Response to Ruth Barcan's Dirty Spaces

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10/3/12 I Own This Shit In this class, it is our goal to interpret euphemisms made about the bathroom and determine why the toilet is a place of shame. Ruth Barcan’s Dirty Spaces: Separation, Concealment, and Shame in the Public Toilet reveals why people look at the public toilets as being dirty. First, it is crucial to identify the “public” aspect of Barcan’s analysis. A public space is accessible to the general public and open to all that are in need of its services. Public spaces are where people come into contact with one another and meet new and unfamiliar people. This leads to how bathrooms are interpreted as “dirty.” Barcan explains the meaning of dirty not by sanitation, but by our senses. The uses of smell, touch, sound and sight are how we determine the cleanliness of the bathroom. These senses are also the way we meet others in these spaces. This becomes Barcan’s thesis: All public toilets are dirty simply because that’s where we come in contact with each other. These dirty toilet theories may seem bizarre, but experiences like this occur every day. Based off our senses, we judge the people we meet in the bathroom and determine their values. Because society likes to hide the fact that we use the bathroom, it is nearly impossible not to judge others as they use toilets. If I truly want to comprehend Barcan’s thesis, I must visit a toilet myself. Before I analyze my own experience with a toilet, I must first comprehend what Barcan wants me to focus on while I make that analysis. As Barcan says, “The objects contained within the public toilet- the toilet seat, the clock, the tap, the urinal, the mirror- are especially charged with meaning and often serve as proxies for the unknown others who use the space” (26). In other words, the appliances hold authority over the strangers that come into contact with each other in this space; that being, the objects

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