Toilet seat: up or down?

A prominent point of contention in the battle between the sexes is the question of whether the toilet seat should be up or down after use. For my part, I've gone along with a norm that it should be down out of courtesy to the female, not because I think this is reasonable, logical or sensible, but because sour cunts are difficult and distracting to live with, especially if they outnumber you. You could say it was their sheer shrillness and ability to create a poisonous atmosphere that's tended to win that battle. As Hammad Siddiqi points out in his paper, THE SOCIAL NORM OF LEAVING THE TOILET SEAT DOWN: A GAME THEORETIC ANALYSIS, 'if a female finds the toilet seat in a wrong position then she will most probably yell at the male involved. This yelling inflicts a cost on the male.'

"If she cares that much about it, let her have her way," I would tell myself. "It's beneath me. I've got a life," etc.

But how reasonable is it to insist on a single default position for the toilet seat? Why not just leave it where it is and move it to where you want it, when you need it? As Siddiqi argues: 'In this paper, we show conclusively that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down after use decreases welfare and by doing that we hope to convince the reader that social norms are not always welfare enhancing. Hence, there is a case for scientifically examining social norms and educating the masses about the fallacy of following social norms blindly.' 

I recommend this paper. It really is a good, unbiased read, also concluding as it does, that 'we can complain all we like, but this norm is not likely to go away.'

Even so, it would be fun to find a solution to the problem. I love women, but hate their yelling. As for arguments that men should sit down to piss, that's a norm that's not going away either. We piss standing up because we can. I've taught my sons to piss standing up, because they can, and because they don't have to listen to anyone tell them how to piss...as long as they clean the splashes up afterwards.

It strikes me that an ideal solution would be 'the sprung toilet seat': A spring-loaded or hydraulic contraption would slowly (but irrevocably) return the toilet seat to a default position. That default position would naturally be the upright position, not to favour the male, but out of the physical consideration that holding it down with one's weight incurs no cost (to borrow Hammad Siddiqi's turn of phrase), compared with trying to hold it up while pissing and holding one's cock in the other hand.

If toilet seats were made that way, it would possibly allay much of the petty discussion. Feminists, contending this design as yet another patriarchical conspiracy to discriminate against them and fuck their lives up, could be presented with a toolbox and challenged to disconnect the offending contraption.