This past spring, I found myself in what in most situations would be the lowest of lows. It was three o’clock in the morning about five hours up Mt. Chocorua on a cold New Hampshire spring night – two weeks into the Thoreauian NELP[1] experience. I couldn’t sleep because I was drowning in my own phlegm. Then I felt my bowels moving. I clenched my butt cheeks making sure everything stayed in. Honest to God, I tried to wait it out; but when the bowels are insistent, they are insistent. Call me weak, but I surrendered. I got out of my sleeping bag, forwent trying to find my shoes and felt around in the dark for my headlamp. I must have searched for at least five minutes before I forewent that too. Luckily I knew where the shit kit was, so I grabbed that and without a light, tried to find the door of the cabin. I tried to go quickly and quietly (on account of my raging bowels and the fact that I was sharing the cabin with five other, probably sleeping, people) and achieved neither. It took longer than it should have to unlock the door and when I completed that, the door squeaked and let in a flood of light - if I hadn’t already awoken my cabin mates that probably did the trick. It was lighter outside than in the cabin, but not by much, so I was still squinting trying to find a good place. My feet were the best guide. I didn’t want to do it too close, but not too far away either because I’d have to find my way back. The terrain was also a problem since the flat area the cabin rested on was littered with flagstone rock.
When I found a place, I started to dig. Six inches, I kept telling myself, it has to be six inches, but I had nothing to measure with. I couldn’t really see, and at a certain point digging resulted only in rock. I got maybe four inches before I decided it was going to have to be good enough. I squatted, hoping that if one thing could go right tonight, it’d be my aim. What came out was wet, messy, but I tried to drain myself of it so I wouldn’t have to go again. When I finished, I tore some toilet paper off the roll, wiped, put the toilet paper on top of the mound I had created (I’d aimed well), and covered the whole mess back up with dirt. My body was at peace. I made my way back to the cabin, but as soon as I stepped through the door my bowels were screaming again. I fought them as I got back into my sleeping bag, clenching every three minutes or so until I finally fell asleep at around six. We started breakfast at seven. And while I complained about my phlegm, the cold, and my inability to sleep – I never mentioned my diarrhea. I didn’t know any of them well enough for that. Eventually, my body did come to a rest. The oatmeal I ate in the morning must have helped because I was able to scale the mountain without worrying about another mishap. But I couldn’t help but think about it. Like all embarrassing stories, it was begging to be told, and I think part of me wanted validation that I had gone through something terrible. Full disclosure: I hated Mt. Chocorua. I was grumpy the whole time, hated my group, and regularly thought I was going to die, for lack of hydration would surely lead to fainting and falling. But all of those complaints seemed whiny and over exaggerated. A horrific poop story seemed more fitting - the perfect microcosm for a shitty climb. So I wrote about it instead. Not in the journal we wrote everything in at NELP, because I knew Becky, my journal group leader, would read it. I chose letters instead, specifically to my mom, and consequently the rest of my family (I can imagine the level of discomfort having to read it/hear it read aloud) and my boyfriend Jamie (at a little over a year together, we were past the point trying to impress each other). After sharing it, part of me felt better and even now, I’m not sure whether or not it was the poop story that I needed to tell or the validation of the hardships that came with it. Since NELP, the social implications of poop have fascinated me. I began to question why I felt comfortable talking about my poop with my family and Jamie, but not with the five almost-strangers on my Mt. Chocorua trip. We’d all been there at some point, right? So why the stigma? According To Dave Praeger, author of Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product, the stigma started with the smell: |
“Even if early village dwellers didn’t know that poop could cause disease (a fact unknown until the 1850s) they knew that it smells bad. Poop is repulsive, and any vermin attracted to something so repulsive must be repulsive themselves. Just like modern ones, early villagers didn’t want poop, its smell, or the vermin it attracts anywhere near them. To combat this, social codes arose to regulate the placement of poop” (30).
