?\u201d; \u201cLove is not a gift\u2026It\u2019s a privilege that must be earned, nourished, and respected\u2026\u201d; and \u201cWrong, Love is something humans made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does it all mean?<\/h2>\n

As a whole, bathroom graffiti seem to reinforce gender expectations, although there were occasional breaches of \u2013 even resistance to \u2013 some of these expectations (almost exclusively in female bathroom stalls).<\/p>\n

Above all, bathroom graffiti messages convey male desire to maintain the masculine hierarchy. Insults, expletives and masculine bravado, as well as pictorial depictions of masculinity through drawings of erect penises, all serve as symbols of masculinity<\/a> \u2013 markers that identify the graffiti artist as strong, powerful, competitive and sexually competent.<\/p>\n

In their responses to certain images or phrases, men evaluated and regulated one another\u2019s behaviors. If a male graffiti author expressed emotional turmoil, he was met not with supportive messages, but with a barrage of unrelenting insults. Power dynamics, therefore, are evident even in seemingly anonymous, unmoderated spaces \u2013 even without the physical presence of others.<\/p>\n

The policing, however, was absent in the women\u2019s bathrooms, which was consistent with the overall tone of the women\u2019s bathroom stalls: cooperative, supportive, encouraging and generally free of aggression and competition. There is a sense of female solidarity expressed on the women\u2019s bathroom stall walls (a solidarity that was conspicuously absent in the men\u2019s bathroom stalls).<\/p>\n

Since the date of the original data collection, some walls have been painted over, revealing new graffiti; in other cases, old graffiti remain, with new ones cropping up.<\/p>\n

What remains unchanged, however, are the cultural messages about gender, and the intense enforcement of hypermasculinity.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pamela Leong, Salem State University Scrawls, doodles and stylized text adorn the walls of public bathrooms in places ranging from elementary schools to dive bars: poems penned by forlorn lovers, pleas for advice and cartoons meant to elicit chuckles. The graffiti is usually anonymous. It\u2019s often personal. While bathroom stalls are spaces of privacy, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":6440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6441,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3512\/revisions\/6441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}