baring von flatus

Sex and the City, season One, Episode 11, “The Drought,” Carrie farts in bed with Mr. Big and spends the rest of the episode obsessed that his emotional distance from her stems from the fact that with that passed gas her body has betrayed the sacrosanct belief that Women Have No Bodily Functions.

I don’t watch Sex and the City, though my roommate does. I find Sex and the City offensively materialistic and shallow, with the four characters flattened out into stereotypical doll shapes, each one more distasteful than the next. Plus, I live in New York, and my friends who have sex—thereby excluding my friend the Virgin—have always sat around and talked openly about sex, so none of what the show gives me is particularly revelatory, revolutionary or revolting. To me, the show is kind of like apartment and lifestyle porn with high production values, really, and that’s all I have to say about Sex and the City.

I do, however, have something to say about farting. I watched that episode where Carrie farts and then obsesses about it with a kind of wondering disbelief—That’s just hella-stupid, I may have said to my roommate, who has never had the cause to fart in bed with a man (see Virgin, above). And then I probably left the room in disgust, not at the female farting, but at the fact that women continue to feel intense shame over the fact that we, unlike Medieval saints, do not have sealed bodies.

Which is not to say that while I am of the camp who will fart in front of their lovers that I am a prodigious or showy flatulent. I had a friend with whom I waitressed who gleefully, though not without a soupcon of chagrin, told me about wrestling with her boyfriend after a night of heavy food and drinking. Naked, on top of him, his belly pressed like a furry cupcake against her back, my friend had her boyfriend squeeze her stomach and she farted onto his naked genitals.

According to her, upon hearing the thwwwaaaappppttt rip the air, he said, “Yer a dick-fartin’ dog, A low-down dick-fartin’ dog,” She told me this and then she giggled and said it a couple of more times.

I, myself, am not a dick-farting dog. I do trouble myself to not fart when the occasion would be best suited to not farting, and I definitely take my boyfriend’s naked cock being near my gassy ass to be one of those occasions. Nor do I think I’d then go out and repeat the anecdote, fake hillbilly accent and all, to my friends during pre-shift wineglass cleaning, were I to lose control and fart on my boyfriend’s dick. But that’s just me.

I do, as I have said here before, have a mild and creeping horror at my own bodily functions. Just about all of them—farting, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, defecating, spitting, nose blowing, hiccupping, burping—I feel something from a mild distaste (coughing) to dislike (sneezing and farting) to downright loathing (vomiting and pooping). About the only bodily function I’m neutral on is peeing. I could take it or leave it, and I guess I could grudgingly admit there is some pleasure to it from time to time.

And certainly peeing is the only bodily function that I can read about—though not watch—and think is hott. I’ve read some watersport fantasy/erotica/whatever and thought, ok, uninhibited, taboo and hott. I think, however, that should the opportunity ever arise, my Superego would raise its index finger, cough, and make me excuse myself politely to go to the bathroom. I just think that in the cold hard light of reality that particular act would lose its hotness faster than cooling, well, urine.

Farting, I’m sure to someone somewhere, is fetish, though it’s not one I’ve ever read about. More often, I read about fully formed, fully articulated, fully autonomous women who refuse to fart before their lovers, and frankly I am boggled. Because the fact is that as much as you try to control it—and I do—some day, some way, some cute little fart is going to sneak past the gates and trumpet its arrival. It’s just going to happen. And chances are your man isn’t going to get too fussed about it.

I did have a boyfriend who did get fussed about farting, and that was C, the heretofore love of my life (Donny, whose attitude about farts will come later, has taken that position from the long-absent C). Every time I farted in front of C, and it wasn’t often, he’d look at me sideways and growl, “Piggy.” Which was, simply, annoying. Of course, it wasn’t like C had a double standard. He would invent a reason to leave the apartment when he had to fart, actually getting up from the bed or the couch and dressing and leaving to have the privacy of the wide public city upon which to unleash his flatus. It must have been mighty was my thinking. That had to have been some hellish black swan’s trumpet of a fart that would require him to leave the safe and warm confines of home. But whatever.

I also had a boyfriend, who has never made it to this blog before today, who called himself “Baron Von Flatus.” His real name was infinitely more prosaic. He was a kind of gassy dude, but to be honest, he didn’t really live up to his title. He farted, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. I don’t think I ever farted in front of him, however. I think I always took the high road with him, a staunch unwavering attitude of superiority, and to fart would have demoted me to the Baron’s level.

