Is it a one in a million chance?

[Lee]

I listened to an Australian radio station podcast in which they asked listeners ‘have you ever/when was the last time you wet yourself?” They had a few callers, almost exclusively women, and their stories were about a) being drunk, b) laughing too hard or c) issues after giving birth. The only male caller told a story of when he fainted and realised some time after he came round that his pants were wet, but only after he discovered the bottom of his shirt to be saturated as he’d done it laying down!

Nobody called in to say they had been in a situation where they were so desperate (sober) and simply couldn’t wait any longer.

I wonder what the real chances are of witnessing or hearing about;

- a guy under the age of, say 40, and completely not into such fantasises or interests
- sober (or at least not blatantly falling over drunk) and not medically-stricken in any way
- in a genuine (totally unplanned) desperate situation
- demonstrating or verbalising his frantic need
- panicking about not making it in time…

…and actually failing to get to a toilet in time and having an accident in public and in front of people.

One in a million, maybe?

[Wombat48]

Sadly I think your right? In reality, most of us , when push comes to shove, have bigger stronger bladders than we ever realize! I also wonder if men have an advantage over women in having something external to hold onto when things get really bad???

[Brian]

I've witnessed the aftermath once though I'll never know exactly what happened. It was nearly 30 years ago. After finishing work in The Hague I was walking to the station to travel home and passed a young guy in casual clothing walking slowly the other way. He was looking quite upset, and his jeans were soaked in the pattern you'd expect if he'd totally let loose in them while standing up. I guessed he'd done it in a tram because it was quite near a tram stop.

When it happened to me aged 19 no-one else knew about it at the time because I had almost made it home in my desperate state and I don't think anyone saw. So that one doesn't meet your criteria.

[Fred]

- a guy under the age of, say 40, and completely not into such fantasises or interests
- sober (or at least not blatantly falling over drunk) and not medically-stricken in any way
- in a genuine (totally unplanned) desperate situation
- demonstrating or verbalising his frantic need
- panicking about not making it in time…

…and actually failing to get to a toilet in time and having an accident in public and in front of people.

One in a million, maybe?

Witnessing a male wetting with those criteria would be rare because:
- males are supposed to be the "stronger" sex, and male wetting is socially unacceptable and emasculating
- males have slightly larger bladders, and as pointed out, we have an appendage we can use to delay peeing a bit further
- many males would rather risk the embarrassment of peeing in an inappropriate place than wetting their pants.

[ryan1990]

I think aside from people being drunk or medical related (inc fainting etc) it’s exceptionally rare.

[googlism2008]

Seems super rare to me. What I see a lot more often is public peeing. In the absence of toilets, a lot of guys would just whip it out. So even desperation is very rare.

[FranticK]

I agree that seeing it is uncommon, but I think hearing about it is far more likely. Even then, I think we only hear about a small fraction of accidents because most men keep those type of stories to themselves. But I think a meaningful number of men have had accidents in the way you described (closer to 10% than 0%), it’s just a matter of getting them to come clean about it.

[Fred]

I agree that seeing it is uncommon, but I think hearing about it is far more likely. Even then, I think we only hear about a small fraction of accidents because most men keep those type of stories to themselves. But I think a meaningful number of men have had accidents in the way you described (closer to 10% than 0%), it’s just a matter of getting them to come clean about it.

Some of the public peeing videos we've seen may well be of men who were about to (or even started to) pee themselves and whipped it out to avoid visibly wet pants. Better to suffer 60 seconds of acute embarrassment than to experience it for an hour or more with pissed pants.

[Lee]

I agree that seeing it is uncommon, but I think hearing about it is far more likely. Even then, I think we only hear about a small fraction of accidents because most men keep those type of stories to themselves. But I think a meaningful number of men have had accidents in the way you described (closer to 10% than 0%), it’s just a matter of getting them to come clean about it.

I’m sure (and would love to hope) there’s truth in what you say.

I sometimes browse through Twitter and search for instances of young blokes talking about desperate situations they’ve found themselves in. There are literally hundreds if you search for the right phrases. The great thing is, you can see their faces in most cases, so it’s easy to imagine what they were going through.

I’ve listed below a brief selection of those I’ve found and saved. Surely one of them didn’t actually make it in time… but they never respond to admit to having an accident. Likewise, I guess a fair few few of them tweet their comments for effect.

Here are some great ones:

“On the bus but need a slash so bad! May wet myself”
“Stuck on a bus and never needed a piss so bad in my life. Seriously contemplating wetting myself”
“I’ve never needed a piss so bad!!! Can’t even feel from the waist down!”
“Gonna wet meself on the district line”
“I’ve never needed a piss so bad in my life and I’m stuck in traffic, might have to piss myself”
“Nearly lashed meself on the bus. It took ages! Was seconds away from pissing myself!”
“Never needed a piss so badly in me life, honestly thinking about just pissing meself on this tube n hoping I don’t see any of them again”
“I’m stuck in traffic on the M25 but I’m gonna wet myself!”
“Fuck sake. Gonna piss meself on a replacement train bus service. Bull shit this.”
“On the verge of wetting myself, get me off this bus!!”
“That is honestly the closest I have ever come to wetting myself! OMG close isn’t the word!”
“A good portion of the M1 doesn’t have service stations along it. That’s the closest I’ve been to wetting myself in years”
“What a day that was. Closest I’ve ever came to pissing meself on the way doon on the bus”
“ I need to pee so bad I'm considering just pissing myself on the train”

My favourite is “ I think the closest I’ve ever been to genuinely wetting myself was on one of their crappy rail replacement buses from Norwich to Ipswich which, you’ll be surprised to hear, had no toilets onboard. The two pints before I got on might not have helped either…”

But here’s one lad not ashamed to confess.

“Reached a new low of my life, pissed myself on the coach” @callumregan94

[Fred]

I'm always interested in how a man gets himself in such a desperate situation. The quotes above are mostly from men on public transportation, and one may assume that most of them had been drinking fluids before boarding and/or neglected to empty their bladders beforehand. Drinking something diuretic like beer or coffee is often the culprit, and we know that a bladder can go from empty to full in half an hour with those beverages.