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An article from NEWS Postseven about a strange phenomenon in women’s restrooms — long lines forming while the Japanese-style squat toilet stalls sit empty — became a hot topic on 5channel’s News Speed+ board. The lines have long been blamed on an imbalance between the number of men’s and women’s stalls, but the article instead focuses on a growing number of people who “can’t or won’t use” squat toilets. In the thread, posters debated several factors: more young people unable to squat, the extra time needed for periods and changing clothes, and hygiene worries about squat toilets — with a divide opening up between those dismissing it as people being “spoiled” and those pushing back.
《My Daughter Looked Ready to Cry, Saying She Was About to “Wet Herself”》 The Reality of Huge Lines for Women’s Restrooms: No One Uses the Empty “Squat Toilets”… A Mother’s Complicated Feelings After Being Told She Was “Impressive for Being Able to Deep-Squat” | NEWS Postseven
September 22, 2026, 11:00 AM NEWS Postseven
Men’s restrooms see a smooth flow of people in and out, while women’s restrooms end up with long lines — a scene that repeats itself at tourist-spot restrooms and at the portable toilets set up for festivals, fireworks shows, and other events. The cause has usually been chalked up to an imbalance in the number of men’s and women’s stalls, but lately renewed attention is being paid to the “squat toilet problem.”
Source: news-postseven.com / Read the original article here
What people said
so for a while I couldn't poop unless I squatted on top of the Western-style seat.
There's a joke sticker of that exact pose being sold on Yahoo Auctions
That's the Yajuu Senpai style, isn't it (a crouching pose from an infamous Japanese viral-video meme)
That's why nobody wants to use them
Now that you mention it, they were filthy everywhere
Felt like your pant cuffs would get soaked in it, hated that
I haven't gone in the woods in years, lol
So you were still doing it 5 years ago, lol
I saw somewhere that toilet seats are actually cleaner than cutting boards
Since only your butt ever touches it
Most places these days let you spritz some sanitizer onto paper and wipe the seat down first
Nah, that's not true
Liquid drips down out of the bowl and gets on it
Women don't dawdle in the stalls
Even you — if you pooped sitting on a Western toilet, not even counting the actual pooping, just pulling your pants up and down and wiping would take at least twice as long as just peeing
And on top of that, some women are on their period
Since periods last about a week a month, roughly speaking one in four women between their teens and fifties is on their period at any given time
Changing a pad takes extra time too, so that doubles it again
Watching videos of this, way too many people are just messing with their phones and taking forever in there
That's just the men's room, isn't it
Sure, you get the occasional dumb high-school girl changing clothes in an accessible stall
But women take longer by default, and they're not sitting there checking their phones in a restroom away from home
And if it's a big enough facility, there's usually a powder room attached to the restroom where they'd do that anyway
Do people really not have enough leg muscle to hold that for as long as it takes to go?
Apparently a lot of young people can't do it these days because they haven't done a deep squat in forever
Though delinquent types (yankii) are probably still used to it from doing it all the time
Just look at the Toyoko kids (troubled/runaway youths who hang around Tokyo's Kabukicho district)
Today's delinquents just plop straight down on the ground
So even delinquents can't do the deep squat anymore…
Re: #110
That would probably just take even longer
Since fumbling with clothes and changing a pad eats up extra time
Toyoko kids don't even bother sitting on the ground —
they straight up piss in the gutter right in front of them, lol
They should just connect them all into one trough with running water
and line Western-style bowls up tightly on top of it
Making them 'nihao toilets' (open-partition squat toilets, as seen in parts of China) would speed things up even more
If you can't squat, wouldn't sitting on a Western toilet be impossible too? You couldn't even sit in a chair then
Apparently more young people have stiff ankles now and can't even do a full crouch (like sitting knees-to-chest)
A 'hassho' who doesn't even get the point of threads posted on 2channel (meaning unclear — reads like a garbled troll post)
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Long lines at public restrooms have for a long time been discussed as simply a matter of the male-to-female ratio of stalls, but aversion to squat toilets is only just now starting to get attention as a separate factor. In school facilities too, squat toilets have gone unused as renovations shifted toward Western-style toilets, leaving a certain number of kids and young people who reportedly don’t know how — or aren’t able — to squat. In the thread, opinions split between those chalking this up to poor physical fitness or people being “spoiled,” and those pointing to physical factors like stiff ankles. The thread also raised less visible factors behind the women’s restroom lines, such as the extra time needed to change sanitary products and to dress and undress — a layered situation that the original article alone doesn’t fully convey, since it can’t be reduced to a simple matter of stall numbers.
*This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “《My Daughter Looked Ready to Cry》 The Reality of Huge Lines for Women’s Restrooms: No One Uses the Empty “Squat Toilets” — A Mother’s Feelings After Being Told She Was “Impressive for Being Able to Deep-Squat”.”
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