Latrinalia is a type of deliberately inscribed or etched marking made on latrines; that is, bathrooms or lavatory walls. It can take the form of art, drawings, or words, including poetry and personal reflections. Other types of latrinalia include political commentary and notes on love as well as derogatory (sharing low opinions) comments and pictures. Humor is also common, such as the phenomenon observed on some college campuses of writing puns about grout in the grouted spaces between tiles. When done without the property owner's consent, it constitutes vandalism. Some venues have attempted to curb such vandalism by installing in the lavatory large blackboards and providing free chalk; it is hoped that patrons will avail themselves of the blackboard and chalk rather than applying their latrinalia directly to the walls or toilet stalls.
Study and etymology
An important work in the study of latrinalia is Allen Walker Read's Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary. The work describes and collates examples of graffiti observed by Read on a road trip throughout the Western United States in 1928. It was privately published in Paris in 1935 since its description of bathroom graffiti was considered too racy for American publishers. It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title Classic American Graffiti. The work was described as a classic "model study" of latrinalia that "deserves the attention of any serious student of American language" in a 1979 review, which noted that even then it remained hard to access and "excessively rare." The late Alan Dundes, a folklorist at University of California, Berkeley, coined the term latrinalia in 1966 to refer to graffiti found in restrooms. Dundes preferred it over the term shithouse poetry, as not all latrinalia is in verse or poetic form. The word is derived from the compounding of latrine (or toilet) and the suffix -alia, which signifies a collection of something — in this case bathroom writings.
See also Graffiti Servít je vůl Toilet humour Vandalism
Bibliography Gelfer, Joseph (2002). The Little Book of Toilet Graffiti. Summersdale Publishers. ISBN 978-1840242607. Haslam, Nick (2012). "Toilet Graffiti". Psychology in the Bathroom. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 114–135. doi:10.1057/9780230367555_7. ISBN 978-0-230-36755-5. Trahan, Adam (2016). "Research and theory on latrinalia". In Ross, Jeffrey Ian (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art. London: Routledge. pp. 92–102. ISBN 978-1-138-79293-7. Norbert Siegl: Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede hinsichtlich Häufigkeit und thematischer Inhalte bei Toilettengraffiti. Thiel, Kassel 1992, ISBN 3-923548-78-8 (Zugleich Diplomarbeit an der Universität Wien 1992). Norbert Siegl: Graffiti von Frauen und Männern. Das Basiswerk der Klo-Graffiti-Forschung. graffiti-edition, Wien 2000, ISBN 3-901927-05-0. Norbert Siegl: Kommunikation am Klo. Graffiti von Frauen und Männern. Döcker, Wien 1995, ISBN 3-8511-5178-X. orbert Siegl: Die Themen der Graffiti-Forschung. Wien 2000
References
External links Latrinalia (e Bathroom Graffiti) — Electronic Bathroom Graffiti uploads from around the world. Bathroom Graffiti — Bathroom Graffiti by author and photographer Mark Ferem. Bathroom Graffiti Project — features and rates hundreds of photos of latrinalia from around the world Latrinalia Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine — features galleries of bathroom graffiti Raina Williams, Content analysis: Latrinalia Archived 2007-08-24 at the Wayback Machine, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis Mark Ferem, Latrinalia: "It's all in The Head" Archived 2007-06-20 at the Wayback Machine, 50mm Los Angeles Origins of Bathroom Graffiti Documentary The Writing on the Stall Norbert Siegl, Toiletten-Graffiti, Klo-Graffiti. Graffiti von Frauen und Männern Krieg an der Wand. Ein Wiener Psychologe hat Toilettensprüche untersucht. Ergebnis: Männergekritzel ist aggressiver., Der Spiegel, 18 October 1992
