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Meanwhile Backstage Meanwhile Backstage: Behavior in Public Bathrooms SPENCER E. CAHILL ET AL Erving Golffman, the founder of the dramaturgical perspective in sociology first proposed that people behave in ways that they consciously manage in order to foster the most favo...

Meanwhile Backstage
Meanwhile Backstage: Behavior in Public Bathrooms SPENCER E. CAHILL ET AL Erving Golffman, the founder of the dramaturgical perspective in sociology first proposed that people behave in ways that they consciously manage in order to foster the most favorable impression of themselves. They do this by scrupulously adhering to the micro-social norms of individual and interactional behavior, using backstage regions to prepare themselves for their frontstage, public displays. To investigate these norms, Cahill and his students made systematic observations in men’s and women’s public bathrooms, carefully recording people’s behavior patterns. In a selection that is sure to generate both recognition and amusement, Cahill, et al. describe and analyze the landscape of public bathrooms, the common rituals found there, and the way people engage in backstage behavior designed to support their appearance on the subsequent reemergence into the public domain. The norms upheld in this private yet public setting assert more fully how loyal members of society are to the behavioral guidelines we share and the meaning that people attribute to them. Do you recognize some of the behaviors that these authors describe? Have you ever wondered why you do these things? How is the social order maintained by acting in these ways? YEARS AGO the anthropologist Horace Miner (1955) suggested, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that many of the rituals that behaviorally express and sustain the central values of our culture occur in bathrooms. Whether Miner realized it or not, and one suspects that he did, there was more to tills thesis than his humorous interpretation of bathroom rituals suggests. As Erving Goffiman (1959: 112-113) once observed, the vital secrets of our public shows are often visible in those settings that serve as backstage regions relative to our public performances: it is here that illusions and impressions are openly constructed. . . . Here the performer can relax; he can drop his front, forgo speaking his lines, and step out of character. Clearly, bathrooms or, as they are often revealingly called, restrooms, are such backstage regions. By implication, therefore, systematic study of bathroom behavior may yield valuable insights into the character and requirements of our routine public performances. . . THE PERFORMANCE REGIONS OF PUBLIC BATHROOMS Needless to say, one of the behaviors for which bathrooms are explicitly designed is defecation. In our society, as Goffman (1959: 121) observed, "defecation involves an individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with the cleanliness and purity standards" that govern our public performances. Such activity also causes the individual to disarrange his clothing and to "go out of play," that is, to drop from his face the expressive mask that he employs in face-to-face interaction. At the same time it becomes difficult for him to reassemble his personal front should the need to enter into interaction sud- denly occur. [Goffinan, 1959: 121] When engaged in the act of defecation, therefore, individuals seek to insulate themselves from potential audiences in order to avoid discrediting the expressive masks that they publicly employ. Indeed, over 60 percent of the 1000 respondents to a survey conducted in the early 1960s reported that they "interrupted or postponed" defecation if they did not have sufficient privacy (Kira, 1966: 58). In an apparent attempt to provide such privacy, toilets in many public bathrooms are surrounded by partially walled cubicles with doors that can be secured against potential intrusions. In fact, public bathrooms that do not provide individuals this protection from potential audiences are seldom used for the purpose of defecation. In the course of our research, for example, we never observed an individual using an unenclosed toilet for this purpose. If a bathroom contained both enclosed and unenclosed toilets, moreover, individuals ignored the unenclosed toilets even when queues had formed outside of the enclosed toilets. In a sense, therefore, the cubicles that typically surround toilets in public bathrooms, commonly called stalls, physically divide such bathrooms into two distinct performance regions. Indeed, Goffman (1971: 32) has used the term "stall" to refer to any "well-bounded space to which individuals lay temporary claim, possession being on an all-or-nothing basis." Clearly, a toilet stall is a member of this sociological family of ecological arrangements. Sociologically speaking, however, it is not physical boundaries, per se, that define a space as a stall but the