Which is which?

Sjmarf@sh.itjust.works to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 792 points –
173

Anarchist answer: They're both unisex - bees for pees, birds for turds.

Hmm... You might be onto something here

Yes, this establishment's blacklist.

At least they're not charging people to use these bathrooms. Then you'd be kicked out of a fine establishment.

ngl I'd shit in the bees stall bc the other one probably nasty af

I would say they're unisex and just pick one.

Bees have a stinger, and "bird" has been a slang term for a woman (like, what, 1920-1950s?).

Regards, I agree that's needlessly vague, and just about to the point of useless.

The only bees with stingers are the female ones, though.

Fine, Bs represent bra size so that's the women's room, and a cock is a bird, so that's the men's room.

Any way you slice it, these signs don't help.

Wtf

Alternate comment: I love how you need to internalize 100 years of sexism before you can relieve yourself

Harmless old slang terms are now sexist. Got it.

I'm pretty sure it was sexist back then too. It's just that nobody cared.

Googled it real quick and it's from the French Burd, meaning noblewoman

So.... No?

Interesting. I didn't know the words origins. I've always considered it alongside the classic English tradition of referring to women as various animals.

This isnt a uniquely female experience. Men commonly refer to their friends as "dog". Also, in the gay community, men's body types are equated to animals such as "bear," "otter," and "cub".

Thank you for the explanation.

As someone not too familiar with American cultures, I'd probably make an assumption and go for the (to me) more masculine bird over the docile and flower loving bee, since bees have stingers that they normally would never use and birds have beaks/peckers.

I've only ever heard bird used as working class slang for a woman in Britain.

Hmm, well, I have heard women being compared to singing birds (or more degrading as vultures or pen of hens if in group), but I've more often heard women being romantically compared to bees or flowers. Though, I don't think I've ever heard men being compared to bees, but often to birds (eagles, vultures, seagulls, etc.).

Might also be local culture, as I usually think of harmony, nature, and perhaps matriarchy when pondering bees, while birds seem much more gender neutral, like, standoff-ish, elegant, brutal, impulsive, egoistic, even presented as predatory and evil in children movies and some media.

So, using common stereotyping, you can see where I'm coming from.

Maybe that's where I heard it? Dunno, it's certainly not current by any stretch.

Odd that so many people are coming out the woodwork to say they didn't know Britons fairly often call women birds.

I've heard dame used more often than bird myself. Honestly, not sure I've actually heard bird used... it's like a vague sense of "I think I knew that.... right?" and my brain shrugs back.

It's slang you'd hear 50 years ago in the east end and Essex. You'll only really hear it used by gangsters in movies these days or someone putting on the accent for laughs, possibly from an old geezer, you certainly won't hear it used by respectable establishments or family friendly media. It's not generally considered offensive but is considered uncouth.

Find a member of staff and ask where the "human bathrooms" are. Don't let them leave until they explain. Bonus points if you piss your pants while they are trying to explain.

"Excuse me sir/madam, I am looking for the human bathroom as I need to pour out some liquid from inside of my body through my urethra, something we humans normally do."

One of the most uncomfortable episodes.

I had to look it up. Am I correct in thinking this was a transphobic episode?

Kinda. But it gets fucking crazy. Mr Garrison gets surgery to be trans fem. Kyle gets taller, black skin, and Mr Garrison's testicles as his new knees. Gerald becomes a dolphin. It's all over the place.

Matt and Trey use the writing technique of "but, therefore" which leads to very insane story threads (with their ribald thinking)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=j9jEg9uiLOU

This one might have been, but a few seasons later you have “The Cissy”, probably the most trans-supportive episode they made.

South Park is always "edgy" in the safest way. Climate change was widely ridiculed when they made manbearpig, and the undertones of this one were definitely pretty bad. I give them a pass on mr/Mrs garrison because he's always been a piece of shit much like cartman, but the message with Gerald and Kyle is "surgery doesn't change who you really are." It dropped in 2005 so... Product of the time I guess?

Southpark makes fun of literally every and anything, so yeah it could be considered transphobic lol. Just keep in mind the intention is to be gross, over the top, nonsensical, etc...

I hate the excuse of "making fun of everything"

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Eh, life is short, might as well find humor in things, if we tip toed around everything anyone could possibly get offended for, the world would be a pretty bleak place.

That's how you get idiots on Twitter getting offended at everything.

Slang for women is “chicks” and a bit more archaic, “birds” too.

Bees have a…stinger? Dunno about that one.

_prick /prĭk/ noun

... A small, sharp, local pain, such as that made by a needle or bee sting ... A pointed object, such as an ice pick, goad, or thorn. _

  • The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Suppose calling men bees is more polite than calling them pricks..

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Just look for the one with a line (queue) outside.

Or be fair and pee half in each.

Or be chaotic and scrawl "Mammals" on the wall and pee under that.

If you don't have a cloaca you can't use birds

So anybody with a cloaca can just go around and use birds?

It's that what you're saying?

#outrage

Have an open mind. It's 2024 for crying out loud. If they identify as a bird then of course they use birds rooms.

Say have you heard?

I have it on good authority that everybody's heard about the bird.

Honey this is an Applebee's, shit wherever you want.

If you carry and deposit pollen - use the Bees, if you are laying eggs - use the Birds, else use the floor.

Bees - Male, Birds - Female

But bees also lay eggs, and birds also carry and deposit pollen

Also male birds don't lay eggs 🥚🥚

And only the queen bee lays eggs, any bee out and foraging around is a sterile female.

