Do you need a sign to tell you not to sit on a squat toilet?

I couldn’t even balance myself standing on a toilet seat.

If a person chooses to sit on a squat toilet, no harm, no foul.

If a person chooses to stand on a sit toilet, they could slip and hit their head.

@chyna

My point exactly. And yet…

@Lawn
Yes, of course.

But do you need a sign to tell you that?
Without the sign, when did you get the notion that you might slip on the toilet seat.
Did they teach you that in school.
Or did you look at it and sort of figure it out?

I wouldn’t, but I might be confused if I came upon this.

@Lawn
Bit then you could raise the seat and still have something to stand on.
I have never seen one of those in France or the UK.
Anyway…
Would you need a sign? After all, nobody is looking.

Because squatting to shit is the natural human instinct. It’s how our bodies are designed evolved. Sitting encourages the Valsalva manoeuver, which can kill you, and was probably responsible for Elvis’ death. Since squatting to shit is instinctive and sitting to shit is a socialized behaviour, it makes sense that only the squatters would need socialization to remind them to switch.

Yes, apparently. They also need two other signs, one at each end to inform them that: “You are facing the correct direction” or “You are facing the wrong direction.”

@SmashTheState
Squatting is natural…
So therefore you would need a sign to tell you NOT to sit on a squat toilet?

You left out the most important part of toilet no-no’s….do not fish

We could use that first sign in ladies’ public rest rooms here… the number of times I’ve entered a stall to find the seat covered in pee is staggering.

But yes, it’s a mystery to me how anyone could opt to practically lie on the floor to use a public squat toilet.

Part of the problem with your question is that you’re not adequately considering the other differences that exist in the areas you’re addressing.

For example, how many warning signs in general do you see in the parts of the world where squat toilets are generally found? Not many, I’ll wager. There are no warning signs to “wash with your left hand”, either. It’s assumed that the audience of people using these facilities have all grown up there and don’t need a lot of daily reminders. They aren’t tourist areas for Westerners to visit, and there aren’t a lot of Western refugees and immigrants (not enough, anyway) to make warning signs worthwhile.

Aside from that, as @Lawn points out, anyone who could successfully sit on a squat toilet would (probably) not soil it unduly for the next user, as someone standing on a Western toilet seat obviously would (and does). So a warning sign there would serve no purpose other than to educate the completely clueless.

And aside from all of that, it’s simply a lot easier to squat on a toilet seat than it is to lower oneself to the floor to sit on a squat toilet. Someone who is actually going to attempt that is past the ability to educate with a sign, I think.

So someone coming from a place where squatting is the norm, and who has no previous experience with sitting toilets, might simply assume that Westerners have just elevated their toilets for reasons unknown, and provided hinged rings to stand on, also for unknown reasons, and just “do what they always have done”. (And there are a lot more of those people in the sign-crazy West than there are the reverse.)

Unfortunately, people who are used to squat toilets often choose to squat on a toilet seat designed for sitting. The outcome is they piss all over the seat and often the floor. Or has been suggested, they can fall off and injure themselves. I work for a large university. Our toilets have these signs now because so many foreign students do squat on the toilets and leave a freaking mess everywhere. So while it seems unnecessary, it apparently is.