A pissing contest, pissing duel, or pissing match, is a game in which participants compete to see who can

urinate Urination, also known as micturition, is the release of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, ...

the highest, the farthest, for the longest, or the most accurately. Although the practice is usually associated with adolescent boys, women have been known to play the game, and there are literary depictions of adults competing in it. Since the 1940s, the term has been used as a

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-g ...

idiomatic phrase describing contests that are "futile or purposeless", especially if waged in a "conspicuously aggressive manner". As a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

it is used figuratively to characterise futile ego-driven battling in a

pejorative A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...

or facetious manner that is often considered vulgar. The image of two people urinating on each other has also been offered as a source of the phrase,

Etymology

The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

'' (OED) defines a pissing contest as "a competition to see who can urinate the farthest or highest" and (in extended use) as "any contest which is futile or purposeless especially ones pursued in a conspicuously aggressive manner." The first cited use of the phrase comes from a 1943 Study and Investigation of Federal Communications Committee hearing before the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate F.C.C. where a politician was quoted as saying: "You boys have to understand … that I have to deal with a combination like that of Hartley-David; it is like having a pissing contest with a skunk." The OED's first citation of pissing match is from a December 1971 ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'' story that says "One Western diplomat ... discounting the significance of the Sino-Soviet arguments ... described it as 'a pissing match, and I'm glad not to be caught in the crossfire.

Urban Dictionary ''Urban Dictionary'' is a crowdsourced English-language online dictionary for slang words and phrases. The website was founded in 1999 by Aaron Peckham. Originally, ''Urban Dictionary'' was intended as a dictionary of slang or cultural words ...

's crowdsourced definition describes the term as being used figuratively "to refer to a meaningless though nonetheless entertaining act in which people try to outdo one another in any way." Comments found there also describe pissing contests as literal competition "in which two or more people, usually (but not exclusively) male, urinate with the intention of producing the stream with the greatest distance." ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' separates its definition of "pissing match" (a conflict involving "unpleasantries") from "pissing contest" (a conflict with negative attacks made by both sides). For "pissing contest" it offers a different image from other reference works: "From the graphic if vulgar image of two men urinating on each other". Both phrases are said to originate in the United States.Partridge, Eric and Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor
''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J–Z''
Volume 2, p. 1496, Oxford and New York: Routledge, , retrieved via Google Books on November 8, 2009

Female world record

Pissing contests usually, but not always, take place between males. Kacie T. H., in her book ''All is fair in pissing contests'', describes a female pissing contest that she witnessed in Italy back in 2018, supposedly documented by

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

. This resulted in a record 30 foot arc, beating previous male records.

Havelock Ellis Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality i ...

, in his book ''Studies in the Psychology of Sex'', describes a female pissing contest in Belgium, in which two women each stood over a bottle with a funnel and urinated into it, the winner being the one who most nearly filled the bottle.Havelock Ellis, ''Studies in the Psychology of Sex'', volume 2 (1942), p. 407 Women can, once they have learned the right technique, urinate standing. A comic song from 17th-century Belgium is about a similar contest, aiming into a shoe, between three women seeking to impress a man. There is also early Irish literature about female pissing contests. In the story "Aided Derbforgaill" several women compete to see who can urinate deepest into a pile of snow. The winner is Derbforgaill, wife of

Lugaid Riab nDerg Lugaid Riab nDerg ("the red-striped") or Réoderg ("Red Sky"), son of the three '' findemna'', triplet sons of Eochu Feidlech, and their sister Clothru was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. C ...

, but the other women attack her out of jealousy and mutilate her by gouging out her eyes and cutting off her nose, ears, and hair, resulting in her death. Her husband Lugaid also dies, from grief, and

Cú Chulainn Cú Chulainn ( ), called the Hound of Ulster ( Irish: ''Cú Uladh''), is a warrior hero and demigod in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore. He is believed to be an incarnation of the Irish god L ...

avenges the deaths by demolishing a house with the women inside, killing 150.

In the animal kingdom

Pissing contests are not unique to humans.