Isn't it mostly just hummingbirds that would get involved with pollen? Or are there others?

But bees are almost only females

To be honest, the gender binary makes even less sense for bees (as well as wasps, ants, hornets, termites, and other hive insects) than it does for humans.

Hive insects have three sexes: queens (analogous to females), drones (analogous to males), and workers (which could be analogous to intersex people, but it doesn't really translate into human biology).

I am shocked how few people know Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings? Bees (females) going flower to flower, pollinating.

I hope those are single user bathrooms. It just simplifies things.

Wow never actually got the meaning:

According to tradition, "the birds and the bees" is a metaphorical story sometimes told to children in an attempt to explain the mechanics and results of sexual intercourse through reference to easily observed natural events. For instance, bees carry and deposit pollen into flowers, a visible and easy-to-explain parallel to fertilization. Female birds laying eggs is a similarly visible and easy-to-explain parallel to ovulation. Another interpretation of the bird laying the egg is childbirth, although that is not as common.

PS: left the links in this time, on iOS usually have to copy to PasteBoard to get plain text - just started happening in Voyager

Bees for pees, birds for tuds.

Can't remember who originally said that but it had me creasing.

That reminds me of stingers for strings and wings for flings.

Used to hear it all the time got me cut up like what.

Birds eat worms, so it's down to sexual preference.

Birds also poop out the seeds they eat that helps spread them, while bees rub themselves all over the flower, covering themselves with pollen before moving on to the next flower.

Not sure that helps answer the question, though.

OP' was actually meant to take a left, but instead got lost in the back corridors of the local zoo. Regardless of the which door they chose, it ended with a senior first aid officer and a school group being traumatised.

I seriously don't know what the hell the "Birds and the bees" even refers to beyond an olde movie cliche.

Bees carry pollen to the flower

Birds devote time to their eggs

Both can be pollinators. Both can tend to their eggs/young. As a non-native speaker, the phrase never made sense to me.

It's an old traditionalist saying to reinforce their norms, based on a limited understanding of both biology and society.

Women are Bees. Men are Birds. Arrhenotoky OP.

Of the 60,000 bees in a hive, almost 99% of them are female! Female honey bees, or worker bees, make all of the decisions in the hive and do all of the work. There are a couple hundred male bees in a hive, but they don't do much but sit around and eat food.

https://honeystinger.com/blogs/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-hive

Thats a little to common sense for the average American.

I'd wager bees are boys, for bathroom purposes, cause boys have a "stinger"

Maybe this isn't in America.

That said, if it was in the UK, 'birds' would be for women, so the result would be the same.

I think it's a play on words Bees -> Bs, B stands for Boy. Birds -> British slang for women.

Birds -> Bs, B stands for Boy...

I mean that if you say "Bees" out loud it sounds like "B's", as in the boy's room.

I actually got that after I read my own post

But it did remind me of the joke that Quebec labels the cold water with C for cold and hot water with C for chaud

Same thought different reasoning: the expression "a bees dick" exists. There's no equivalent for birds.

Well, there is the fact that "bird" is itself slang for both penis and woman, though of course in the case of the latter it is antiquated enough to be considered offensive (of course, since as I'm informed the only inoffensive ways to refer to those who identify as belonging to the gender traditionally known as the "not male" gender are "girls" for those under 18 and "women" for those above, the offensiveness of this term is perhaps expected.)

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this is how i feel when a website presents me with a gender prompt with only two options

Or when a webform requires an honorific and none of them is suitable. (I'll usually pick "Honorable")

I love it when serious companies make it a text field, and i get my bills in a letter adressed, in all sincerity, to: Intergalactic Lord Emperor GoosLife

This is literally the only reason I'm considering a PhD: I can put "Dr." on official documents and it'll be accepted.

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The British call women "birds" sometimes. Idk.

Well, bees have stingers, which penetrate...

Except male bees have no stingers, and almost all bees are female... So I guess that would leave us fellas as being the birds?

Birds are cool I guess

Women can be quite stingy, so that's women I guess

That's an easy one. Just wait for someone to come out and you'll know the answer.

If Spongebob has taught me anything, it's that that won't work.

Even assuming that they themselves knew where to go, that only works if it's a guy

Bees are mostly female and most birds have a pecker, so factual knowledge is the logic I would use to guide my decision.

It's not the right answer, but all the same, my head said:

Queen bees and Dodo birds

... - I think that checks out.

Just pick one and piss. I've pissed in the woman's bathroom before when the guys one was full. It's not a big deal. No one cares.

Now I'm wondering about hummingbirds.

Bees are all female, so...

No they aren't, the males just live in the hive and their only purpose is to fuck

You're thinking of honey bees. And no, honey bees do not "live in the hive and fuck." They fuck once mid air then die.

Fucking living the dream

This sent me down a rabbit hole. It's estimated that less than one in one thousand actually mate though. So... Maybe.

Drones also maintain the temperature of the nest/hive.

Additionally, carpenter bee drones defend the hive (although they don't actually have any defences, and therefore do this by repeatedly bumping into the adversary); and Asian honey bee drones help to kill murder hornets, by enveloping them (alongside other bees) and essentially cooking them to death.

Lol no they aren't. Honey bees have male drones. Carpenter bees have male bees that guard their nest from other bees.

No they're not, that wouldn't even make sense. If all individuals of a species are of a single sex, there wouldn't be male and female, they are hermaphrodites. Bees reproduce sexually.