Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Bowel movement

When your mother finally persuaded,cajoled or bribed you, to produce a poop in the potty, this seminal event meant, for you, a showering of approval, a sense of providing great pleasure for your parent, and a newly found esteem. It is no wonder that in the recesses of our adult mind the appearance of the bowel movement gives a certain guilty pleasure in the assessment of length and breadth and color. Our cranial software retains that old imprint of wonder at that childhood event and the pleasure principle reappears. Growing up on the bald prairie as a youth, I was often denied this pleasure, since the two holer was dark and dank. Inspection was difficult. The scatological merriment that often appears, is, when matters such as these are considered, in the pianist's opinion is confined to males only. And pointedly, some males! I guess this is so. There was a time in medical history when detailed inspection of the lowly poop was serious business and one of the few diagnostic tools available. Appearance,color,consistency,odor, all engendered diagnostic debate. It became the 'ne plus ultra' tool of the good physician. Now augmented by fiber-optics and colonoscopy, poopology is confined to the laboratory. The reasons for continuing personal interest by males is unclear, but, it cannot be attributed to the signal event of infancy which is gender neutral. The lowly but interesting poop may still be a fertile source of psychological inquiry, and a genuine provider of male amusement.

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