*white, straight, middle-class, able-bodied, youngish, cis-gender, Western
However banal it may sound, shit, dung, faeces, poop, excrement, number two, shite, bowel movement, stool, discharge, defecation or crap matters. Without the regular defecation, our bodies die. Discharging waste from our bodies is literally a life-saver.
How to defecate is a matter of acculturation and socialisation we are exposed to. Most Western people use a sitting flush toilet and toilet paper to remove the traces of defecation and pee in an environment that is familiar, cosy and clean. It is quite a different experience to take a dump at the chemical toilet – they are not supposed to be a place where you should or could feel at home, despite engaging in very homely activity. Chemical toilets have no homelike atmosphere; they are a transitional place for masses to relief themselves as quickly as possible. When you must shit in public places (e.g. public toilet in a mall, workplace or a chemical toilet), you must do it so quickly that nobody even notices it. Yes, we are that uncomfortable with our own faeces.
Where does this uneasiness with defecation come from? It is a result of the social processes that sociologist Norbert Elias has discussed in his pivotal work “The Civilizing Process” (1939). A civilizing process of Western culture (i.e. white, middle-class, heteronormative, masculine) did not encourage the celebration of the body, bodily openings and its leakiness. The sealed-up body has become a corporeal standard of a new economic order – capitalism and institutionalized philosophical ethics of Cartesian dichotomy (Mind over Body) helped to constitute general beliefs that body needs to be contained at every level. The containment of the human body means an individualised (i.e. separated from other human bodies, where physical connection with others only happens on purpose), socialized (i.e. natural body functions are transformed into socially accepted modes of how a body should function or behave – no more shitting in our pants when adult) and rationalized (i.e. the dominance of reason and self-control over emotions and body – to control bowel movement and defecate in specific spaces for defecation) entity.
The sealed-up body is now accompanied by emotions of shame and embarrassment – sex life, birth, death, loud laughter, loud talking, defecation, drinking and eating have become “private matters”, done in the privacy of our homes, but when performed in public, they must be necessarily encoded in social customs, e.g. visible sex activity is “normal” only in porn movies, giving birth is placed in specialised departments of a hospital, people speak in moderate volume of voice when conversing etc. All those cultural expectations of social conduct emanate from the white, middle-class, straight, able-bodied, Western, cis-gender and masculine values on how to be a “civilised” person.
One of the most important conditions for a person to enter “civilization” is being potty trained. When we are born, we ooze “dirt” – blood, urine, faeces, placenta etc. and until parents (usually mother or some other woman) teach us how to defecate properly (e.g. using potty and later toilet), we wallow in our own bodily fluids (e.g. shit, pee, food, saliva, vomit) and do not worry about it because we have no concept of borders – everything belongs to us, even our own turd. This is the most sensual time of the human life; nobody is judging you for being covered with excreta until you are potty trained, which means you are now able to separate proper (e.g. civilised) from improper (e.g. savage) defecation. By being potty trained we map our body – where we end and others begin.
Potty training is a person’s transition from her/his/their sensual self or – what Julia Kristeva (1982) has named – semiotic phase (i.e. the phase of dirt, uninhibited fleshiness and improperness) to the socialized one (i.e. proper, clean, disciplined, rational). The socialised self represses the sensual joyous times of childhood, because early childhood is also the state of unity between mother and child, where borders between them are not so clear. Mother represents the quintessential Body – warmth, food, emotions, joy, life, but also dirt, decay, death, power over (child). For Kristeva, defecation is an everyday repetition of man’s separation from his mother, where faeces represent the bodily (e.g. maternal, life-death) aspect of a person’s life.
In a masculine conception of social reality, all that is related to femininity (e.g. body, sexuality, motherhood, emotions and death) is repressed or denied, so taking a dump – a very physiological and bodily phenomenon that occurs randomly – should be carefully premeditated. Shitting becomes a disciplined ritual that needs to be controlled and rationalized to be executed properly, otherwise shit (or maternal/feminine) will take over. It is a sign of another masculine attempt to dominanate Nature (i.e. bowel movement, phantasm of mother), because defecation reminds men that despite endless efforts to control everything and everyone around them, they are still bodies – unstable and uncontrollable entities where shit calls the shots.
Man’s fecal ritual is a predetermined and controlled process – when to defecate, where to defecate and what accompanies the defecation. If the bowels are not moving, they will make them move. “Get this shit working” could be the morning mantra, because morning dump is the most important one; it sets the mood of the day. It should happen after breakfast, no one is allowed to cut the line when a man’s defecation is about to begin and by spending some time sitting aimlessly on the toilet seat, a man will mentally force his bowels to start moving. To disassociate from his own defecation (because of the connection with Nature, e.g. maternal), he occupies his mind while shitting. To sit in silence doing “nothing” (well, shitting is not nothing, but nevertheless) is incomprehensible to a man. If he would defecate as women do – quickly, without any thought, when you must go, you go, you don’t hang around in a bathroom – he would have had to listen to himself (e.g. his thoughts) and sounds that surround defecation – the growling of bowels, farting, the moment when turd hits the water surface of a toilet bowl.
So, to separate himself from this “mundane” everyday need, he distracts his mind with reading papers or clicking through his smart phone while defecating. It is unthinkable for a man to be alone in a room with his turd (e.g. the symbolic separation from mother and in the presence of Nature), so occupying his mind with meaningful/less information (i.e. rational thought) helps him survive this horrendous experience of filth and corporealness.
To recognize something as a “shit ritual”, however unconsciously it is done by their “ritualists”, this sends a message of men’s uneasiness with anything feminine or maternal in their bodies (not even a piece of shit) or in their identity.
On the other hand, taking a phone with you to the toilet, regardless of your gender, also accentuates the internalized capitalistic expectation to rationalize your time – use every spare minute for everything and everyone else (e.g. work-related obligations) except yourself .
Shit in piece.
P.S. This text would have been different if different types of men had been observed – non-heterosexual, non-middle class, non-western, non-white, disabled or aged men.
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