OK, I'm a guy, so I have a dog in this fight, but here is my reasoning: The world is full of jerks. The toilet up is a better way to deal with jerks than toilet seats down. Why? Men don't like putting the seat down any more than women do. They also don't like putting the seat up. Lots of them don't bother. They just pee with the seat (hopefully not the lid too) down. I don't know why so many guys don't have good aim; I just know they do. If you put the seat up every time, the toilet seat gets peed on less. Now, if there is a lid for the toilet to, as in many home toilets, I think the best position is lid and seat down. I don't like my pets drinking from the toilet and everyone has to adjust the toilet seat every time.

And as for fairness, why should a guy have to put the toilet seat down. Do you put it up for him when YOUR done?

"Do you put it up for him when YOUR done?"

Want to finish that sentence? My done what?

We actually had a rule in the workplace about this. One little...snooty bitch would flip her effing cookies if the guys lift the seat up. I finally told her, "Look - there are three females, and ten males on this staff. YOU put the seat UP when you are done with it."

Seemed only fair to them.

LOL KatherineKatherine!

I have to admit....I'm female and I never understood women complaining about men leaving the seat up when they themselves leave the seat down. Respect and consideration should go both ways. If women aren't willing to reciprocate by putting the seat up in anticipation of use by a male, then they are hardly in a position to demand that males put the seat down for them.

Just my humble opinion. :)

When I lived in a mixed environment (with family, with male and female roommates, with the boyfriend), it never bothered me to lower the seat if I had to. I never left it raised though, since the next person to use the toilet could be a woman. Strangely, now that I live with just one female roommate and male friends come over and leave the seat up, I get pissed off. The only people who live here are women. Leave the damn seat down, I think. When I visit male friends in their male-only houses, I do leave the seat up when I'm done. Just seems respectful.

The most hygienic approach is to put the lid down before you flush the toilet. So any time I've lived in a mixed environment, this is what I do.

Re the LW, while I'd like to be on the side of the sisterhood, I did think she was making a mountain out of a molehill. Having said that, the best way to deal with the dirty socks is to bring them out and put them on his desk each time she finds them in the bathroom, with a polite, "You left these behind" as she drops them.

If toilet seats were designed to be left up, they would have no seats or lids. There is little so potentially painful and aggravating than falling into the toilet in the middle of the night in the dark.

The LW presmably wants the seat left down so that she doesn't have to touch it and therefore become unhygenic. However, she needs to consider that her colleague will not have washed his hands before handling the toilet seat, so the most hygenic thing is for him not to touch the seat at all - before, during or after using it.

Of course, the most civilsed course of action for all would be for all parties to use the toilet sitting down, thus avoiding spraying the entire surrounding area with aerosolised particles of urine (they form an aerosol when hitting the water, so whether you're accurate or not the bathroom will still gain a clingly film of urine over time). Sitting reduces the aerosol's chances of escaping and also reduces the speed it hits the water.

SoMerry:

If toilet seats were designed to be left up, they would have no seats or lids. There is little so potentially painful and aggravating than falling into the toilet in the middle of the night in the dark.

The LW will not, presumably, "use the toilet in the middle of the night in the dark" since it is at the workplace.

"There is little so potentially painful and aggravating than falling into the toilet in the middle of the night in the dark."

For the hundredth time...TURN ON A DAMN LIGHT AND PROOFREAD YOUR TOILET BEFORE YOU SIT! I am a dude and I do it when I get up in the night to drop a deuce. I also don't like wizzing on the seat so I check if I have to lift it in the case of a #1.

I also don't sit down on ANY toilet without looking at the seat to make sure there is NOTHING on it (not even a hair, eww) and I give it a TP wipe and make a paper seat-cover if there's any question.

I've come to believe the seat-position issue is just another piece of epidemic female entitlement, a petty crime to hold against men because you want it to be how you want it to be and damn any man who might think otherwise.

I hate the argument that many women use that the seat is "supposed" to be down, as if that were its natural condition. If they really believed this they would close the lid after they used the toilet, as that seems like it really should be its natural state when not in use. In reality, women just want it as convenient for themselves as possible by having the toilet seat down, just as men do when they leave the seat up.

I personally leave the toilet in whichever state I find it in. This is a good rule generally, no reason it shouldn't be applied to toilets too.

Men don't sit on the toilet unless they HAVE to (#2) because it's not really all that comfortable for us to sit and pee. The toilet just really isn't designed for it. We don't stand just the heck of it. How do I put this....for one, jamming the junk into place isn't the most pleasant task. Secondly, we really don't need to make contact with the toilet with you know what....

Unless it is an elongated toilet bowl it is uncomfortable for men to use it sitting down. Also, depending on the strength of urination, the extra distance to the bowl can reduce the amount of aerosolised particles.

The fact that anyone buys those "round" toilets rather than the oval ones anymore baffles me. Rouond toilets are the femail version of urinals..they are really only for one gender to use.

Not to mention that, as a man, once you are sitting to urinate your penis is forced to touch the inside rim of the toilet. I wonder how women would feel if men told them that they had to rub their vagina INSIDE the bowl in order to urinate and then criticized anyone who complained as being crass and chauvinistic.