behavioral regard given such boundaries. For example, individuals who open or attempt to open the door of an occupied toilet stall typically provide a remedy for this act, in most cases a brief apology such as "Whoops" or "Sorry." By offering such a remedy, the offending individual implicitly defines the attempted intrusion as a delict and, thereby, affirms his or her belief in a rule that prohibits such intrusions (Goffinan, 1971: 113). In this sense, toilet stalls provide occupying individuals not only physical protection against potential audiences but normative protection as well. In order to receive this protection, however, occupying individuals must clearly inform others of their claim to such a stall. Although individuals sometimes lean down and look under the doors of toilet stalls for feet, they typically expect occupying individuals to mark their claim to a toilet stall by securely closing the door. I On one occasion, for example, a middle-aged woman began to push open the unlocked door of a toilet stall. Upon discovering that the stall was occupied, she immediately said, "I'm sorry," and closed the door. When a young woman emerged from the stall a couple minutes later, the older woman apologized once again but pointed out that "the door was open.” The young woman responded, "it's okay," thereby minimizing the offense and perhaps acknowledging a degree of culpability on her part. As is the case with many physical barriers to perception (Goffman, 1963: 152), the walls and doors of toilet stalls are also treated as if they cut off more communication than they actually do. Under most circumstances, for example, the walls and doors of toilet stalls are treated as if they were barriers to conversation. Although acquainted individuals may sometimes carryon a conversation through the walls of a toilet stall if they believe the bathroom is not otherwise occupied, they seldom do so if they are aware that others are present. Moreover, individuals often attempt to ignore offensive sounds and smells that emanate from occupied toilet stalls, even though the exercise of such "tactful blindness" (Goffman, 1955: 219) is sometimes a demanding task. In any case, the walls and doors of toilet stalls provide public actors with both physical and normative shields behind which they can perform potentially discrediting acts. Toilet stalls in public bathrooms are, therefore, publicly accessible yet private backstage regions. Although same-sexed clients of a public establishment may lay claim to any unoccupied stall in the bathroom designated for use by persons of their sex, once such a claim is laid, once the door to the stall is closed, it is transformed into the occupying individual's private, albeit temporary, retreat from the demands of public life. While occupying the stall, that individual can engage in a variety of potentially discrediting acts with impunity. When not concealed behind the protective cover of a toilet stall, however, occupants of public bathrooms may be observed by others. For the most part, as previously noted, same-sexed clients of a public establishment can enter and exit at will the bathroom designated for their use, and it may be simultaneously occupied by as many individuals as its physical dimensions allow. By implication, therefore, occupants of public bathrooms must either perform or be ready to perform for an audience. As a result, the behavior that routinely occurs in the "open region" of a public bathroom, that area that is not enclosed by toilet stalls, resembles, in many important respects, the behavior that routinely occurs in other public settings. . . . THE RITUALS OF PUBLIC BATHROOMS As Goffinan (1971) convincingly argued, much of this behavior can best be described as "interpersonal rituals." Emile Durkheim (1965), in his famous analysis of religion, defined a ritual as a perfunctory, conventionalized act which expresses respect and regard for some object of "ultimate value." In a different context, moreover, he observed that in modern, Western societies, the human personality is a sacred thing; one dare not violate it nor infi:inge its bounds, while at the same time the greatest good is in communion with others. . . . [Durkheim, 1974: 37] According to Durkheim, negative rituals express respect and regard for objects of ultimate value by protecting them nom profanation. By implication, according to Goffinan (1971: 62), negative interpersonal rituals involve the behavioral honoring of the sacred individual's right to private "preserves" and "to be let alone:' For example, individuals typically refrain from physically, conversationally; or visually intruding on an occupied toilet stall. In doing so, they implicitly honor the occupying individual's right to be let alone and in this respect perform a negative interpersonal ritual. Similarly, the queues that typically form in public bathrooms when the demand for sinks, urinals, and toilet stalls exceeds the available supply are also