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Poop was relegated to lakes and rivers, but once cities started to emerge there were fewer places to put poop. Cesspools were created so poop was concentrated to a specific place away from everything. This was a good idea at first, but later led to several epidemics as the bacteria filled poop leaked into the drinking water (Praeger 32). However it wasn’t the deaths, but the start of the Industrial revolution in Europe that changed the way changed the way that poop was managed.
The Victorian elite were in a predicament. Feeling threatened by the closing of the gap between the lower and middle classes and not able to assert their status in the same way since the rise of capitalism made wealth, and therefore social status, more easily attainable – they used poop as the way to distinguish: “The masses pooped in communal outdoor privies, so the rich embraced the opposite extreme: private indoor rooms” (Praeger 37). They also filled their chamber pots[2] with water in order to get rid of the smell – something that lower class families excreting in cesspools didn’t have access to (Praeger 37). Praeger comments on this fact by saying “But the Victorians made a mistake: they believed their own propaganda. Soon it wasn’t enough for masses to believe the elite didn’t poop – the other elites had to believe the same thing” (37). In 2001 Pierre Bourdieu coined the term habitus to explain this exact social phenomenon. He explains habitus to be: |
“The durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations, produces practices which tend to reproduce the regularities immanent in the objective conditions of the production of their generative principle, while adjusting to the demands inscribed as objective potentialities in the situation, as defined by the cognitive and motivating structures making up the habitus” (Bourdieu 533).
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A definition as circular as what it represents. In laymen’s terms the habitus, starts (if you can even say starts, as it is a circular process) with a societal norm that is looking to be reinforced – so for the Victorians of the time, reinforcement of class division. Because times change, to keep this going they have to improvise, which for them becomes switching from community cesspools to private rooms with water filled chamber pots. The different experience of pooping – alone vs communally, indoors vs. outside – reinforces the idea that pooping is something one should be ashamed of. This reinforces the division of the classes by equating the morality of poop with the access to indoor chamber pots and the process starts all over again, with the focus on improvising the invention of toilets.
So you can blame the Victorian elites for your squeamishness about pooping, although today it’s much more nuanced. Today’s toilet, first appropriated by the Victorians, is more than just an apparatus to expel waste into. It has all of the connotations of the Victorian era, with none of the practicalities of our time. As Praeger says, “Everyone knows that everyone poops but everyone poops using apparatuses designed to create the appearance that no one does. Our infrastructure makes invisible what our bodies make universal. A tremendous social contradiction is the result (48). With at least one toilet in every building – and portable bathrooms often provided for extended periods of time outside, and consequently away from a bathroom, it is very clear where poop’s place is; something very important considering its potential to harm us. However the confusion, Praeger would argue, comes from how public bathrooms blur the line between poop being a private experience and a public experience simultaneously because you are sectioned off from everyone else, but others can hear the plop, and can potentially see and smell the aftermath of your poop – making public bathroom users unsure whether or not they are breaking a societal code or not (52). Praeger posits that our society can “clarify the role of poop and create pootopia, a society of shameless shitters…but only by clarifying the norms about pooping in public toilets” (64). His solution is conversation. If people could sit down (on toilet bowls perhaps?) and talk about it, Praeger would believe that there would be a lot less shameful shitters out there – and I agree. In fact, I’ve seen it happen. My friend Robert[3] was a shameful shitter – but I didn’t know it until two years into our friendship. We had gotten really close, and one day I said “I have to poop,” instead of the more societally appropriate and abstract “I have to use the bathroom.” He responded “Girls don’t poop” which set the feminist in me off as I explained to him the many reasons why that sentence was ridiculous; I ended with “Pooping is an equal opportunity experience” and we were done. Conversation over – for a little while at least. A month or so later during studying, he exited saying he had to go upstairs to use the bathroom. “Why upstairs?” I asked. And he froze. Slowly, with little help from him, I pieced it all together. On the third floor of our residence hall was a private bathroom where he could poop in peace