Given the opportunity, there's a certain type of man who will choose outdoor urination over the cloistered privacy of a dunny any day of the week. I don't know if it's the legacy of indigenous warriors, outback explorers and bullock drivers pulsing through the generations but having a slash in your mate's backyard (or front yard or side passage or on the street outside his house) is somehow far more fulfilling than shooting pee into a porcelain prison for transportation across distant seas. When we used to go camping as kids, my stepfather would erupt from his tent at dawn cranking out a bass-score of bum percussion so he could have what he called a "bushman's breakfast" aka "a piss and a look around".
Every time I go bush I'm reminded that outdoor pissing is one of the great simple pleasures that city dwellers have been made to feel guilty about. In the country, squirting your worth into the red dirt is as natural as doing 120kmh all the way to work in the morning and leaving your car unlocked outside your local. I know many country boys talk of feeling "hemmed in" when they come to the major metros and I can't help wondering if part of this is not being able to have a snake's hiss with the sun on their neck.
Given, public urination in urban areas poses many problems - from getting caught midstream by a family and being mistaken for a pervert, to the obvious sanitary problems, which waft rancorously to life in summer in cities like New York and Paris. Whatever your feelings about the French, they do love an outdoor piss, God love 'em; up until they made the public toilets free a year or so ago, it was not uncommon to see a well-dressed Parisian man hitch open his strides on even the busiest boulevards so he could shake hands with the missus' best friend. That's because outdoor pissing is truly an international pleasure; there's something ancient and grounding about having your hand on your todger while shooting out a warm laser and being able to watch the moon; you know men of all races have been doing it for millions of years.
This is not to say it is without its risks; in most Australian states you can be charged with offensive conduct and in NSW you can be fined up to $660 and face three months' imprisonment (at the court's discretion). On Friday night, I wandered the cultural wasteland of Sydney's CBD looking for a public toilet, my bladder tighter than Kevin Rudd's grasp on election victory, and considered re-entering one of those abattoirs of the soul where the cities suits slaughter themselves at week's end. "It's the right thing to do.
Go and use the bathroom," I scolded myself, before a laneway wheeled into view as inviting as an Xbox dancer in Lycra at the footie. A quick scan of the street and I was able to ascertain all pedestrians were a solid 40-seconds walking distance away from me.
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