Pissing in the wind

I have a hypothesis that males, where possible, prefer pissing on trees, streetlights, and objects to pissing in the open. I have two theories as to why this is; one is a lot more interesting than the other.

I: Males prefer pissing on objects as the object of piss provides a certain level of privacy to the pissee. Pissing on a tree blocks the view of others (to an extent), and given that generally we shield our junk from the view of others¹ it is entirely sensical to seek a tree for this purpose. However, imagine that you are in a open field with a friend, and the only object within reasonable travel distance is a flat brick wall. Your friend makes clear their desire to drain the main vein, and leaves you to head in the direction of the wall. Question: is your friend going to stop short of the wall to piss or is he going to piss on the wall? Despite both options providing an equal amount of privacy, the intuitive answer is that the man will piss on the wall. The wall would also reflect a certain amount of lemonade back in the direction of its assailant; from a hygiene perspective it makes more sense to piss on the grass before the wall. This scenario lends support to my second hypothesis.

II: Males prefer pissing on objects due to vague evolutionary artefacts left deep in the subconscious generations ago. Before we stood up for ourselves, we walked on four legs, and I do not feel I need to convince you of the preference of four-legged creatures to piss on objects. The explanation dispensed by parents to delighted children when Fido kindly decides to water your neighbour’s mailbox is that “he’s just marking his territory.” This behaviour, academically referred to as ‘territorial marking’ (shocker), is explained by a species’ need to defend a certain territory to provide a safe space for reproduction and child-rearing. This behaviour works through pheromones, chemical substances released to trigger a response in individuals of the same species. Despite our modern preference for artificial pheromones², humans do have pheromones and they are present in our urine. It would be a stretch to say that these pheromones serve any purpose in the 21st century³; tax codes and land deeds serve as a somewhat more precise measure of a man’s child-rearing territory. However they are vestigial - losing their function through the course of evolution. While vestigial physiology is oft-discussed, vestigial behaviours are seldom mentioned, perhaps due to our belief that when we piss on trees, get into fights over girls, and flaunt Louis Vuitton, we do so solely of our own accord.

I reckon we prefer to piss on trees in the same way that we prefer thick steak to bran flakes; a stable job to a life of crime; carpet to cardboard; symmetry to entropy. We’re animals, after all.