Today in my performance art practicum (and yes, it's just as the title suggests), we had to think of a story when we first realized that boys and girls were "different." I was thinking about my childhood and the progressive Montessori preschool I attended, when I suddenly remembered the way the bathrooms were set up: boys and girls did their business in the same bathroom. Not only that, but there were no partitions on the toilets. So for a straight year, I watched every single one of my peers go wee wee. I would literally be sitting on the pot next to my guy friend taking a piss, and we'd just be chatting it up about Ninja Turtles. Looking back, the Tisch student in me is like, "Oh! Awesome! They were raising us in an embarassment-free atmosphere," but the more logical part in me wonders, "How was Montessori not sued?" and "Did this greatly affect/traumatize me in any way?" I don't remember getting to kindergarten and having trouble adapting to the sudden privacy of the "little girl's room," so I can rest assured that, traumatizing or not, my progressive preschool didn't hinder me from adapting to the more regular rules of society.
So...can I watch you take a piss?
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