You Go, Grrl. On Your Own Special Toilet.

There is a story going around the internetz today, care of the print edition of In Touch Weekly, about Madonna's toilet preferences. Stories about Madonna's toilet preferences come up once every few years (seriously): About five years ago, it was how she requires venues at which she performs to install new toilet seats for her arrival and dispose of them immediately after she leaves (to prevent resale on eBay, because people are gross and opportunistic). Before that, it was how she doesn't like using public toilets. Etc.

But this story is THE WORST YET ZOMG SHE IS SO HORRIBLE!—because, according to the highly reputable In Touch Weekly, Madonna won't allow either her boyfriend or her children use her toilet.
Someone tell Madonna that boy toys come potty-trained! According to a friend, Madge won't let her 29-years-younger lover Brahim Zaibat use her, ahem, throne.

"Madonna doesn't even let her kids use her toilet," a friend tells In Touch. "It's just her thing. She is very generous, but this is the one thing she doesn't want to share," adds the pal, who explains that 53-year-old Madonna is very cautious when it comes to anyone else tinkling in her territory.

Apparently, she's got no such fears of bed-wetting - because she's more than happy to share her boudoir with the fetching French dancer!
Look at how these stupid rags turn everything into a SCANDAL. "Madonna is very generous, but her toilet is one thing she doesn't want to share," is hardly a provocative statement, but stick it in between snide garbage about dating a man much younger than she is and the usual slut-shaming, and suddenly it's a game of LET'S JUDGE HER SHE IS TERRIBLE WHAT A WEIRDO SHE IS SELFISH AND AN AWFUL MOTHER AND SHE IS MEAN TO HER BOYFRIEND!

Because, seriously, what is the story here? That a woman who has worked her ass off for three decades as a performer and producer and has earned gazillions of dollars wants to use a little bit of her money to live in a space in which she's got a toilet that's all her own? That she's putting one little desire for privacy and indulged preference in front of the her children and boyfriend (as if they have a right to access every part of her life and space)?

Stingy. That's the story. A woman is stingy because she wants something that is all her own, for whatever her reasons.

She's generous BUT.

I know, I know—it's such a little thing. But this kind of stuff is literally why I'm a feminist, as much as anything else, as much as the Big Stuff.

I want a right to my own goddamn toilet, if that's what I want and can afford, without judgment. And I want that for every other woman, too.

I want women to be able to want and to have, without being accused of being less than generous, simply because we occasionally put ourselves first.

Is that really so much to ask?

Don't worry: That's rhetorical.

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