A refreshing twist on the typical male pee scene is the long, excruciating-but-in-a-good-way introduction to Vincent Gallo's "Buffalo 66" (1997), which should be in a category by itself. It qualifies as a tables-turned (TT) scene. The film begins when Gallo's character, Billy Brown, is released from prison. Nature calls as he waits for the bus. He asks to use the prison toilet. They refuse. Instead of letting loose on the nearest tree, he obediently waits for his bus and takes it into town. When he finally arrives at the terminal Gallo searches, doubled over, for a pot to piss in. But all the johns are closed.

In desperation, he staggers down the street and skulks into the men's room at a dance studio. The other urinal is occupied by a male dance student who won't stop looking at his neighbor's large wand, and the homophobic, pee-shy Gallo attacks the poor guy. Gallo doesn't actually urinate until almost 15 minutes into the movie -- after kidnapping Christina Ricci and pulling over on the side of the road to whiz. "Don't look!" he admonishes her. He apologizes afterward. It's a clever scene, but not convincing enough, exposition-wise, to prevent us from thinking that Gallo, who directed the movie, just used the setup to make us think he has a big one.

There's an even more kinky twist in Nichole Hofocener's "Walking and Talking" (1996), a film about two best friends who grow apart when one of them gets serious with her boyfriend. At the beginning of the film Anne Heche's male pal is peeing in the bathroom (standing up) when she comes from behind and starts helping. "I've got it," he says, slightly annoyed, and pushes her away. Then he pulls what looks like a white birth control pill box from a shelf above the toilet. As he's hitching up his pants we hear, "Oh my God!" as Heche sees a ring inside. "I. Uh. Will you marry me?" he asks. In this case, at least, pee brings a couple closer.

The most prevalent TT pee scenes are ones in which the woman pees in front of the man. The first mainstream Hollywood movie to feature such a sequence was "Fun With Dick and Jane" (1977), in which the once-rich, now-destitute couple (Jane Fonda and George Segal) retreat to their bathroom after pulling off their first (accidental) robbery. Like "Walking and Talking," the scene falls into the "Pee at a Pivotal Moment" (PP) subcategory. As she contemplates giving the money back, the slightly pee-shy Fonda nonchalantly hikes up her skirt, sits down and asks Segal to turn on the faucet. While they discuss the pros and cons of becoming criminals, she pees, wipes and flushes. Then Fonda stands, smoothes her skirt and announces that she's keeping the money. They hug, and their crime spree begins.

Something similar happens at the beginning of "Eyes Wide Shut," when Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman are getting ready to go out. Kidman is doing her business with the door open while talking to Cruise. She asks him how she looks. "Perfect," he says, looking at himself in the mirror. He also tells her that her hair looks great, as she's getting up to wipe. "You're not even looking at me," she says, referring to the film's title. (She should talk, since there wasn't even a sound effect when she was supposed to be peeing.)

Elisabeth Shue's prostitute in "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995) pees in front of her partner in an act far less crass than her conversation. Shortly after asking her shrink how she can "be herself" around suicidal alcoholic Nicholas Cage, Shue proposes that the ne'er-do-well move in with her. When he balks, she continues the conversation, going into the bathroom. "I'll go back to my glamorous life of being alone," she says, dropping her pants and sitting on the pot. "The only thing I have to come back to is a bottle of mouthwash ... to get the taste of cum out of my mouth," she adds, while expelling about a thimbleful of pee. After she wipes, stands, flushes and dresses, Cage explains that she can never ask him to stop drinking; she agrees, and he moves in. Just like that.

"Most mammals seem to experience the moment and posture of urination as exhibiting vulnerability," says Chuck Kleinhans, Northwestern University director of graduate studies in radio/television/film, though he notes the exception of zoo monkeys and apes, which sometimes seem to think of it as a game.

Nevertheless, it seems like "bad" or "alternative" girls do most of the female peeing in the movies. "In general, I think that instances of women peeing in front of others (in non-porno movies) signals a certain level of comfort," says Lisa Miya-Jervis, editor and publisher of Bitch magazine, which analyzes pop culture from a feminist perspective. "But it can also be kinda flirtatious, as it puts the watcher/listener in mind of the genitals without exposing them. It's also a test of a man -- is he man enough to deal with the fact that you pee?"

Not always. In Jonathan Demme's comedy "Something Wild" (1986), Melanie Griffith's lawless tart does a reverse Billy Brown, effectively kidnapping square businessman Jeff Daniels. While they're at a hotel, she sits on the pot, urinating with the door open (complete with water and wipe sound effects). Straitlaced Daniels, who had just started to loosen up and swagger a bit after getting laid the night before, regresses to his old self the minute he sees Griffith on the pot.

An even more interesting subset of the TT is the all-too-rare scene in which the woman pees standing up (WSU). Denise Decker, architect of the Internet's Woman's Guide on "How to Pee Standing Up," says her favorite WSU scene is in "The Full Monty" (1997), when some women decide to make use of the little boy's room. "One of the women uses the urinal, facing it, much like a man would," says Decker, who regularly receives e-mail accusing her of being a lesbian man-hater for running her Web site. "She laughs along with her friends, while the man in the stall, watching what the ladies are up to through a crack in the door, mutters to himself about women in general, 'My God, they're going to take over the world!'"

Recent Stories