i definetly agree with you on that. we will fight for what is right. my suggestion to Dave is that he should tell all poop reporters to send numerous emails to sitcoms such as stacked, will and grace, and maybe perhaps yes dear.

Slopjockey What about the "Regulars"? Those three shameless Asshats that cheerfully greet each other as they confidantly stride into the dumper to drop their Metamucil inspired poop. Not a newspaper in sight,no attempt to observe one`s right to privacy,let alone common decency. Eww, something is wrong here!

Know what old people smell like?

Well, depends.....

There are several advertisements that make me chuckle.I like Louise,the lady who always proclaims her husband is constipated and should take a laxative.I like several diarrhea ads.I like the one where the guy is riding his bike and there are people living inside his body that prevent him from shitting his pants.There was one years ago when a woman waiting for a train had to decide if she wanted to shit in her pants or sprint to the can.She took the product advertised and was fine.My three favorites are the guy who has a chance to bang two chicks he met in a hot tub and has to make a mad dash and when he comes back two old ladies are in the hot tub.The chick shaking her booty in the record store has to make a mad dash.Last but not least Brenda's friends inform her she should be happy because her laxative contains a stool softener.

i am very serious when i say we should send emails to sitcoms demanding feces be a great factor in the shows.

If we take this argument to what seems its logical conclusion, wouldn't we then believe that until we see in commercials poop coming out of assess that we're "walking on egg shells" and encouraging shamefulness? I don't really want to see pictures of adults on toilets, or even little toddlers for that matter, and I don't think this is because I am shameful. I don't like to hear profanity in public either, or see photos of people fucking up on billboards. This is not because I don't fucking like to use profanity, or to view pictures of people fucking, profanely. We must somewhere draw a line between acceptable public and private expressions, and I don't think that line is necessarily an indicator of shamefulness.

(girding self for jumping into "political correctness debate") I think LJ's right on the money, here. Good taste (extremely variable, as I have none) is whats called for. Personally, I don't give a good gosh darn (being very good here) about what is or isn't shown on a billboard, or TV, if I don't like it, I won't look. However, being an ADULT, (I think), I must take into consideration the others around me, particular children. While it isn't my job to censor their little worlds for them, I neither have to expose them to content, language, or visuals that may (or may not) be deemed inappropriate.

And that, my friends, is called walking the tightrope, straddling the fence, or, lets face it, being absolutely non-commital wussie!!! :)

Bilgepump is right -- it is definetly a weird argument to say we need "less" prudishness but not total prudishness. As with anything in society, where do we draw the line? I don't want to see a grown man pooping. But I do want toilet paper companies to acknowledge that one of the probelms with toilet paper is that my fingers break through. Why can't advertising say "You won't touch your poop with your fingers with this brand?" That, after all, is an amazing selling point for toilet paper. Instead, they make oblique references to "strength" or hint at the benefit. This is what TBW, I believe, is talking about: advertising that doesn't talk directly to the benefits of the product.

As reported on today's BM Newswire report: "We have had women's liberation, sex revolution, workers' revolution, we can talk about everything now -- the toilet is the last taboo which must be broken."

I don't honestly see why we have TP advertising at all. I think it's something we almost all purchase, and we pretty much know what we want, so in my opinion advertisers are wasting their money airing the commercials in the first place. Not to mention the money they wasted having focus groups tell them that they didn't want commercials that blatantly mentioned pooping or showed people pooping. As far as sit-coms go, most of them are so dumb, they would just take the glorious subject of poop and sully it.

Personally, I'd like to see something a bit more clever than Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin.

We have to look at the culture we all live in. Here in the US, society in general is very prude in nature. We are talking about the same people who shield us from from the word "shit" on network TV. The right wing decides what we should and shouldn't see. If they deem something is wrong or morally object, they won't allow us to view it. Or, they will allow it, but at a cost. Thus the reason for movie and video game ratings. We, as Americans, live in an extremely sheltered society. This debate wouldn't even take place in say... Germany, the home of shiza videos.... Americans need to stand up for their rights, let US decide what we want and don't want to see. As Bilgepump stated, if there is something we don't like on a TV or billboard, then we don't look. That's our choice. The right wing is removing that choice. And with that, I'll step down off my soap box. And no, I'm not a liberal.

Unforutnately, most people are far more sensitive than we ( as poop reporters ) are.
And therefore, we kinda have to deal with these people,no matter what we think is right or wrong when it comes to fecal matters.

I agree with some of you in that I really don't want to see a grown man taking a dump on tv, butt I also think that if they're going to sell a product, they whould use some of the lingo that goes along with using the product. Ads selling tampons mention periods. Ads selling medication for herpes mention herpes and breakouts. Ads for male enhancement drugs show men holding cocktail weiners and footlongs. Ads selling toilet paper should mention poop. End of story.

