No longer silent, but still deadly: The Sound Princess

Anyone who's ever suffered a public restroom knows the anxiety one can experience there. Stall talkers, lack of toilet paper, and the dreaded 'person talking on their cell phone in the stall next to you and you think they're talking to you so you answer them until you realize they're on a cell phone' present a constant hazard and can make relieving oneself an anxiety-ridden task. But communal washrooms present a whole new source of terror for individuals suffering from a shy bladder.

Called paruresis in medical parlance, this condition constitutes a phobia of being heard urinating. Curiously enough, the majority of paruresis sufferers are men. Interesting, when you consider the average man will summon the family to admire a particularly robust shit he just took. I kid, I kid. But seriously, a fear of being heard taking a piss IN THE BATHROOM?! But before you go rolling your eyes and muttering about how this country is full of dumbasses, know this. In Japan, where people are notoriously proper about everything, to the point of having special slippers especially for using the toilet, there also exists a device designed to eliminate paruresis anxieties.

Called otohime, or "Sound Princess", this motion-activated device produces a loud simulated flushing sound for 25 seconds to mask bathroom noises. Contrary to trends in the U.S., most paruresis sufferers in Japan are women, and as such the device appears in almost all women's restrooms in the country, though it is also showing up increasingly in men's rooms as well.

On a related note, I will never cease to be amused by the advent of automated technology in public washrooms; that is to say, how fucking frustrating and baffling it is when it refuses to work, which is often. Remember this next time you're waving hello to an automatic flushing toilet or paper towel dispenser: in Japan, people are waving at machines designed to cover their piss and fart noises. Stay classy, y'all.