Public Private Parts

One rarely, if ever, sees women in TT squatting openly in public spaces, by the roadside or against walls urinating. Is it that women have stronger and larger bladders and can therefore wait until they get to the nearest toilet? In the event that females are on the road (in a car) and have 'an emergency', they generally tend to stop at the side of the road and open both car doors (front and back) to shield them from public view. (I've seen this mainly on country drives, on the way to the beach, etc. where the likelihood of a toilet being around the corner is less). Either that or they go in a bush or behind a tree, where they can't be seen by everyone. At Carnival, most women (in absence of a toilet, bush or secluded spot), get their friends to form a circle around them, quite like a human toilet cubicle.

Men however (those who urinate in public) have no problem pulling out their 'penii' in full view of people on the road. Walls, bushes, sidewalks and trees are their main urinary targets. Don't they feel embarrassed about someone they know seeing them in action? Obviously not. In fact, maybe they like the display, because some of them don't even attempt to hide anything from pedestrians and drivers.

Hand-painted signs asking men 'not to pee' against public property are fairly common. One of my favourites is the grammatically incorrect: DO NOT URINE HERE.

What I found amusing about the sign in the featured photo is that it is just outside of a small snackette in St. Augustine. It looks as though the snackette owners are announcing to customers that there's no Urine available today. Sorry, folks. We've run out of stocks. Try again next week.

(P.S. Worse yet, it's painted over an old Lucozade sign ... also a yellow liquid!)