without worrying about anyone hearing, seeing or smelling. After the ice was broken for poop talk – we discussed the awkwardness of public bathrooms and other poop anxieties. He still tries to utilize the private bathroom whenever he can, but he no longer shamefully sulks away when we’re studying. Instead we’re more apt to talk about how the poop was – offering our congratulations or condolences much like we would comment on a good or bad meal. And we became closer friends because of it. So yes, conversation is everything, but Praeger doesn’t adequately represent how difficult it is to get to the point of conversation. What stops this conversation is the subject matter itself. Poop is disgusting. Paul Rozin from the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and April Fallon from the Medical College of Pennsylvania wrote an article on disgust and found that “Like other basic emotions, disgust has a characteristic facial expression, an appropriate action (distancing of the self from an offensive object), a distinctive physiological manifestation (nausea), and a characteristic feeling state (revulsion)” (Rozin and Fallon 1). When people smell, see, or even sometimes think about poop, these are the exact bodily responses. This makes sense, considering poop harbors bacteria that can make people ill. However these responses are also elicited when someone talks about poop. I experienced this first hand during the process of writing this essay. Every time I brought the subject up, I saw and heard the same thing: a wrinkled nose and raised upper lip characteristic of disgust, mixed with the tell-tale signs of surprise: eyebrows raised and eyes widened. Some would quickly try and hide it of course, usually with a nervous laugh, but it was always there in the initial reaction. When I didn’t immediately retract my answer I watched them recalibrate their view of me, “wait, you’re serious?” they’d ask and when I answered yes, the question “why?” followed close behind. It was my turn then to defend the honor of my research – which turned quickly into defending not just the subject of poop, but me as a person. To tell my friends and family what I was working on meant distinguishing myself from a “poop lover” to “someone interested in the societal implications of poop,” for a mere interest is not enough. I equated me, in some ways to the vermin that frolic in it, for as Praeger wrote, “any vermin attracted to something so repulsive must be repulsive themselves” (30). Despite my willingness (and excitement) to write about poop – I found myself just as nervous and afraid as Robert was admitting that he had to poop. I wasn’t a shameful shitter, but I was a shameful writer about shit. I started referring to my poop investigation as “my essay” hoping they wouldn’t ask further. I blushed every time I had to talk about it and then just stopped talking about it at all, except with the people who I already talk about poop with – close friends, family and Jamie. It comes down to vulnerability. According to merriam-webster.com, vulnerable has two applicable definitions: 1) capable of being physically or emotionally wounded and/or 2) open to attack or damage – both with negative connotations. In American society today, to talk about poop with someone you haven’t already established that relationship with is a risk. You risk seeing their face twist with disgust, and perhaps move away from you – either physically or emotionally because of your engagement with the topic. They are in the position to attack your character or damage your self-esteem. Talking about poop in a society that associates it with shame is putting your neck out fairly far. With all that at stake, what would be the benefit of talking about it? Brené Brown, a qualitative researcher that studies vulnerability and worthiness at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, would argue not talking about our vulnerabilities keeps us from obtaining exactly what we’re hoping to achieve by hiding them – connection. In a podcast on whyy radio’s Voices in the Family segment she said: |
“I think the bottom line – at least what I’ve found in my research, is that we are absolutely hardwired for connection. Neurobiologically, cognitively, hardwired to be in connection. And so, I think what happens is this fear of disconnection, which is another way I think about shame, fear that someone else is going to find out something about us, something that we’ve done or failed to do, even something that happened to us that was out of our control. Someone is going to learn something about us that makes us unworthy of that connection that we so biologically, emotionally need…. There’s a long biological evolutionary component to vulnerability and shame. The problem is that as we’ve evolved and as our capacity for understanding emotion in ourselves and other people has evolved, shame has become far too blunt of an instrument to be helpful. The protection, the way we hide and protect our vulnerabilities rather than protecting us, keeps us from being known."
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Or, as is the case for poop, it keeps us from really understanding what poop is and its impact on society.
