When you first start dating someone, you’re always on your best behavior. You want to make sure you’re properly shaven or otherwise groomed (in other words, you don’t go a month without shaving your legs), that the house is tidy (tidier than you would normally keep it), that you’re dressed to intrigue and impress, and that you don’t do anything that would make the object of your affection think, “Ew, that’s DISGUSTING! What am I doing with HER/HIM?”
Then, after a while, it’s bound to happen. One of you is the first to pass wind in front of the other. And the passer is mortified, while the passee, assuming he/she is still enamored, does everything possible to reassure the passer that “Oh, it’s okay, it’s a natural bodily function, please don’t be embarrassed, etc., etc.” After all, truly, everybody does it.
Now, when the inital passer is the woman, MOST women will still make best efforts to ensure that, in the future, those normal physical emissions (farting, nose blowing, coughing up sputum, you name it) are done in the privacy of the boudoir or salle de bains. (And if the inital passer is the woman, most men are absolutely delighted.)
But if the initial passer is the man, MOST men will take that reassurance of “It’s okay, it’s just a normal bodily function,” as carte blanche to suddenly start sharing ALL of their normal bodily functions with total and complete impunity.
Suddenly, the dynamic shifts from a discreet honk in a hankie to a farmer’s blow out the window of a car doing 75 on the interstate. Passing wind is no longer accompanied by a blush, but now by leg-lifting, ass-thrusting, arm gestures and whoops of delight.
Peeing is not restricted to a bathroom, but to anyplace outside that is screened from the public eye by a door frame, rock, car door or tall weed (maybe). The belches cease to be stifled – they become melodic (at least to the ears of the belcher), resonant, and occasionally involve portions of the alphabet. And often, the emitter looks to his loved one for approval, like a dog that proudly brings a half-rotted, half-eaten deer leg to the back door.
I’m not against these sorts of things – I’m a natural kind of girl. I don’t wear make-up or have my hair done, or get mani/pedis. I’m happier in jeans, happiest in a sarong, and have no need of designer clothes.
So believe me, I’m not bashing men or judging harshly. All I know is that, even when I’ve been the one who opens the gas gates, I remain discreet whenever possible. I don’t quite understand why the opposite sex doesn’t feel the need to do the same. In fact, they even encourage us women to join in the tooting revels, which also puzzles me. As if it is something of a turn-on, which I can’t quite understand.
I am a genuine person. And I think people want to be with genuine people. But I also have a certain amount of natural decorum, probably from my GRITS upbringing.
Don’t men want women to be somewhat dignified and ladylike? I mean they don’t want to date another man – if they did, they’d be gay. Do they want us to engage in extreme cheese-cutting in order to make themselves feel better about their own actions? I know there’s a certain desire for “a lady in the street and a freak in the bed,” but where does the whole ass-trumpet thing fit in? Is it better or worse if I wear white gloves while serving air biscuits?
I don’t have the answers (though if you have more questions about barking spiders, visit here,) but I felt it necessary to raise the subject for contemplation, as it’s been on my mind for years. In every relationship, I’ve opened the floodgates with my reassurance that it’s okay, and then spent the next umpteen years wondering why I did so, and how to close them, even slightly. But like the “Walter the Farting Dog” series of books, the whole thing has its own unstoppable momentum.
I suspect it’s a lost cause, one of those delightful things that differentiate the sexes. As a dear friend once told me, you look for the things to love in the people you love. That’s easy to do – just keep the nose-clothespins handy.
And if anyone ever tells you that a dutch oven is a sign of true love, don’t you believe him.
8 comments
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March 15, 2010 at 1:01 am
itneverrainsinseattle
No, not all men are as you describe. Some men are more like you describe yourself to be. They don’t belch or fart just to show they can; they try to be discreet.
I say this based upon a sample size of one.
Although, now that I think about it, none of my (male *or* female) housemates and roommates ever gloried in gaseous emissions, either. I think you’ve been hanging with the wrong crowd. That, or us Ivy Leaguers are simply uptight. YMMV.
March 15, 2010 at 7:19 am
seasweetie
I never achieved that level of familiarity with the Ivy Leaguers I dated, inris. Hmm..maybe it’s just me being inspiring?
March 15, 2010 at 7:40 pm
sagerider
Before making the intended comment, I have two short ones. 1)To Seasweetie, You dated Ivy Leaguers??Good God I thought so much more of you prior to reading that. Don’t you find the turned up collar on the Izod a little irritating as you try to nuzzle the him? Doesn’t it piss you off when his manicure is better than yours? 2) To Itneverrains…Jesus H Christ, man what the hell is the matter with you? You lived with other men and you never farted around each other? Is life just one big frat house? If you think Seasweeite has been hanging around the wrong crowd because they fart, then you need to help her pick out the same kind of men you must date. In fact the loudest farting woman I have ever known was an Internist who attended Yale. She was great…I’ve always liked a challenge. I do have to agree with you on the Ivy Leaguers being too upthigh for the most part, you all are so fucking self impressed that you can’t pull your heads out of your candy asses in order to fart. Loosen up dude , its just farting, nothing to attach your fragile ego to.
My official comment:…. hell I got so flustered with rain-boy I forgot my original point other to tell you that from a man’s point of view, nothing says “I love you” like sharing your unbridled core, be it belching , farting, poetry or blowing your nose in your girlfriend’s tee shirt. Look at Miguel in the photo above, throw a power tie on him and call him a Harvard grad. Love means never having to hold your gas, and hell yes we want you to join us, it’s not a turn on per se, but a sharing of the whole person.
Unlike rain boy, as I look back at MY roommates through pre med, medical school and post grad training, the women were universally the ones to rip ass before the men, in fact, women have the uncanny ability to sit on the toilet and do their business while they invite you as a man to talk, shower, brush your teeth etc., so if it takes white gloves to make you more comfortable in your underware, Seasweetie, then go for it.
March 15, 2010 at 7:52 pm
sagerider
With respect to the comment above in the latter third of the comment to rain-boy, the word upthigh should read uptight. Sage
March 15, 2010 at 8:13 pm
seasweetie
Interesting to have two different points of view, Sage and Inris!
March 15, 2010 at 9:45 pm
seasweetie
And I just remembered that true familiarity is throwing up in your (now-ex) husband’s baseball cap.
March 15, 2010 at 10:02 pm
sagerider
Well maybe if you had been freer to belch, you wouldn’t have vomited in his cap and he wouldnt be your ex. Baseball caps, dogs, motorcycles and guns are sacrosanct…..unless you are an Ivy Leaguer, scratch the affore mentioned items and replace with BMW, hair product, tennis raquet and raccoon coat. Sage
March 15, 2010 at 10:05 pm
seasweetie
It’s a darn good thing he’s my ex – if vomiting in his baseball cap could have resulted in the divorce happening a few years earlier, I might have done so.