Kussmund-Klos: funny or repulsive?
Anger for the "Kisses": The kiss-mouth urinal in the restaurant "Rosenmeer"
"Red lips should be kissed, because they are there to kiss ...", so the popular opinion on the topic of women's mouth. In the restaurant "Rosenmeer" in Mönchengladbach, on the other hand, red lips have a completely different function: Recently, exclusive designer urinals have been available there on the men's toilet. Form: a wide open, gaudy red woman's mouth into which the male guests can pee inside.
A scandal, found some visitors to the restaurant and complained to Bärbel Braun, the Equal Opportunity Commissioner of the city. "Definitely sexist," said Braun and asked the owner of the restaurant, Ramzi Ben Said, to dismantle the controversial urinals. But Ben Said refused. "For me, this has nothing to do with sex, but with life style," said the restaurateur against over the Rheinische Post. "For the rose sea, the retro style is formative and with the urinals we refer to the Pop Art of the 70s."
"Not a woman's mouth, but a cartoon": Meike van Schijndel, the designer of the toilets
This is also the opinion of Meike van Schijndel, the designer of the toilets with the name "Kisses". Wherever the pissoirs of the Dutch are available to the "small business" of the gentlemen - whether in an exquisite airport lounge at the New York airport John F. Kennedy, in a Viennese scene bar or in a Dutch McDonalds branch they guarantee trouble. But van Schijndel can not understand the hype. During the implementation, she did not even think that her design could be interpreted as misogynistic. "This is not a mouth, but a cartoon," she says, and thus her lips are sexless.
Bärbel Braun, however, sticks with it: In her eyes, the toilet is by no means sexless, but a woman's mouth and thus discriminatory. "If I had discovered in the ladies' room a comparable representation of a male mouth with a mustache, I would have no problem as a gender equality officer."
Meanwhile, Braun and Ben Said have found a possible solution to the urinal problem: Ben Said wants to ban the "Kisses" behind glass. His suggestion: "One is exhibited in the Rose Sea in a showcase, one in a prestigious company and one in public space, in the city administration." A good idea, thinks Bärbel Braun, who can even imagine putting one of the urinals in her office. "Why not?"