I have farted in front of Donny and will again. When I do, and it’s not very often, because as I have said I do have the horrorsloth at my bodily functions, he looks up, smiles and says, “Yeah!” Fortunately, he stops short of high-fiving, chest-bumping, or the like.

The thing is, I figure if I’m with a man, he’s going to have to accept me, all of me, and that means both my maniacal attention to oral hygiene and my occasional gas. And I certainly have enough self-awareness to know that if someone rejects me, it’s because he’s an ass—or because I am—but it’s not because of what has come out of my ass. Any man who is with me for any length of time is going to know I belch, puke, piss, shit, sniffle, hawk the occasional loogie, and, yes, fart.

And he’s going to love me for it, or despite it, his call, really.

Comments

[Tony Comstock]

The first time I absolutely positively found a woman's g-spot, she had so many orgasms she ended up shitting herself. A turd is considerably more stinky and messy than a fart

She was not embarrassed in the least. I suppose that level of comfort with herself is probably a big part of what allowed her to enjoy about 60 orgasms in the space of an hour.

[Sara no H.]

Maybe it's just because I grew up a Kevin Smith fan, but bodily humour's always appealed to me.

I was wrestling naked with a beau once and he'd just pinned me and put my knees to my chest -- and, quite intentionally, I let one rip right onto his balls. It was fucking hilarious and I'm pretty sure we'd laugh about it to this day if it ever managed to come up in conversation.

My current beau and I have had at least one farting contest. More frequently though, one of us will pass gas and then laughingly try to blame it on the other -- or the dog, whoever's more convenient. (The dog is endlessly convenient.) And we talk about bodily functions endlessly, but I won't bore you with those details.

About the only thing I'm not comfortable doing in front of him (not for show, but just -- well, we've only got one bathroom) is taking a shit. There's just something utterly uncool about passing what feels like five pounds of concentrated evil from my body. I even run the water to cover any particularly explosive noises, or run the fan; anything to keep the rest of the house from being aware of my bathroom activities.

Still, I'm with you -- I don't think I could be with someone who just can't get past the less polite functions of my body. I carry enough shame around about it, I don't need a partner to add to it :p

[ajooja]

I just love your attitude about things.

I've always felt like farting in front of someone is a sign that you "love" them, or at the very least are "comfortable" with them. Either way, it's a good thing.

BTW, Tony is some sort of a god. Sixty orgasms in an hour! Wow!!!

[Staceu]

Hi there. I've enjoyed reading your site for a bit, but this is my first comment. While I am a fan of Sex & the City, I am with you on thinking Carrie's reaction to the fart was self-absorbed and silly. I mean, most men don't want to know all of the details of our bodily functions, but the right man isn't going to stress about it.

On my fifth date with my current boyfriend, something we had for dinner didn't sit right with my stomach. I consequently had to take a crap in his apartment, WITH HIS ROOMMATE AND HE SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM! I was as quiet as possible, though, and I thought I got away with it. Until recently, when it came up in conversation and I clearly had not gotten away with it. ;) God bless him, though, he didn't sweat it.

[chelsea girl]

Yes, Ajooja, Tony Comstock is indeed a God. In so many ways.

kissykiss,
chelsea girl

[S.P.]

It's just another one of the many often-unintentionally-hilarious noises that we make, especially when enjoying nakedtime with someone... The obvious parallel is the "Pussy Fart" or "Queef" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queef), no? There have been MANY times with the Ms. when extended periods of Doin' It Doggy Style has resulted in sounds not unlike the classic Whoopee Cushion emanating from her Garden of Delight, courtesy of yours truly...

And yes, sometimes I try to MAKE it happen, just for the humor potential, because being able to crack up with laughter in a compromising position is all part of the mutual enjoyment of life...

[S.P.]

And Tony, the Ms. and I are right there wit'cha...

[Solymar]

HAHAHA! Posts like these are what make you so kick ass.

Farting is awkward no matter what, but some people's paranoia about it is simply absurd.

I once had a boyfriend who made me poop in front of him (as in, refused to leave the bathroom until I did), because he apparently felt I was too timid to "share" the reality of my pooping-ability and that apparently symbolized the emotional distance between us.
Needless to say, it was near traumatizing. And we ended up breaking up.
Ha.