Thanks, Scatoman. Now I'm pondering the debate anew. Some of my mental wanderings --

Sexual disfunction hits too close to home for most people to be considered funny - it's serious business and is addressed thusly in the media and polite society. Ego and sexual function go...er... hand in hand. Nothing funny if you can't get it up, or in.

Pooping, on the other hand, is not so closely connected to self-esteem and sense of power. Poop is waste - something to be evacuated and disposed of. It's thus not something as coveted to keep on your person at all times, as an erection or moist vagina might be. Rather, it is "filth." Why, the wags ask, would we want to be obsessed with discussing filth and waste? It is merely something to be gotten rid of. And the room aired out afterward.

Because poop is seen as filth and something to be disposed of (while an erection is something to be desired and coveted), to be subjected to someone else's poop is considered to be an assault on one's ego. This makes poop a tool of tremendous power to do evil to someone (e.g. Turd terrorism. Or, a bird poops on man's head, thus humiliating him in front of his girlfriend), and by extension, is the source of both uncomfortable humor ("Yikes, it could happen to me...") or derisive humor ("He got what's coming to him."

Hence, poop offers a fertile subject for wisecracks and jokes when a person suffers the indignities of a poop trauma (locked in outhouse, pooped on by bird, pooping one's pants, stepping in poop...) and of hushed tones when in "proper company" ("We do not discuss our bowels at the dinner table. Poop is waste, and is thus distasteful.").

That seems to be the issue to me:

Sex = Good, pleasurable, something to share with others.

Poop = Bad, unpleasant, something to keep away from others.

So, when the tools for sex aren't working properly, everyone is concerned. So many stand to suffer for lack of an erection! But when the tools for pooping go awry, no one wants to hear about it. It's YOUR problem, buddy. Keep it to yourself, and don't let any of it get on my shoes.

Alas.

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

scatoman: Good reporting. I know the article you're talking about is the real thing, because of its impenetrable thicket of jargon. We here in higher education make ourselves feel important by writing sentences that nobody else can read.

PG: You don't watch old "Lawrence Welk" reruns like I do, with all their ads for Ex-Lax, Metamucil, etc. I predict that, as the Baby Boom ages, we will see the national Search for the Really Good Climax turn into the Search for the Really Good Ca-Ca. If I can't get my rocks off, it ain't gonna kill me (trust the voice of experience on this), but if I can't get my logs out, I am in deep doo-doo.

But I agree with your major premise, that sex is fun and shitting isn't, and we would rather allocate our energies towards what is pleasurable as opposed to what is necessary. That is true of most things in life, though, is it not?

Wow, Scatoman and Poopergal fantastic insights, my only question is to Poopergal. Where can I get this erection coveting you speak of?

Bunga, a perpetual erection is a medical condition known as "priapism," and it is not something to be coveted. I handled a medical malpractice case involving this one time, and the poor guy with the hard-on was the most miserable person I've ever seen. (The case did make for some pretty serious office humor, though.)

A boner is not always to be coveted, as Dumpster says. Suppose you're in front of your [male] boss?

BUnga, try whacking off.

Good Report Scatoman.

When I heard Ivory tower I wondered if Halo 2 would be in the report.

When I read the title, I thought of The Neverending Story.

I almost don't want poop to become too accepted. It would lose some of it's edge. What if poop no longer seemed funny to me. Does Jane Goodall still find the antics of chimpanzees, to be amusing? If society becomes more accepting of scatology, will the toilet scene in Dumb and Dumber become less funny. I sincerely hope not.

SamDamnit!
Rectum Rector
of
The Church of Poop
http://www.myspace.com/saintcarnivean

"When I read the title, I thought of The Neverending Story."

Fart Poopie, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I would like it if poop were a little bit more accepted. It's so hard not being able to talk about poop with friends and coworkers. However, the interest in PoopReport would sort of be a bell curve if pooping got too much more accepted in society. People wouldn't need to be reporting their poop on here if they could just tell their neighbor about it, and not care. However, if poop were more accepted but still taboo enough to be funny, the popularity of PR would grow exponentially, because people would say to their friends "Hey, did you see PR today?" and it would sort of be a bonding thing. I wish I could do that now, but I just don't have enough friends who are comfortable with poop.

Oh, and Scatoman, Ms. Cortez has already published a couple of her theses on here. I think they are under "Academic Poop." Academic indeed.

Oh, and I forgot one more thing. Dumpster says "You don't watch old "Lawrence Welk" reruns like I do"

Damn, Dumpster, I didn't think you were THAT much of a geezer . . . I am really picturing you as Matlock now.

AB2K, I will never be able to picture you again except in the Mexican bikini that was one size too small, wagging your big ti

***AB2K said to shut the fuck up!***

LMAO. Great thread, interesting comments. You're right, guys, a "permanent erection" is not something anyone would covet. I was taking literary license to exagerate.

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

I don't think the point of the essay is that poop would cease to be funny. Poop has always been funny -- we've got examples of scatalogical humor going back to the 15th century and probably ancient greece. It stinks, it can get you at any time -- those jokes are timeless. What's unique about this point in time is the influence of the Victorians (who invented the toilet), which makes poop something immoral, something embarassing, something that proper people can't even acknowledge they do. We call this Shameful Shitting -- and we've got plenty of documentation about the ridiculous things people do to avoid other people knowing that they shit.

Normalization, then, means eliminating the epidemic of shameful shitting. Getting the population to once again acknowledge that they poop, and there's nothing shameful about that mere fact. The world was like that before the Victorians; PoopReport is helping return society to that place.

Just ask the shameless shitters among us. Poop is still funny.

I'm getting a visual of Queen Victoria on the jug.

In "The Last Emperor", the little tiny boy Emperor poops in a lovely Imperial Bowl, and a learned man looks it over, swirls it around, sniffs it, and proclaims what His Majesty is to eat that day. The Chinese know their shit!

GottaGoGirl,
I also remember that later in that movie, all of the royal eunuchs are shown leaving the imperial palace, as the empire falls, each carrying a little box containing his preserved testicles. That was considered a sad and tragic scene. The poop scene, on the other hand, brought chuckles from the audience.

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

Is that anything like pickled pigs' feet?

I don't think so. The whole pig gets killed to provide pickled pigs feet. Castratos just lose their huevos.

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

Heh-huevos.

Are you sure it's not juevos?

Nope, it's huevos. It actually means "eggs", but like we say "balls" or "nuts", the Spanish have "huevos."

AB2K is correct.
I can't tell you how many times I've read people type "juevos" instead of "huevos." Where does it come from? You don't even pronounce the H in the word, so who decided to add the J?

Usually words in Spanish are spelled with "J" instead of "H". It is more common for names like "Juan" and places like "Juarez" to be spelled with the "Ju" combination but be pronounced like "huevos". Words with "H" like "horno" usually don't have a "u" after them, so basically I think that because J and H are both silent at the beginning and words beginning with J usually have a u after them people get them mixed up.

This ends today's Spanish grammar lesson brought to you by AB2K. Class dismissed.

And i am taking a clas to lear spanish, too.

Does that mean the only coveting my dick is going to get is through a juerk off?

Yes, Bunga.