Everyone poops, just as everyone is insecure about something. America thrives on the culture of what Brown refers to as the “collective sense of never enough” and explains it as the mentality that individually we are never “good enough, rich enough, thin enough, beautiful enough, powerful enough” to be satisfied with ourselves. There is always something more we can be doing, always something better that we can be. This is fueled, of course, by constantly comparing ourselves to others and the belief that they have somehow unlocked something that we haven’t. Since we’re hardwired for connection, we then use that as a measure of self-worth and perhaps more importantly as a reason someone couldn’t or shouldn’t love us. This isn’t everyone, but it is most people. In her research, Brown found that: |
“If you took the folks who really struggled for a sense of love and belonging and compared them to people who felt a deep sense of love and belonging, not only did they have the capacity to love, but they believed, maybe more importantly, that they were deeply lovable. The only thing that separated those two groups was the group that had the deep sense of love and belonging, believed they were worthy of love and belonging.”
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These people who do feel a deep sense of love and belonging (Brown referred to them as the wholehearted) simply “engaged with the world from a sense of worthiness” (Brown). Instead of saying “I’m not good enough,” wholehearted people were more prone to say “you know what, I’m imperfect, I’m vulnerable, I don’t know what’s going on all the time, but I’m enough. And just because I’m vulnerable and imperfect doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of love and belonging. I’m absolutely worthy of love and belonging” (Brown) or perhaps “Guess what? I poop and it’s okay.” This distinction falls along similar lines of Praeger’s distinction between shameful and shameless shitters. It’s not that the shameless shitters are better at pooping, or have less disgusting poops, they just reframe it and accept that turd for what it is, without equating it to self-worth.
But how does one get to the place where they are able to engage with the world through the lens of worthiness? Brown has an answer for that too. Her research showed that the wholehearted “shared in common about ten or eleven very specific collection of choices they made every day in their lives that were fundamentally different than the choices a lot of us make” – they chose rest and play over work. They chose self-care, while working “mindfully to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth” (Brown). This reframing is consistent and powerful. By making yourself a priority, ever so slowly you can undo the societal shame that is associated with not working hard enough, or your particular poop. If you value yourself and believe you are worthy of love, it makes being vulnerable that much easier. Praeger is spot on when he said that talking is the key to creating a “pooptopia,” but there’s so much that needs to happen before that. It takes an internal revolution. Regardless of how many people start talking about poop, no real progress will be made until we reframe our minds to acknowledge that the matter that protrudes from our butts is biological, universal and nothing to be feared. But even before that happens, we need to learn to be less afraid of ourselves viewed through other’s eyes. When Brown was studying the concept of belonging she found that “the number one barrier for belonging was actually fitting in.” As a people we are so afraid. We’re afraid of not saying the right thing on a first date, we’re afraid to rock the boat during a political debate among a group of friends we’ve been recently acquainted with. We’re afraid to risk because we’re afraid to fail. Brown said, |
“But in doing that, in holding back because we feel too vulnerable…to really show up and get in there and mix it up, not only do we lose out but the people around us lose out because they don’t get to hear what we think. And it doesn’t matter if we have all the facts or if we have a dangling modifier or we do something that fails – at least we showed up and we tried.”
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Because trying is important, risking is important - “vulnerability,” Brown says, “is our most accurate measurement of courage.”
Works Cited
Bourdieu, Pierre. "Structures, Habitus, and Practices." Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2001. 533-42. Print. Brown, Brene. "Voices In The Family | Radio | WHYY." Interview by Dan Gottlieb.Voices In The Family | Radio | WHYY. WHYY, 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. <http://www.whyy.org/91FM/voices201204.html>. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. Praeger, Dave. Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2007. Print. Rozin, Paul, and April E. Fallon. "A Perspective on Disgust." Psychological Review94.1 (1987): 23-41. Web [1] NELP stands for the New England Literature Program. 40 students from the University of Michigan go every year to New England (specifically Maine and New Hampshire in the past) for a semester of rustic living. There is no technology allowed and students live, work, and study communally. The curriculum is exclusively New England authors (Thoreau, Emmerson, Dickinson etc.) For more information check out NELP’s website: https://www.lsa.umich.edu/nelp [2] A bedroom vessel for urination and defecation (merriam-webster.com). [3] Name changed to protect identity. |