You know which ad I like the most and I think is the most funny? the Pepto Bismol Upset Stomach dance commercial

We had an ad in Canada that showed a guy in a cubicle, sitting on a toilet and reading a newspaper out loud. Next to him was a blind guy taking a crap and you could see his white cane. It was an ad for a website that speaks the news out loud for blind people. I thought that commercial was great. All you could see the whole time were the two men's pants around their ankles.

So, why are you surprised that Ad Agencies are afraid to tell the truth?
Truth in Advertising is like truth from a Politician! What a bunch of poop that is!
Being a Professional in the Poop Biz, as a Distributor of a hygiene product dealing with the toilet area, I talk with people daily about bodily functions. Yes, people can talk about everything but the process of urination and defecation. Yet there is hope; ever notice how people will pass gas and say," That was a good one!"?
Being a Professional involved in Potty Training for Adults, it's my belief persistance is the key, to a better world.
Maybe the Ad Agencies are so busy dishing out dung they just can't recognize a "good one " when they see it! Agencies live off the corporate Gravy Train.
Maybe the recent commercial of some corporate executives, discovered by the company custodian, while holding a stratagy meeting in the office restroom stall is a start.
Perhaps a future part two to that commercial will be, those same executives each sitting on their own commode reviewing corporate minutes of a board meeting. Perhaps at a specific point of the corporate meeting in the same restroom one executive will say, "Now that's a good one," and mean it.
Or, Maybe say,"I don't know what the big stinks about! It's just a bunch of hooee!", followed by applause.
Just remember after crapping a clapping........
always wash your hands!!!!!!
Also remember, in those Shared Toilet environments, Don't be a Fool, Cover the Stool!
Go to www.ohioseat.cleanseat.com to be hygienically correct!
Applause Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's true that ads mention periods, but the "blood" in the commercials is always blue, and I don't expect to see red or brown blood anytime soon. It is interesting, though, that ads will mention periods before pooping, because in real life I find people more comfortable discussing the latter than the former. After all, I can ask my husband to go to the store and pick up some TP and he won't protest, but he has a conniption when I ask him to pick up tampons.

Nice article, Wiper. The only thing I have to add from my standpoint is that the concept of needing pull ups for your kid is a genius tactic to get more money out of the consumer. From everything I've experienced, seen, and read, pull ups make training your kid harder and it takes longer for them to do so.

I did both my kids cold turkey. One took 2 days. The other took a month. I just refused to give the diapers back and was really gentle with each child.

When I think of all the money I could have spent on Pull Ups, I get a bit queasy. Therefore, the shamelessness of children's toilet products is directly related, in my eyes, to money.

You know adults need toilet paper. You aren't sure if parents will buy pull ups. So, you NEED to make the kids products more appealing, thus shameless. Just a thought.

Nice reporting......hugging bunnies since 1969

I'd like to congratulate everyone in this thread on the excellent intellectual exchanges that the article generated. Many of you make great points. I think PR really zings when we take up thoughtful discussions like this, whether or not we reach a consensus.

I do think that television standards will continue to be relaxed regarding the subject, just as they have in movies. As I've stated a couple of times in various articles, the key is to be clever, relevant and tasteful in depictions of bathroom activities. (Of course, many National Lampoon-type scripts just go for the juvenile potty humor approach, such as the scene in 'American Pie' when Eddie Kaye Thomas is slipped a laxative and ends up doing a violent shit in the girls' bathroom.)

That kind of depiction is just as predicatable as the prissy, poop-isn't-fit-for-discussion approach of some advertisers. But neither one of those has to be the only choices.

ok, i will change my view on things because you have all pursuaded me. but, even then i would still like to see someone sitting on the crapper with a red face, newspaper and anything else a regular dump would include. i just find shit to be hilarious.thats why im a poopreporter.

All I can say is that our society today is just too rigid & Victorian. Imagine a small child running with glee to tell Mommy & Daddy about his latest escapade on the toilet...and yet....many adults in the work place today will take their whole 30-45 minute lunch break to drive home & crap in the solitary confinement of their hermetically sealed bathroom...strange.

As far as TV ads in this genre, about the only thing I've been able to come up with in my neck of the woods is the cottony-smooth texture of cotton-elle (spelling?)..and yes, it is called bath tissue.

There is a toilet paper company whose tv commercials featured cute cartoon bears, a la "bear shits in the woods." The ads didn't go as far as to show poop coming out of bears' butts, but it did show one of them happily snuggling down onto a bush and opening a newspaper for a satisfying dump and read -- with a roll of the brand's toilet paper on a stick next to the bush. That's about as close as it gets.
Can't remember the name of the toilet paper, but the bear shitting in the woods was a keeper.