products of individuals' mutual performance of negative interpersonal rituals. Individuals typically honor one another's right to the turn claimed by taking up a position in such a queue, even when "creature releases" (Goffman, 1963: 69) threaten to break through their self-control. Young children provide an occasional exception, sometimes ignoring the turn-order of such queues. Yet even then the child's caretaker typically requests, on the child's behalf, the permission of those waiting in the queue. Between performances at a music festival, for example, a preschool-age girl and her mother were observed rapidly walking toward the entrance to a women's bathroom out of which a queue extended for several yards down a nearby sidewalk. As they walked past those waiting in the queue, the mother repeatedly asked: "Do you mind? She really has to go." The interpersonal rituals that routinely occur in the open region of public bathrooms are not limited, however, to negative ones. If individuals possess a small patrimony of sacredness, then, as Durkheim (1974: 37) noted, "the greatest good is in communion" with such sacred objects. When previously acquainted individuals come into contact with one another, therefore, they typically perform conventionalized acts, positive interpersonal rituals, that express respect and regard for their previous communion with one another. In a sense, moreover, negative and positive interpersonal rituals are two sides of the same expressive coin. Whereas negative interpersonal rituals symbolically protect individuals nom profanation by others, positive interpersonal rituals symbolically cleanse communion between individuals of its potentially defiling implications.2 Although a positive interpersonal ritual may consist of no more than a brief exchange of greetings, failure to at least acknowledge one's previous communion with another is, in effect, to express disregard for the relationship and, by implication, the other individual's small patrimony of sacredness (Goffinan, 1971: 62-94). Even when previously acquainted individuals come into contact with one another in a public bathroom, therefore, they typically acknowledge their prior relationship. In fact, the performance of such positive interpersonal rituals sometimes interfered with the conduct of our research. On one occasion, for example, a member of the research team was in the open region of an otherwise unoccupied men's bathroom. While he was writing some notes about an incident that had just occurred, an acquaintance entered. A: Hey-! (walks to a urinal and unzips his pants) Nothing like pissin. 0: Yup. A: Wh'da hell ya doin? (walks over to a sink and washes hands) 0: Writing. A: Heh, heh, yea. About people pissin . . . That's for you. 0: Yup. A: Take care. 0: Mmm Huh. As this incident illustrates, individuals must be prepared to perform positive interpersonal rituals when in the open region of public bathrooms, especially those in public establishments with a relatively stable clientele. Whereas some of these may consist of no more than a brief exchange of smiles, others may involve lengthy conversations that reaffirm the participants' shared biography. In contrast, when unacquainted individuals come into contact with one another in the open regions of public bathrooms, they typically perform a brief, negative interpersonal ritual that Goffiman (1963: 84) termed "civil inattention": one gives to another enough visual notice to demonstrate that one appreciates that the other is present. . . while at the next moment withdrawing one's attention from him so as to express that he does not constitute a target of special curiosity or design. . Through this brief pattern of visual interaction, individuals both acknowledge one another's presence and, immediately thereafter, one another's right to be let alone. A variation on civil inattention is also commonly performed in the open region of public bathrooms, most often by men using adjacent urinals. Although masculine clothing permits males to urinate without noticeably disturbing their clothed appearance, they must still partially expose their external genitalia in order to do so. Clearly, the standards of modesty that govern public behavior prohibit even such limited exposure of the external genitalia. Although the sides of some urinals and the urinating individual's back provide partial barriers to perception, they do not provide protection against the glances of someone occupying an adjacent urinal. In our society, however, "when bodies are naked, glances are clothed" (Goffman, 1971: 46). What men typically give one another when using adjacent urinals is not, therefore, civil inattention but “nonperson treatment” (Goffman, 1963: 83-84); that is, they treat one another as if they were part of the setting’s physical equipment, as “objects not worthy of a glance.” When circumstances allow, of course, unacquainted males typically avoid occupying adjacent urinals and thereby, this