on toilets

In the early 1800's aristocrats in England began using an indoor flushing toilet, an invention to increase comfort and sanitation. Roughly a hundred years later many Americans had ditched the outhouses and evolved. We brought the toilet inside as a mark of prestige. We brought it inside to keep warm, to enable increased magazine perusal, to sit on while sisters curled one's hair. We named it toilet after such preparations. We brought it inside our homes, with our parlors and our beds, and then we quickly put up a door to hide it.

Everyone poops, according to children's author Taro Gomi. So why is it that we cannot talk about it? I'm not advocating body humor--in fact it annoys me--but I am asking this question. Children are originally content to evacuate in diapers, until they are trained otherwise. Shame quickly develops in young ones who potty train slowly. Eventually they learn to separate themselves from the actions of their bodies and to close the door when they're done. We pretend it doesn't happen.

In fiction, functional use of a bathroom is most conspicuously absent. I wondered in Harry Potter five how on earth all of the characters could hold their bladders for nearly twenty-four consecutive hours (from before the History of Magic OWL to the temper tantrum of Harry's after dawn the next morning). In histories too there is no mention of how pioneers snowed into cabins handled the frequent needs of the inmates. Maybe it's unpleasant, maybe it's gross, but maybe it's just natural and these are things we wonder about. The reason for the immature humor surrounding words like poop and fart and gas (get over it!) is because we cannot use them. The reason for stupid euphemisms is that people are embarrassed at saying the words in proper context. Say it: excrement, urine...penis.

That's another thing: sex. People used to live in one-room cabins and cottages or on farms. Even children knew what sex was, and what's more, they knew when their parents engaged in it. I don't want to know about the sex-lives of my parents, not at all, but I wonder at the taboo surrounding open discussions. Along comes the Victorian age and increased income per capita. All of a sudden families could afford larger homes and separate bedrooms, and once again a door covered a natural physical function of human life. One no longer saw sex, therefore one couldn't discuss it. Pregnant women--event legitimate married women--were hidden away for the duration of their pregnancy because society didn't want them advertising the fact that they had intercourse. Never mind the proof in form of a baby later. We, ladies and gentlemen, are all products of sex.

There are many things that are simply taboo to discuss in this culture, and in many others. In Hinduism and Judaism a woman is considered unclean when menstruating. In Hindu culture, she must eat alone and with special utensils so as not to defile others. In Jewish history, a woman has been required to perform a sin sacrifice each month. You know what? I can't ask a girl in my class for a tampon, because then everyone will know I am menstruating. It happens once a month, and maybe if you knew it (without going into details) you'd understand why I'm suddenly crying at Star Trek.

We don't talk about anything negative, those slimy gross things we try to hide: divorce, eating disorders, mental illness, aging, genocide. Why don't we talk about these? If they are wrong, they will not go away without discussion, without voice.

And why is it that so many things that are good are also silenced when society deems them uncomfortable topics? Bodies, we do not talk about the flesh of our bodies unless it is to criticize (that's a-ok by the media) but God gave us these bodies to love and to use, yes even in ways that we try to hide. Everyone poops, and everyone should be lucky enough to enjoy sex with someone beloved. Yet nudity is frightening and bodies a squirmy topic of conversation.

Emotions. Emotions are messy, and deeply, deeply personal. We handle them with a twelve-foot pole if at all. Exaggerations of them are paraded on HBO and the WB and we gorge ourselves on mockery. The true homey and good feelings are ignored quietly like anything behind closed doors. We rarely discuss love in real life. We cannot share our emotions with others because such raw sharing is equivalent to opening all the doors in our houses, the ones meant to hide bedrooms and bathrooms from visitors. I cannot tell you I love you, or that I'm sad, or that I am frightened for my dad or of the future. You ask me, "how are you" and society dictates that I answer, "I'm fine."

I go on this rant about opening these doors, when I am not convinced all doors should be opened. I feel confined to my island when I cannot share how I feel or what I am thinking; but were social restraints removed, I don't know if I could give that much of myself to you. The idea is as foreign to me as leaving the stall door open when I am using the bathroom.