Many Men Always Sit When Urinating, 40% Of Germans, 10% Americans

Apparently, a lot of men can’t stand it when they have to pee. Or perhaps don’t want to stand it. In fact—are you sitting down for this—40 percent of German men surveyed by British market research company YouGov always sit down when urinating. Yes, always. That’s more than a wee number of men. An additional 22 percent of the German men surveyed plant der hintern on toilet seats most of the time while peeing. That put German men clearly number one among men from 13 different countries when it comes to the percentage of surveyed men who sit when going, well, number one.

Such a position didn’t sit quite as well with the American men surveyed. A smaller percentage (10 percent) of the American men surveyed always sat, while 13 percent sat most of the time, 23 percent sat some of the time, 17 percent rarely sat, and 31 percent never sat. Interestingly, six percent of the Americans surveyed did not know what they did when they peed. That kind of makes you wonder whether they suffer temporary amnesia when emptying their bladders and say after leaving a bathroom, “Something happened in there, but I don’t know exactly what.”

Of course, take these specific numbers with a toilet bowl full of salt. The YouGov survey queried a sample of only 7024 men aged 18 years and older spread across 13 countries. That meant around 700 men in the U.S. and around 500 men in each of the other countries were surveyed from March 28 through April 20, 2023. So, YouGov was not flush with a ton of responses. Plus, YouGov didn’t specify how they selected the samples or provide further breakdowns of the samples besides dividing them into two age groups: men 18 through 34 years of age and men who were 55 years and older. So one big “but” is whether the sample was overrepresented or underrepresented with men who tend to plant their butts on toilet seats while urinating.

After German men, Australia had the next highest percentage of men who always sit (25 percent). After the Down Under men, three European countries had the next three highest percentages of men who always sat whenever they a peeing: 22 percent in Sweden, 19 percent of France, and 19 percent of Denmark. Next up were Canadian (16 percent), Spanish (14 percent), and Italian (13 percent) men. The same percentage of Polish men (10 percent) always planted their buns as American men. Of the 13 countries, three had smaller percentages of men who always sat: Britain at nine percent, Mexico at six percent, and Singapore at five percent.

Now, Matthew Smith, the Head of Data Journalism for YouGov, did point out that there is a rather derisive German term for men who sit down to pee, sitzpinkler, essentially labeling them as not being very manly. So, if you were to assume that younger men were more concerned about such social labels before getting to the who gives a bleep age, you might expect a greater percentage of younger men to never sit than older men. Indeed, this was the case among German men with 11 percent of those in the 18 through 34 year age group to never sit compared to nine percent of those in the 55 and older group. Similar differences were seen among those men in Singapore (33 percent of the younger men versus 30 percent of the older men) and Canada (19 versus 18 percent). However, “urine” in for a surprise if you thought such trends would hold in other countries. Men in the 55 and older group were more likely to never sit down to pee than those in the 18 through 34 year age group among men from the rest of the countries such as British (40 vs. 23 percent), Australian (38 vs. 24 percent), American (35 vs 21 percent), and Danish (37 vs. 21 percent) men.

So the big question is what’s the better way to position yourself when minding your pees? Well, there are potential advantages of taking things while sitting down. That position may relax your muscles more, allowing you to go more with the flow, so to speak. Moreover, sitting can reduce splatter since you are moving your you-know-what closer to the bowl. And toilet splatter ain’t the same thing as chocolate splatter. Toilets can be full of nasty microbes that you wouldn’t want in your face, mouth, body, or clothes.

Of course, when you are in public restroom with only urinals available, you may have nothing to go on if you don’t stand and use the urinal. Sitting on or in the urinal would be considered poor form. Therefore, you may have to take a stand in public.

Other than conforming with urinal design, though, there doesn’t seem to be any natural advantage to peeing while standing up. Sure, you may be more ready to run if say a bear were to attack you. But that rarely happens in bathrooms.

You don’t have to have a “pee HD” to realize that not everything we do in society is completely logical and driven by science. The current peeing conventions may not necessarily be the best ways of doing things.