This article appeared in The Cut.
There’s no good way to pee in a bodysuit
By Danielle Cohen
Over Halloween weekend while at a Brooklyn house party, TikTok influencer Alix Earle was faced with an all-too-familiar predicament: How to pee in a bodysuit.
Haunting, indeed. Unable to pull her skintight Madonna costume to the side, she recently confessed on her podcast, Hot Mess, that she decided to just let it ride.
And so, decked out in a ’90s wig and custom-made cone boobs, she peed through all three layers of fabric. The sog was then exacerbated by the arrival of her period, which left her with a nightmarish trickle-down situation that somehow did not stop her from resuming her night of partying, wet tights and all. With all due respect … what???
While Earle’s particular crisis is singularly horrifying, I see how she got there. Anyone who has ever attempted to pee in a onesie knows it’s fucking hard, even without additional layers of tights and/or Spanx. Do you stretch the underwear part to one side, risking contact with the stream? Do you take the whole cursed contraption off, exposing your full upper half to the elements of a public bathroom? Do you, like me, steer clear of bodysuits entirely, for fear of being trapped at a Brooklyn house party with a bladder full of gin and tonics? Most pressingly, are people really peeing through their leotards and then going about the rest of their evenings as if they weren’t covered in urine?
For answers, I looked to my colleagues, experts in both fashion and anatomy. Here is what they had to say.
Jen: I’m team slide. I don’t want to be naked in public bathrooms! That’s a lot of potential skin contact. What if I fall down?
Brooke L.: I also slide. I’m scared of being fully naked in a stall.
Jen: I’ve also been known to bunch up a jumpsuit leg if it’s loose enough. Is that too much?
Asia: I’m team slide-to-side.
Lindsay: I fully undress every time.
Erica: I did ballet for years. Just take the leotard off! It’s fine. And much better than getting pee everywhere. Also, Alix’s bodysuit has a zipper! Presumably to take it off?
Claire: I’d rather fully undress in the bathroom than pee on myself at intervals throughout the night.
Katie: I don’t own bodysuits for this reason, but if I bought one, it would have snaps.
Lindsay: Mine don’t have snaps, but I should probably look into that …
Joanna: I was a bee for Halloween when I was 5 and couldn’t take my bodysuit off. I peed on myself and am still recovering emotionally. Don’t put kids in bodysuits!
The results are inconclusive, though no one proposed peeing straight through one’s clothing as a viable solution. And so we must ask: How do you go to the bathroom in a bodysuit? Inquiring bladders want to know.
(C) The Cut.