It’s definitely the first thing everyone does every morning when they get out of bed: pee. A desire that is all the more pressing since after a night’s sleep in a lying position and without (too) getting up to go to the little corner, the need to empty your bladder is particularly pressing.
But when you have a penis, is there a position to urinate that is more physiological or healthier? Doing it sitting or standing, does that really change anything? Is it healthier, more practical, cleaner? 20 minutes has – seriously – studied the matter for you.
“I find it more comfortable”
If he has urinated standing up for a long time, for a few years, Damien prefers the sitting position. “It’s my boyfriend who started to pee sitting down,” says the young man. We never talked about why, but after a while, it intrigued me and I ended up trying the seated pee break, and adopting it. It quickly became a habit, I find it more comfortable. It’s a kind of little break, a time when I take the opportunity to play on my smartphone, answer a message, read the news. But it doesn’t last two hours either, huh! And that’s only when I’m home; outside, at work, with friends or in a bar, I urinate standing up”. A habit shared by Laure’s spouse: “I’ve always seen him pee sitting down, he finds it more practical, and cleaner”.
Thomas prefers to empty his bladder standing up. “It feels more logical and intuitive to me than sitting down. Admittedly, it happened to me a few times, in a hangover, when standing up requires too much effort, says the 30-something. Otherwise, never”. Ditto for Paul: “The fact that it could be more convenient never even crossed my mind,” he reflects. Maybe I’ll pass for a Neanderthal, but for me, a guy pees standing up, period. Nature allows me to do it, so I don’t see why I would do otherwise”.
A posture that questions Damien. “I tell myself that a lot of men don’t consider for a second to pee sitting down because for them, it would imply a loss of virility”. An analysis that is verified in Germany, where there is a specific word in the language of Goethe, “sitzpinkler”. It literally means “men who urinate while sitting”, and has unfortunately become a term with a negative connotation. However, underlines Damien, “when toddlers learn to pee, it’s sitting on the potty, and it’s the same for girls and boys. Why does this habit not stay with men? »
Common use in some countries
Especially since the “seated” team has a number of followers, including an illustrious ambassador. In a cross interview granted in 2017, with his sidekick Luis Suárez, on Uruguayan television, Lionel Messi confided in urinating while sitting down, like his colleague. “When you get up in the morning all asleep, it’s more comfortable.” Especially since this first emptying, while the urine has accumulated in the bladder during the night, can be of a large volume.
The use is also very common in some countries. “In Germany, I sometimes saw signs in the men’s toilets where the little man who pees standing up is crossed out, with next to a pictogram of a man who urinates while sitting down,” recalls Damien. There is even, besides a word ad hocof the toilet ghosts, small devices to be installed under the seat which are triggered when it is raised, to invite these gentlemen to sit down before urinating. You can even opt for a model with the voice of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. An unsuspected and unknown market in France, where less than one in five men (19%) systematically pee while seated, according to a very serious study carried out on the subject by YouGov and published last May. In Germany, 40% of men sit down every time, to which must be added 22% who say they sit “most of the time”, making our neighbors across the Rhine the world leaders in this area.
“It’s most certainly to ensure better toilet hygiene,” says Damien. And he’s right. According to Professor Tadd Truscott, an American professor of mechanical engineering who studied urine stream dynamics (yes, yes!), when it is evacuated from the penis, “a jet comes out but after 7 to 15 cm, it starts to leave in droplets, which collide with each other (…) and create satellite droplets which splash at very large angles and can land on your toothbrush”, he explained to the Guardian. Whoops! Not to mention the even bigger splashes generated in the water at the bottom of the bowl. “If your toothbrush is 3 or 4 meters away, it’s fine,” he continues. If it’s just 1 or 2 meters away, it’s no good”. Parisian friends with small bathrooms, tremble.
“No impact on health”
And on the health side, is it better for a man to urinate sitting or standing? “This question has been the subject of a scientific study, answers Dr. Frédéric Saldmann, cardiologist, nutritionist and doctor specializing in hygiene issues in his book Your health without risk (ed. Albin Michel). The results clearly showed that either of these practices had no impact.”
On the other hand, according to a study published in 2014 by researchers from the Department of Urology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, sitting has a “more favorable urodynamic profile” for men with benign prostatic hyperplasia [quand elle grossit avec l’âge]. This allows the bladder to empty faster and more completely. But “for healthy men, they conclude, no difference was found.”
When everything is going well, “it’s just a matter of personal judgment”, summarizes Dr. Saldmann. In practice, “the penis is long, so the urinary canal, the urethra, is also long, with winding areas in places, explains Dr. Anthony Gierc, urological surgeon at Saint-Louis Hospital. When you pull on it or hold it, the channel is in line, which promotes better elimination. When we pee sitting down, we tend to push the penis down or a little backwards, which can tie it up a bit, and hinder evacuation in some people. But there are many for whom this does not cause any embarrassment. So as long as the urine flows well, you have to pee as you feel. During defecation, on the other hand, it is more appropriate for everyone to be a little squatting, putting their feet on a small step, to create an angle which favors the exemption of stools”.