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

PooperGal, that would be Charmin that you're thinking of.

Yeah, Wiper, we behaved, eh? I was thinking the same thing as I read the comments.

We's smart sometimes..........hugging bunnies since 1969

Thanks, Cy (do they call you B12 for short?). :)

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

The little bears are cute. I like the one where the little cub takes a whole bunch of toilet paper and the daddy bear says, " No, no, no. That's too much," then gives the cub about 4 squares.
You'd think they wouldn't care if you used a lot. The more you use, the more you buy, the more money in their pockets.

That's Charmin's contribution to being ecologically sensitive. Of course, timber companies are clearcutting forests to make their paper, so we should use it sparingly, right?

PooperGal
"Searching for the Origin of the Feces"

There are sociologists who say every generation or two stands directly at odds with the previous generation(s). The trend now seems to be "pushing the envelope", constantly challenging what is socially accpetible until there is a new limit. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next 10 or 20 years, we do see a grown man taking a shit, with all the glory and grossness that comes with it. However, sooner or later, there will be some sort of reaction against it, and we will enter a new dawn of censorship and shelter. I think this wax and wane of the profane is a good thing. It gives old people something to remember fondly in their nursing homes.

We definitely need less propriety in the industry. Blame it on those damn Puritans who came over on the Mayflower
Happy trails,
L. Wrong
http://ppkindustries.blogspot.com

I really hate the double standards of society. This is only an example of one of the many ways European and American society are whacked. And yes, I said European. They are just as stuck up and weird as Americans. Western culture in general is pretty sick.

There was once an episode of king of the hill that touched on the subject of shameless ****ing. Hank Hill the most Shameful ****er in the world got constipated. His wife told the whole neighborhood and everyone was giving him advise. It did show scenes of the man on the crapper but only of like his chest up. So it didnt make you wanna puke. It did though make a sword of *plop* noise which I believe showing that at one time on prime time telivision was a step for mankind.

Great story. Well thought out.

SamDamnit!
Rectum Rector
of
The Church of Poop
http://groups.myspace.com/THECHURCHOFPOOP

i would love to see a commercial for Depends. Somethign with an old geezer smiling after shitting himself whild smoking a pipe! Poop Shooter!

If pictures are shown of anybody on the toilet, it shouldn't be of young children. At the moment, on the UK side of the pond, there is a lot of discussion on child abuse and on who is fit to work with children.

Isn't this advertising of toilet paper likely to exacerbate the situation? In the UK, the best known company for tp advertising is probably Andrex, with their use of appealing puppies. A few years ago, an advert was run for quite a long time of a small boy on the toilet, no doubt before going to school, legs dangling and his jeans around his trainers, with a full toilet roll fixed to the wall beside him. Obviously the door was open, for his puppy came running in, and he said 'Hello boy', and they made a fuss of each other. Then the puppy went over to the toilet paper, and started to pull it. The boy laughed, until the dog had pulled it all off, and lay down to sleep on it. The boy then panicked, and shouted 'Mam! Mam'. The voice-over's comment was 'strong and soft'.

A year or two before this, there was another advert - I don't know whether it was the same firm - where a little boy wearing his overcoat is seen fitting a toilet roll with the bathroom door open. When he had fitted it, he took his overcoat off and hung it up. No doubt the intention was to build up suspense, and the viewers would be expecting to see him undo his trousers. At that point, he slammed the door.

I think it is important that children should be confident to go to the toilet without adults present, as early as possible. I have mentioned on other forums how my teenage uncle supervised me. When I used my grandparents' outhouse, I needed a bit of assurance for longer than the inside facilities at our own house, but when my uncle went off to university, I always went on my own. I suppose a tiny boy sitting on a wall to wall toilet would have made a cute photo, but none were taken - fortunately.

Adults shouldn't be encouraged to imagine children using toilets.

Do we really need these adverts for toilet paper? The extra cost isn't on the firm - it is on the customers.

Just a note. Daphne has a point about it being easier to potty-train kids withOUT "Pull-Ups", but we had to switch to them because our son is a monster and has eclipsed the 38-lb limit on size 5's. But he's only 2, and has very little control, yet. Pull-Ups are all that will fit him.

P.S. I have a friend who is a nanny, and she insists on calling it "Toilet Learning", which I think is just stupid.

P.P.S. To head off at the pass the comments I'm pre-imagining, the boy IS in the 90th percentile for height and weight, but NOT in the 110th. Meaning he's within standards, thank you, 'tho his father's dinosaur structure promises to tell.

