LogFAQs > #910975170

Last January, a court in Dsseldorf, Germany ruled that men have the right to pee standing up. The relevant case was a minor property dispute about whether a landlord should be able to keep his renter's security deposit over piss stains on his marble bathroom floor. But the fact that the landlord appeared to view his tenant's standing urination as a barbaric habit, and the fact that the judge referred to the now-protected position as a formerly dominant custom was telling.

Over the past decade, Germany and a number of other countries have increasingly moved toward a culture of reclining relief. Debates have raged over the merits of the practice, with arguments made on everything from feminist to public health grounds. Yet for all the bombast and backlash around this massive transition, the origins of the modern movement and the prior history of standing male urination remain fairly opaque to almost everyone.

Yet this wasn't just a European trend. In 2007, a poll of married couples in Japan found that 49 percent of wedded men peed sitting down, up from 15 percent in 1999. In 2012, Taiwanese officials began promoting the practice as well. And even in America, the practice has gained a little (yet highly visible) traction with rumors that stars like Ryan Gosling now sit as well.