It's a scenario with which we're all familiar. One steps into a bathroom stall in Haley Center, sits down and is suddenly surrounded by a collage of Sharpie and ballpoint pen.
Obscenities, anthropomorphic genitalia and reasons why one set of Greek letters is better than another can be found on the walls of public restrooms throughout Auburn.
This is a common occurrence on many college campuses, but why students choose the latrine to launch personal attacks and display a lacking knowledge of the human anatomy remains a mystery to some.
"Restrooms are chosen because they are a public venue," said Greg Weaver, an Auburn associate professor of sociology. "While they're available to many individuals, those who use them are still able to maintain a certain degree of privacy. You can write what you want, nobody knows who you are and you reach a very broad audience."
The privacy factor is most important, as lavatories allow occupants to observe and respond to each other with zero chance of repercussion and, thus, the freedom to have zero filtration in expressing their own thoughts.
Anthropologist Alan Dundes coined an official term for this form of graffiti, "latrinalia," and delved even deeper into its sociological implications.
Dundes' explanation for the rationale behind it, at least for latrinalia in the men's room, was a desire for males to leave some sort of mark or memorial behind in order to compete with the female's ability to produce offspring as her legacy.
Dundes even went so far as to suggest that, just as the phallic shape of many monuments to specific men, such as the Washington Monument, inspire the writing of epitaphs, men performing a primal action in a bathroom stall inspires a need to write something nearby for which they will be remembered.
A study conducted at the campus of UC Davis cites the topics and tones in instances of latrinalia "conversations," or phrases and pictures that respond to other phrases and pictures.
Twenty-three percent of conversations pertained to sex and relationships, 15 percent to drugs, 9 percent to Greek and 7 percent to politics. Other categories included sexual orientations, homilies, general observations, cries for help and nonsensical writings.
Although the tones of the conversations remained more than 50 percent neutral, comments written in a negative light still heavily outweighed those that were positive. This lends credence to the privacy factor's effect on the latrinalia's content.
Normal, everyday people are committing this act, having an opportunity to be completely unfettered in their thoughts and prose.
Where graffiti in general has gained status as urban art in our post-modern society, latrinalia is no different.
Latrinalia.org is one of many Web sites that features photo essays of bathroom art.
These photo essays range from a large sketch of V.I. Lenin surrounded by political commentary to a portable toilet adorned in a likeness of Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" character.
Whether it is viewed as social commentary, urban art or a way to get a cheap laugh, latrinalia is all over Auburn.
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