Some kids are born big and they stay big, whether they eat junk food or not. It's a fact of life.

If your 2 year old weighed 80 lbs, however, I'd probably be spewing criticism right about now... ;)

Hey, I had big kids, too. The older one has tapered off to be extremely normal except for the fact that he's very buff for his age and has a moustache (he's 13).

The younger one is 9, and she's 5 foot 2. Sometimes they grow early and sometimes they grow late.

I had early bloomers, I guess.

_______
.....hugging bunnies since 1969

My daughter's friend, who is still 11, is 5'9". My kid looks like a shrimp, next to her. The boy, on the other hand, popped out at 10 lbs. I remember asking, "Is he bloated? Diabetic? What?!?" The nurse said, "No, he's not fat; he's just HUGE!"

Even more off topic-- He had a perfect knot tied in his cord; he had to have swam through it much earlier. He shouldn't even be alive. We tell him the little mole on his temple is where the angel kissed him and kept him safe. :)
_______
"You polished up my low-flow, and I dirtied up your bowl!"

theres this thing called 'elimination communication' (google it for fun!) where parents teach their kids from birth to go in the toilet.

it seems to make more sense than teaching a kid to crap its pants, and then teaching them to not crap their pants anymore. beats changing diapers and filling the landfills with them.

but im just a hippy, and not a parent, so what do i know?

[ggg, thats so sweet]

Just how would you have a baby using the toilet from birth ... before it can hold up its own head, much less sit?

I GOTTA ask ...

I have read somewhere that babies actually DO have some degree of control but use a diaper because thats what they know. I was potty trained the "traditional" way. Still, I've read it.

_______
Practicing the ancient Chinese art of double flushing... because sometimes, a single flush just isn't enough.

Adults shouldn't be encouraged to imagine children using toilets. - Knickers-Down Nicholas

While I can appreciate your strong feelings on this issue given your past, with all due respect I think the opposite is true. Adults are going to have to supervise children on the toilet up to a certain age anyways out of necessity, and the less taboo we can make defecation, the less I think people will regard it as somehow "dirty" or "shameful". The problem is with the minds of the sexual deviants, NOT with the commercials. Using the toilet is a completely normal and natural part of everyday life, and ought to be regarded as such.

I often wonder if the reason many sexual predators don't get caught sooner than they do is precisely BECAUSE children are raised to believe that anything involving this area of the body is somehow "shameful" or "dirty" and should never be discussed, and so in keeping with what they've been taught, they never tell anyone. Why must we heap even more suffering upon those who've already suffered more than any human being should?

--Warning: Highly opnionated comment--
I'm tired of people being so hung up on the sexuan side of everything. Sex, sex, sex. It's all anyone thinks about anymore. Sure, my mind is in the gutter prety often, but I know where to draw the line. Other people apparently either don't have a line or are miles from it. Please, people, realize that not everything in the world is based around sex! We all have a body that was born naked, and all of our bodies pee and poop and go bare sometimes. Pull your head out of your butt and get over it!
I'm sorry if I offend people, but I'm in a "speak my mind" mood tonight, plus I'm rather moody.
--Warning has now expired.--

It's needed to watch young kids because they don't know it's such a big deal to have black poop, a bloody streak, or a long stretch of nothing but diarrhea. Once they are old enough to reason the dangers, they should feel OK telling Mom and Dad if there's too much of a problem. I could always go to my parents with a problem I couldn't handle.

_______
Practicing the ancient Chinese art of double flushing... because sometimes, a single flush just isn't enough.

Is it only me, or can you not see a big difference between a toddler taking its first unadded poops and an average hairy overweight Man, Y-fronts round his ankles, hunched over, grimacing as he attempts to sqeeze out somthing that resembles a deformed godzilla.

I may laugh my ass of if I saw it on TV, and I am far from a shamefull shitter, but that certainly wouldnt provoke any feeling in my mind to buy said Bog roll.

From an advert, I would like to see softness and comfort portrayed.
Seeing the man described above, reaching behind with a smile upon his face, just wouldnt do it for me.

We all know what TP is used for, we really dont need to see some stranger on TV taking a turd to remind us that ....... company has the softest sheets.
You dont watch your friend take a dump (or maybe you do) and say 'oooo that TP felt fine' so why would you want to watch an advert dipicting this.

The infants adverts show a parent whats avaliable, they show watching toddlers what its all about and theres much more to it than bog roll and shitter.

I knew a snowboarder that used to wear Depends, so that he did not have to bother with all his layers of clothing, every time he had to tinkle. Perhaps the adult diaper people should consider showing skiers and snowboarders on the front of their packaging.
_______
Sir SamDamnit!
The Emir of Crapistan