Locker or leaver: what's your loo door policy?
I wonder where you’re reading this – at the breakfast table, perhaps, or on your commute, or even, whisper it, on the loo, that little private sanctuary for so many of us. Except Claudia Winkleman, that is, who operates an open door policy on her bathrooms at home, revealing this week that she doesn’t have a single lock inside her house because, as she puts it, “why would you?”
Her loo-ssaiz-faire attitude to bathroom-going extends beyond her own four walls too, she explained, as she leaves cubicle doors unlocked when out with friends. “I’d never close a door. I’d never lock a cubicle,” the Strictly Come Dancing presenter told Sali Hughes in an interview posted on the beauty journalist’s website. “I’m chatting, there’s stuff to say,” she added.
Though her attitude to public lavatory use may land her in the minority, the notion of locking the door on one’s own bathroom seems to have created an even split, with most falling firmly into one of two camps: lockers and leavers.
And so, I must out myself as a locker of the highest degree; a sufferer of bathroom shame which, as an American, may seem at odds with Brits’ view of our let-it-all-hang-out mien. I’ve cancelled trips, even, on finding out that they would necessitate sharing a bathroom with “up to four” others.
Where this aversion began, I don’t know, but my own household certainly hasn’t helped: living in a place full of men, doors might be closed (on a good day) – but only as an afterthought, and as for remembering to flush... that’s another matter entirely. There are endless toilet jokes made at the breakfast table, too, but I know that, even for my 22 and 24-year-old, operating a Winkleman-style door policy would be a step too far.
Historically speaking, privacy in a bathroom is almost posh. Families used to share one pot, with only the very wealthy having the means to go behind locked doors, while in Roman times, lavatories were constructed on long benches where locals chatted as they did their business. (This is still the case in some parts of China).
It’s only since the 18th century, really, that locks began appearing on doors – something for which I remain eternally grateful. Yet now, we live in a time where every intimate thought is shared on social media, so perhaps it makes sense that our bathroom habits should be out in the open as well.
Add to the mix that most of us are now surgically attached to our smartphones, which provide a whole new kind of bathroom entertainment, and everything we thought we knew about the loo has surely become but dust.
This can, however, do nothing for romance. My husband would be utterly horrified if he ever stumbled in on me doing my business, and I feel the same way: I have lived in both Italy and in France, where women take a great deal of trouble to maintain a certain mystique, and a French woman would never allow a man to see her doing her ablutions, ever.
Not even a tinkle. She would never conduct family conversations from within the loo — or keep it open, even. She never discusses her hot flashes in public, nor does she go out on the street wearing tracksuit bottoms. I think we call this being elegant. Which is how one should behave in the bathroom, too.
And that means shutting – and locking – the door, because let’s face it, we all look vulnerable and a bit stupid while on it. In fact, I was taught to imagine my prospective boss sitting on the loo to calm my interview nerves: it made him more human, the logic went, less fearsome.
Most of us have never seen our colleagues or loved ones in such a state and probably want to keep it that way – even my dog tries to find a discreet place to do his business, and really minds if I watch. (Clearly I’ve taught him well.)
Indeed the one area where lockers and leavers surely unite is the abject horror that follows inadvertently walking in on someone who has failed to correctly operate the latch while mid-flow on a train or plane. So why invite that same potential for disaster into your home?
I once spent two weeks at Austria’s Mayr Clinic which, while billing itself as a luxury detox retreat, is effectively a toilet camp. Important people from CEOs to politicians and actors, used to ferociously guarding their privacy, were suddenly discussing the finer points of what they were, ahem, passing – all in a bid to cleanse mind, body and spirit, apparently.
Though chatting about bowel movements struck (and still strikes) this bathroom prude as something from a nightmare, others seemed positively enraptured, delving into their sitter or squatter status with the kind of enthusiasm rarely employed at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Discussing bathroom activity of any kind other than what taps you’re thinking of getting should, as far as I’m concerned, be barred, but my crusade is becoming evermore challenging. We’re all meant to embrace the experience now, seemingly, and ever since the best-selling Gut by Guilia Enders was published in 2014, what was once a private affair is increasingly seen as a matter for public discourse. Who cares about a lock, they seem to think, when there are bigger things going on in the bathroom to discuss?
I will persist in earnest, though, bolting tightly wherever I may. Winkleman may baulk at the prospect of having to pause a conversation until post-trip, rather than through an open door, but surely, it is worth the wait.
