It's the most universal human experience. So why does it cause so much shame,
embarrassment, and angst? This book explores why we see this bodily function the
way we do, how this view impacts the way we deal with the physical byproduct,
and the social and environmental issues that arise because we're too
uncomfortable to discuss them. Combining humor with intellectual thought,
Poop Culture examines topics such as:
The history of the toilet as a tool for propaganda and an apparatus of oppression
Why so many people see pooping as such a shameful act
The economic and environmental costs of every single flush
The manifestations and meanings of poop in modern art (Duchamp, Manzoni, Delvoye, and more)
How business and the media react to poop (or, why toilet paper is marketed with teddy bears)
Poop as redemption: Bakhtin, Rabelais, and poop as the salvation of the human race
And much more.
Poop Culture is for sale on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and at most indie bookstores. Get your copy today!
Indeed there is. This book is the product of two years of research -- and not just reading bathroom walls, either. Sources for the author's conclusions range from theorists like Freud, Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Mary Douglas, and the aptly-named Norman O. Brown to writers and artists like Jonathan Swift, Marcel Duchamp, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone. This isn't just a collection of factoids like so many other bathroom books -- this is a critical and well-argued analysis of the influence of poop, the flush toilet, and the mandate for bathroom privacy on the way Westerners view themselves and relate to each other.
And what an influence! It begins with the origins of the flush toilet -- not as a tool for sanitation, as you might have thought, but as a means for the elite Victorians to distance themselves from the lower classes suddenly empowered by the profit potential of the Industrial Revolution. The original toilets were designed specifically to whisk away the sights and smells of poop so that the supremely wealthy could pretend that they, unlike the filthy masses, did not poop. And that pedigree of repression is now the basis for our morning constitutional. It's no wonder, then, that we're so unwilling to confront the environmental dangers -- and the economic costs -- created by our so-called conveniences.
From high culture to low, from psychoanalysis to conceptual art, Poop Culture examines exactly why it's so hard to believe that someone would write a book about poop -- and why it's so important that someone has finally done so.
Dave Praeger is the editor of PoopReport.com, a site dedicated to "the intellectual appreciation of poop humor." He's been seen on National Geographic TV and the BBC, interviewed by Esquire and the New York Press, and heard on everything from Sirius Satellite Radio to NPR. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Jenny, and what may be the world's most extensive collection of poop-related books and journal articles. (Which, as speaks to the sad state of academic neglect on the subject, is small enough to fit on one long shelf.) can
contact him at here.
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From Chapter 1: How Do You Doo
Everything has its culturally-determined place, pooping included. In contemporary American society, pooping's place is in private, on a toilet. If you poop in public, on the table, you'd be irreversibly contaminated in the eyes of others. Both of those examples are clear-cut. Problems arise from ambiguity -- when a stimulus is not easily recognizable as in or out of place. What if you poop in your bathroom at home, in private, on the toilet, but your family in the other room can hear the flush, or your fart, or the plops? Or what if you poop in a public bathroom but with no door on the stall keeping passers-by from seeing you?
There's no ambiguity in the rule that pooping must take place in private, out of the sight, smell, and hearing of others. And if all toilets fulfilled this condition, there would be no problems. But a significant portion of the 350 million toilets in America are in schools, offices, churches, theaters, and other places of public accommodation, where the boundary between public and private is blurred and pooping occurs in a room appropriately sequestered from public space, but nevertheless within the sight, smell, and hearing of others. Because of the contradiction of these public bathrooms, people observing the behavior of poopers in public bathrooms are unsure about whether they are reinforcing social norms or violating them. From this uncertainty shameful and shameless shitting arise.
From Chapter 2: The Shaming of the Poo
It wasn't a good night for Eve. As if suffering Montezuma's revenge five thousand years before he was born were not traumatic enough, she faced the humiliation of having totally grossed out fifty percent of Earth's human population. As Adam pretended to sleep, his eyes still wide in shocked disgust, Eve pretended to believe he was sleeping while she wondered what was wrong with her and what Adam must think of her. But as they lay there, the stench hanging over them both and Eve whimpering because toilet paper hadn't been invented yet, Adam's stomach began to churn and boil, just as hers had moments before. He didn't let on, though; he recognized her humiliation, and it was an experience he wished to avoid. So he bit his lip and endured the pain that night, and pooped in secret the next morning; and the next time Eve had to go, she hid her pooping, too. And so it went. Each believed the other's disgust was accompanied with condemnation. Eventually they came to know that each was pooping as repugnantly as the other; but instead of realizing that they were both normal, they both felt like aberrations.
Why should such an egalitarian act be so revolting? All people poop -- so shouldn't we view pooping as neutral, a shared human experience, unremarkable because universal? No, because poop is disgusting -- not by any cultural standard, but by instinct. While it's unnatural to feel like a social aberration because you poop, it is natural to find poop disgusting. Fecal aversion is the belief that poop is malodorous, gross, and untouchable. Studies of cultures at all levels of development have found this to be a universal human view. To understand why, one must first understand the basics of disgust.
From Chapter 8: The Medium Is The Mess
Many media-savvy organizations take advantage of the fact that poop makes news. Organizers of the World Toilet Summit know that "The World Public Sanitary Health Summit" wouldn't get nearly as much press; they must feel the publicity the name generates is worth the tone by which it's delivered. The First Church of God in Pendleton, Oregon, lit up the AP Wire in January 2006 with the news that it was raising money for a mission to Costa Rica by selling Angel Soft toilet paper. And in September 2005, two Norwegian politicians used poop to get their names and pictures all over the world. Norway's Oppdal party member Joakim Lund bet his colleague Håvard Holden that he would "shower in shit" if Holden's Center Party won more than six percent of a particular vote. When the Center Party did indeed achieve that milestone, Lund honored his end of the bargain by standing under a manure pump on a Norwegian farm wearing only snorkeling gear and a swimsuit -- a disgusting fate, but earning worldwide media attention.
But while the media will eagerly report poop in the news, no media outlet wants to be associated with news about poop. When confronted with an ambiguous manifestation of poop -- as when a urinal is honored as great art -- the news media worry about what their readers may think of them for reporting such a story. So they take great care to distance a poop story from their other reporting -- linguistically, by writing in a tone that communicates their contempt for the subject; contextually, by putting the stories in the "wacky news" section so readers know the media outlet sees this story differently; and professionally, by analyzing the facts less critically then they would for less taboo subjects. Their fear is not that an equal footing would elevate poop, but that the contamination of poop would drag down all their other work.
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