Toilet as a public
private space
In terms of public space, there are few places to be private.
Between expectations on social behaviour, privatisation of public
areas and the ever-increasing presence of public surveillance,
the toilet is the last refuge of all three.
It is a place to be absolutely private: where oneʼs thoughts and
feelings are “knowable directly and without inference by only one
person” . One does oneʼs ʻbest thinkingʼ there.
Outside of its usual function, the toilet is often also used as a
place to perform private acts outside of ones home: crying,
vomitting, undressing, unravelling (and apparently fornicating and
overdosing, according to the blue lights).
It is also illegal to film, photograph or survey a member of the
public without their permission in a toilet. It is the one place
where this is so: privacy in public.
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