This urinal, shaped like a woman's mouth, was located near Vienna's national opera in Austria. But it won't be there much longer--politicians have demanded its removal because they think it is sexist.
"We think that it's tasteless, misogynistic and offensive," Marianne Lackner, media spokeswoman for the Vienna Department of Women's Affairs told The Associated Press.
But according to this Yahoo news piece, the urinals have been around for 3 years. So, why all the fuss now?
Apparently, a McDonalds in Amsterdam also had a few of these urinals, and was also pressured to remove them back in July of this year. And Virgin Air was forced to scrap plans in 2004 to install two of these urinals at John F. Kennedy airport after complaints.
They are the work of Dutch woman Meike van Schijndel. She is the designer at the Utrecht-based firm Bathroom Mania. Speaking to Expatica in 2004, she said the urinals were designed as a fun cartoon mouth and not as a woman's mouth.
She stressed that the idea her urinals represented a man peeing into a woman's mouth never occurred to her, nor to many men and women she had spoken to. Her company was inundated with orders after the Virgin Airlines controversy, Van Schijndel said
Come on, these are funny. And since when is art suppost to conform to political correctness? By its very nature, art is meant to push boundaries and provoke thought. If a creation does that, shouldn't it be considered a success rather than over the line?
Maybe they should just even the score and put a male mouth in the women's bathroom.............
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lol....Don't mind the prudes.
It lacks realism. As an added feature the lips should close when flushed.
So? What's wrong with being sexy?
I have lots and lots of great funny and pity comments, that sadly, my prudishness does not allow me to write in a public forum, but you are right, these are kind of cool.
I could see this being HUGE in Japan.
As for a male mouth, wouldn't it need a tongue sticking out that the woman sits on?
"It lacks realism. As an added feature the lips should close when flushed."
Now, that's a VERY bad idea if I ever saw one. I can easily imagine guys getting stuck in there by not "retracting" fast enough, or by being too drunk to see the damn trap closing on them, or by simply being distracted by how frigging cool the thing looks to actually realize the danger. (Not to mention malfunctions.)
Embarassing emergency calls, permanent maimings and lawsuits may follow, a whole new chapter in bad bar stories is almost guaranteed, and an entry in the Darwin Awards book is certain.
;-)
If life didn't pose challenges, we'd have nothing to talk about in our old age.
The Lips that almost got me.....
Rather than a male mouth in the women's lavatory, what response would have occurred if the urinals in the men's room were in the shape of a male mouth (with mustache)?