3003 Scatological Muse

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

You either sink or swim or you don't.

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I've known many men intimately enough to be familiar with their bathroom habits.

It seems to me that almost all of them had a strange relationship with their bowels.

Maybe it's from changing my baby brother's diapers when I was a teen, and then my daughter's later, and eventually Jay's, but I'm very pragmatic about my own poop and flatulence, and that of others. Hey, it's natural! It's normal! Nothing about it (within reason, like hold it until you get out of the elevator, please) bothers me at all.

Yeah, poop doesn't smell nice, but that's natural, too. The purpose of the odor is to keep you from eating it. Note that an animal will sometimes eat the poop of a different species, but rarely eat the poop of its own (with the exception of mothers who will often eat their baby's leavings, to prevent a carnivore sniffing them out). Odor is natural and normal, and has a purpose. If it didn't stink, we'd have died out as a species millennia ago from intestinal parasites.

Most of the men with whom I have ever shared a bathroom seem to fall into two groups - those who seem mortally ashamed of their necessity to eliminate and pass gas, and those who seem inordinately proud of it - never something in between. (I once had a male cat who was very proud of his deposits in the litter box. He marched around proudly proclaiming his every achievement. He was a very macho cat. Rather reminded me of guys who think farting loudly is an admirable skill.)

It has been my experience that many men won't move their bowels in the vicinity of a woman. They won't simply go when the urge presents. They'll hold it, often for days, until they are assured of privacy (no women around). Then of course it's not an easy task. Years of that practice, holding it against the urge, can ensure that it's never easy. The urge dies. That's when the bathroom becomes the reading room.

There's a guy I know of (not one of "my men") who, reluctant to use the toilet in the house he shares with his wife, has built himself a fancy ventilated composting outhouse in the back yard. His excuse is that using the toilet is wasting a valuable resource that could instead nourish the garden. The utmost in recycling. Composting it and burying it deep in the garden bed instead of spreading it on top eliminates the disease problem. He's very virtuous about the whole thing. Actually, given his preference for pooping in the woods if he can when away from home rather than in a hotel bathroom, I suspect the compost aspect is an excuse. He just doesn't want to be associated with his feces.

Many men will expand their prejudice against the natural process to their women, too. She's never allowed to foop or poop naturally and openly. It must be hidden. I had been taking Glucerna bars and drinks when I went somewhere with The Man so I wouldn't miss a snack, until I discovered they give me a lot of gas. It didn't bother me (I "whisper", remember?), but he seemed disgusted by the very idea, and I was turning blue trying to hold it.

Men are weird about poop. And they think women are difficult to understand?
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