We have always had a weird thing about magazine racks in the bathroom.
We get their neccesity, but the implied suggestion of what is being done to warrant reading material always made us feel... odd. Perhaps it’s our New England (Jewish?) puritan values. (Adding to our own hypocrisy, we do keep a little book of Rumi Poems on the back of the toilet…what does that imply?)
Are we alone in our insanity? The Gods of Bathroom Month are wondering.
I want to answer both magazine rack, as well as a fact of life.
Do you really want someone to come into your house, have to use the bathroom and go picking through your bookshelves to find reading material first? That's a little weird.
Plus, sometimes it ends up being, well, longer than you expected. Having the material in a nice rack on the wall is better than on the back of the toilet (could fall in) or on the floor (a target for people with poor aim - who wants to touch that??)
I hope it would never occur to visitors to grab a book to take into my bathroom. If they need to catch up on the news or dash off some poetry, they can go home and use their own bathrooms.
It's now weirdly tempting to put an assembly of that magnetic poetry in the bathroom, but the hygiene aspects seem... um... daunting.
I agree, not very keen on the bathroom magazine rack for two reasons:
1) Dropping a bomb in the bathroom is personal and I don't want to even think about the fact that my bathroom has been shared by many other bomb-droppers who have spent time lingering on my throne. The whole magazine rack implies spending lengthy amounts of time seated there. I'm way to visual of a person to have to be hit with something that reminds me of who was there before me everytime I enter the bathroom. A magazine rack would do just that. I prefer to feel as though that space belongs to only me when I'm there.
2) I also cherish my magazines quite a lot and would hate to see them get water stained or start to curl from the moisture circulating the air after a shower. I also don't want the (sorry) messy fingers of others touching my prized collection of reading materials because I'm an absolute SNOB when it comes to books and magazines. I treat them with extreme care. To think of someone touching my design and architecture magazines after, errr, well wiping themselves just sends me into freak out mode. I won't even purchase the first magazine I see on a newstand, I fish around to the back copy that no one has opened yet, yearning the hear the spine crack for the first time as I devour every page, yeah, it's infolust and I'm a geek, but whatever...
No mags near my litter box!
Wende, I'm with you.
Holly
I have always been grossed out by even seeing reading material in someone's bathroom. I've never taken so long on the toilet that I would have the time to read. I don't get it!
Holly,
"To think of someone touching my design and architecture magazines after, errr, well wiping themselves..."
Well, the really gross thing is that the touching and reading of the magazines goes on BEFORE the wiping themselves part AND the washing the hands part. Ewwwwwwww!
My husband and I like to have reading material for ourselves in the bathroom, but store it out of sight in our linen cabinet (not really a cabinet so much as shelves in an alcove that we've put a curtain in front of, but I digress...)
While I enjoy reading on the toilet, I would never, ever read on the toilet in somebody else's house. If I use the bathroom at somebody else's house, I get in and out as quickly as I can. If I need to sit on the toilet for, umm, how shall I say this, a longer period of time, I just wait until I get to the comfort of my own bathroom in my own home.
I think having reading material (in plain sight) in your bathroom says two things to guests:
1. Sit and stay a while (and who wants their guests to do that?)
2. We spend a lot of time on the toilet (and who wants their guests to know that??)
In conclusion, I like having some magazines in the bathroom but we keep them tucked away out of view. Thumbs down on the magazine rack/toilet paper dispenser. The design is nice, but the implications are less than pleasant.