Urinella
Urinella is a slang term for a urination aid that enables women to urinate while standing. It is often a funnel-shaped object that collects the urine at the funnel entrance, leads it away from the body and clothing and drains it via the funnel outlet.
application
A urinella is generally passed to the urinary outlet with the larger opening between the labia. The smaller opening at the end of the funnel is held down away from the body and clothing, similar to the position of the penis when urinating while standing in men. Urinating takes place through the funnel . The urine stream can be directed by the user and directed into a toilet or urinal .
Reasons for application
The main reason for use is hygienic aspects in public toilets. These are usually very bad due to the traditional incorrect use of toilets (floating squat, etc.). The cause of the incorrect use of public toilets is a self-reinforcing cycle. Even if a toilet is made available to the public in an optimally cleaned state, there are occasional users who do not determine the degree of soiling of a toilet in terms of visible pollution, but are afraid of bacterial infection. This fear leads to a wrong sitting position (e.g. crouching, with the shoes on the toilet seat ) in order to avoid body contact with the same. This sitting position leads to visible contamination of the toilet seat, which in turn means that subsequent users also use the toilet incorrectly. According to surveys, this cycle means that more than 50 to 80% of all users do not use the toilet correctly, but rather dirty it. This cycle cannot currently be broken except by installing standing toilets using socially acceptable methods.
In general, a woman can urinate standing up without a urine aid. However, it is difficult for women (as well as men) to control the flow towards the end of the urination. There is thus the risk of contaminating clothing, as well as the toilet and the immediate vicinity thereof, with urine. Here, a urinella can offer the user the following advantages:
- Contact with the toilet is completely avoided (hygiene).
- The urinary bladder can be emptied in a comfortable, standing posture without the risk of contaminating clothing.
- In addition to being used in public toilets, a Urinella offers the advantage of being able to adopt a standing posture in the great outdoors.
- Due to this fact, a complete exposure of the genital organs is no longer necessary and offers the user more privacy .
disadvantage
Deterioration in public hygiene
In general, the hygiene problem in public toilets is not solved by using a Urinella, but rather intensified. Since the public toilets for women often do not have urinals, the urine must also be disposed of via a toilet using a Urinella. As with men, directing the urine stream precisely onto the toilet requires some practice and leads to unwanted contamination of the toilet.
disposal
The disposal of a Urinella is an environmental and logistical aspect for the user that should not be neglected. If the Urinella is made of disposable material such as cardboard or paper, it is usually coated and can only be broken down by nature with great difficulty. Only a few manufacturers have so far dealt with this topic and tried to find solutions for this environmental aspect. As an alternative, urinellas are also made of plastic and are therefore reusable. However, urinella made of plastic will also be disposed of at some point and thus represents a burden for the environment. Another alternative is the upcycling of already designated rubbish, i.e. beverage cartons ("Tetra Paks").
cleaning
Depending on the material of the urinella, it may be necessary to clean it. Disposable solutions made of cardboard or paper do not provide for cleaning. Reusable plastic solutions offer the advantage that, for example, you don't have to carry a lot of urinellas on a long trip and that saves weight. However, the urinella has to be cleaned and this is not always possible in nature. If cleaning is not possible, the Urinella must be contaminated in an additional plastic bag until it can be cleaned. This means an additional logistical effort for the user.
history
Antiquity
Herodotus (* 490/480 BC) reports of the Egyptians that "women let their urine stand and men sit down". The different behavior is therefore not an anatomically determined inevitability, but results from the socially accepted gender roles. Based on this tradition, it can be assumed that women have always urinated standing up on socially acceptable occasions.
Modern times
Although it can be assumed that urinellas were used earlier, the first documents on the use of urinella date back to 1918. In this year the "Sanitary Protector" by Edyth Lacy was registered for a patent in the USA . The patent describes an inexpensive device for single use, which is particularly advantageous used as sanitary device on public toilets (in the original English: " . Cheap device ... [to be] used but once, being love especially suitable as a sanitary device in public toilet rooms " ). In addition to the inexpensive one-way solution for public toilets mentioned here, it is noted in the patent that it is no longer necessary to crouch over the toilet and contaminate it. In the years that followed, another series of US patents was applied for, all of which describe similar inventions, most of which differ only in terms of construction, concept or material.
In 1994 a first utility model was registered with the German Patent Office under the name Petit Pissoir , but it was not marketed for the mass market. Urinellas have also been used in the US Army since 1995 , because “women are more and more often used in the field and urinating is too time-consuming due to the lack of opportunities to retreat. It has also been observed that women reduce their fluid intake in order to be able to avoid urinating. This behavior increases the risk of inflammation of the bladder. ”In 1996, a Urinella was first offered in a German mail order catalog. Two years later, the first single-use urinella made of coated cardboard hit the European mass market.
In 2000, the Pinkpop Festival was the first music festival to introduce normal urinals for women, which can be used in combination with a Urinella. Other festivals such as Glastonbury Festival and Fusion Festival introduced this concept temporarily, but not permanently, over the next ten years.
In the years that followed, more and more providers began to serve different markets and sell different design variants. With the increasing spread of 3D printers , printing templates for urination aids are also published under Creative Commons
Providers sorted alphabetically
| Brand name | Country of origin | material |
|---|---|---|
| GoGirl | United States | Silicone (flexible) |
| Lady J | United States | Plastic (hard) |
| Lady P | Czech Republic | Medical silicone (flexible) |
| Lilium femme | Argentina | Cardboard (coated) |
| Pibella | Switzerland | Plastic (hard) |
| PiPiLOTTA | Germany | Medical silicone (flexible) |
| Pee cardboard | Germany | Cardboard (uncoated) |
| P-mate | Netherlands | Cardboard (coated) |
| pStyle | United States | Plastic (hard) |
| Shewee | Great Britain | Plastic (hard) |
| Urinals | France | Paper (coated) |
| WhizBiz | Australia | Silicone (flexible) |
| Whiz Freedom | Great Britain | Plastic (hard) |
See also
Web links
- Women now pee standing up - outdoor girls
- US patent for the Urinella; there by the company Sani-Fem Int'l also marketed as "Freshette"
- US patent for a slightly differently constructed feminine urinary device
- Steven Soifer: The Evolution of the Bathroom and the Implications for Paruresis . ( Memento from March 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Toilets and urinals for women and men . (PDF; 3.5 MB) Dissertation, August 1, 2003, Faculty of Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts
- ↑ Diploma thesis 2007 FH Münster Daniela Lengers
- ↑ Simone de Beauvoir: Le deuxieme Sexe (The opposite sex).
- ↑ Case study of the Pipi Pappe on the 100 percent degradability of a Urinella from 2012 ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 145 kB)
- ↑ US Patent 1407872 Sanitary Protector (February 1922)
-
↑ Examples:
- US Patent 3964111 Urine conducting apparatus (June 1976)
- US Patent 3995329 Female urinary device (December 1976)
- US Patent 4756029 Feminine urinary device (July 1988)
- US Patent 5370637 Collapsible female urination aid (December 1994)
- US Patent 5408703 Female urination aid (April 1995)
- US Patent 5966748 Tinkle Safe (October 1999)
- US Patent 6,434,757 Female standing urination cone (October 2000)
- ↑ Analysis of the US Army (PDF; 556 kB)
- ↑ Portable Female Urinal from stevegong . thingiverse.com, Jul 10, 2014