Trevor Corson Trevor Corson is a writer, and author of the books ''The Secret Life of Lobsters'' and ''The Story of Sushi''. Corson spent two years studying philosophy in China, three years in Japan living in temples and studying Buddhism, and two years worki ...

's ''The Secret Life of Lobsters'' describes a pissing match between lobsters:

Metaphorical phrase

Dwight Eisenhower is reported to have said of Senator Joseph McCarthy that he wouldn't "get into a pissing contest with that skunk." Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, used the same phrase in 1958 when asked why he had not responded to a statement by the French foreign minister that the French government had not been consulted about a crisis in Lebanon.Bingham, Colin
''Wit and wisdom: A Public Affairs Miscellany''
p. 196, Melbourne University Press, 1982, , retrieved November 6, 2009 The dispute between

Carl Icahn Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American financier. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach. Icahn takes la ...

and

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

was described as pissing contest. A review of American novelist

John Barth John Simmons Barth (; born May 27, 1930) is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include ''The Sot-Weed Factor'', a sa ...

's work described it as "resolutely postmodern" in approach and criticised it with a statement that: "Prolonged exposure to this particular 'pissing contest' just left me wanting to tell Barth to parse off".

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...

's ''The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window to Human Nature'' credits the "

wordsmith A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, plays ...

s who thought up the indispensable pissing contest" and other crass phrases such as crock of shit, pussy-whipped, and horse's ass. The ''Hippie Dictionary'', a fringe

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

publication, described the arms race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. as a pissing contest in which each country developed bigger and more powerful weapons until "each super power could obliterate the other multiple times over as well along with the rest of the world" and that "the term super power did not refer to intelligence".

In popular culture

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

included a pissing contest as part of the duncely games in Book 2 of ''

The Dunciad ''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bri ...

'' (1728), with the winner awarded the female poet

Eliza Haywood Eliza Haywood (c. 1693 – 25 February 1756), born Elizabeth Fowler, was an English writer, actress and publisher. An increase in interest and recognition of Haywood's literary works began in the 1980s. Described as "prolific even by the standar ...

and a china

chamber pot A chamber pot is a portable toilet, meant for nocturnal use in the bedroom. It was common in many cultures before the advent of indoor plumbing and flushing toilets. Names and etymology "Chamber" is an older term for bedroom. The chamber pot ...

to the runner-up. A pissing contest takes place between two characters of the novel '' War of the Buttons''. A literal pissing contest and

territorial marking In ethology, territory is the sociographical area that an animal consistently defends against conspecific competition (or, occasionally, against animals of other species) using agonistic behaviors or (less commonly) real physical aggression. A ...

is also depicted in Carroll Ballard's 1983 adaptation of

Farley Mowat Farley McGill Mowat, (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Can ...

's autobiographical novel '' Never Cry Wolf''. In the movie ''

Wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

'' there is a pissing contest between two competitors. During a figurative pissing contest with a sleazy rival,

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...

's character confronts him in a bathroom, shows him he has just taken his job, fires him, and then pees on his shoes saying, "I'm just marking my territory, and you got in the way". The competitor, played by

James Spader James Todd Spader (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor. He has portrayed eccentric characters in films such as the drama ''Sex, Lies, and Videotape'' (1989) for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, the action scie ...

, notes that he has "

suede Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was firs ...

shoes" to which Nicholson replies "

asparagus Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus '' Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in ...

". Director Steven Sebring's '' Patti Smith: Dream of Life'' (2008) captures

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''. Called the "punk poet ...

in a "playful" pissing contest with

Flea Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, a ...

. The ''Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes'' includes a story about a husband and wife who compete in a pissing contest. Havelock Ellis, in his book ''Studies in the Psychology of Sex'', describes a female pissing contest. There is also early Irish literature about female pissing contests. In the story "Aided Derbforgaill" several women compete to see who can urinate deepest into a pile of snow.Carl Marstrander (1911), “The Deaths of Lugaid and Derbforgaill”, Ériu 5, pp. 201–218

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * *

External links

{{Spoken Wikipedia, En-Pissing Contest-article.ogg, date=2020-04-05 Urine Figures of speech English-language slang Narcissism