To men, the world is your toilet - bathrooms are made for women.
Every boy is taught at a young age, usually during a camping trip or sporting event, that it is perfectly acceptable to walk into the woods far enough for no one to see and do what comes naturally. I can remember it being an honor during Boy Scout trips to be selected for putting out the campfire.
Adulthood presents public urination hypocritically, as it's still okay to urinate in the woods and in empty Gatorade bottles on a long road trip (it's the strongest bladder that determines the rest stops, not the weakest), but frowned upon in most other social occasions.
No one considers the common predicament for spending the day in New York City. Every store claims not to have a bathroom, so the individual is forced to purchase an overpriced latte at Starbucks to piss with a clean conscience (and further perpetuate the cycle). Meanwhile, not ten feet away, a dog walker stops to let a dog urinate all over the curb.
Imagine a night of barhopping and ask yourself what you wouldn't give to release the accompanying bladder pressure (fact: a normal bladder can hold one pint of urine; you feel the urge to "go" at a half-pint).
Europe is years ahead of America in this respect, recognizing the need and supplying full service "Pay to Potty" establishments on every street. Amsterdam even goes the extra mile with what can only be described as outdoor gridiron curtains in street alleys for bar flies to relieve themselves in a simple street drain for free.
To me, college is the transitional period, from pissing in the kitchen sink so as to not wake up parents following a high school parking lot bender to getting permission from your boss to leave your cubicle for a bathroom break.
This is an age where it's still funny that the guy dressed up in a diaper for a college Halloween party was fined by Public Safety for pissing on the outside of the building (irony anyone?).
Less than a month into my freshman year, I received the best demonstration in public urination my tuition could ever yield.
On the rugby pitch, a senior member of the team took a knee on the field and carefully maneuvered his member out the bottom of his shorts, literally pissing on the enemy's grass.
To anyone else, he was just a guy tying his shoes, but to me, it changed the way I'd survive long walks on a weekend night.
Since then, I've experienced it all - discovered by Ocean City Police in someone's front yard (only to let it all out later on the Coastal Highway shielded by a parked car), dodged Public Safety (it's a $50 fine), and happened upon by student event staff (being told to "cut it off" is almost as painful as a fine).
I've met all types, including a friend so lazy he'd piss in cups to avoid leaving bed, and I've known several people (girls included) who figured passing out would be better than going to the bathroom, only to do it later in bed.
College is a perfect experiment in public urination. There are hundreds of people drinking and often traveling on foot to the next party.
In a crowed house party situation, the line of women waiting for the restroom will inspire any self-respecting man to step outside into the bushes for a minute, if for nothing but sheer chivalrous decency.
And we forget that public urination simply feels right.
We have nothing to hide but our pride as we wave our flagpoles in salutation to the men who gave us this country and the right to choose, as Americans, between the dank hole in the confined dirty bathroom and the beautiful outdoors.
I once straddled the great Continental Divide (in Colorado) and urinated (it was a long road trip) right on the very line that separates our country's natural coasts. If dogs can do it, why can't we?
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