ritually delicate situation. It is not uncommon, however, for previously acquainted males to engage in conversation while using adjacent urinals. For example, the following interaction was observed in the bathroom of a restaurant. A middle-aged man is standing at one of two urinals. Another middle-aged man enters the bathroom and, as he approaches, the available urinal, greets the first man by name. The first man quickly casts a side-long glace at the second and returns the greeting. He then asks the second man about his “new granddaughter,” and they continue to talk about grandchildren until on of them zips up his pants and walks over to the sink. Throughout the conversation, neither man turned his head so as to look at the other. As this example illustrates, urinal conversations are often characterized by a lack of visual interaction between the participants. Instead of looking at one another while listening, it is typical among white, middle-class Americans (see LaFrance and Mayo, 1976), participants in such conversations typically fix their gaze on the wall immediately in front of them, an intriguing combination of constituent elements of positive and negative interpersonal rituals. Although ritually celebrating their prior communion with one another, they also visually honor one another’s right to privacy. Due to the particular profanations and threats of profanations that characterize public bathrooms, moreover, a number of variations on these general patterns also commonly occur. In our society, as Goffman (1971:41) observed, bodily excreta are considered “agencies of defilement.” Although supported by the germ theory, this view involves somewhat more than a concern for hygiene. Once such substances as urine, fecal matter, menstrual discharge, and flatus leave individual’s bodies, they acquire the power to profane even though they may not have the power to infect. In any case, many of the activities in which individuals engage when in bathrooms are considered both self-profaning and potentially profaning to others. A s a result, a variety of ritually delicate situations often arise in public bathrooms. After using urinals and toilets, for example, individuals’ hands are considered contaminated and, consequently, a course of contamination to others. In order to demonstrate both self-respect and respect for those with whom they might come into contact, individuals are expected to and often do wash their hands after using urinals and toilets. Sinks for this purpose are located in the open region of the public bathrooms, allowing others to witness the performance of this restorative ritual. Sometimes, however, public bathrooms are not adequately equipped for this purpose. Most commonly, towel dispensers are empty or broken. Although individuals sometimes do not discover this situation until after they have already washed their hands, they often glance at towel dispensers as they walk from urinals and toilet stalls to sinks. If they discover that the towel dispensers are empty or broken, there is typically a moment of indecision. Although they sometimes proceed to wash their hands and then dry them on their clothes, many times they hesitate, facially display disgust, and audibly sigh. By performing these gestures-in-the-round, they express a desire to wash their hands; their hands may remain contaminated, but their regard for their own and others' sacredness is established. Because the profaning power of odor operates over a distance and in all directions, moreover, individuals who defecate in public bathrooms not only temporarily profane themselves but also risk profaning the entire setting. If an individual is clearly responsible for the odor of feces or flatus that fills a bathroom, therefore, he or she must rely on others to identify sympathetically with his or her plight and, consequently, exercise tactful blindness. However, this is seldom left to chance. When other occupants of the bathroom are acquaintances, the offending individual may offer subtle, self-derogatory display as a defensive, face-saving measure (GofIinan, 1955). Upon emerging from toilet stalls, for example, such persons sometimes look at acquaintances and facially display disgust. Self-effacing humor is also occasionally used in this way. On one occasion, for example, an acquaintance of a member of the research team emerged from a toilet stall after having filled the bathroom with a strong fecal odor. He walked over to a sink, smiled at the observer, and remarked: "Something died in there." Through such subtle self-derogation, offending individuals metaphorically split themselves into two parts: a sacred self that assigns blame and a blameworthy animal self. Because the offending individual assigns blame, moreover, there is no need for others to do so (Goffinan, 1971: 113). If other occupants of the bathroom are unfamiliar to the offending individual, however, a somewhat different
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