HOT DAMN #11 — Toilet Humour

LIFE’S WONDERS PRAISED IN SUGGESTIVE, ODDBALL, AND NONSENSE WAYS

As a counterpoint to my usual cynical antics, I’ve committed myself to a weekly, year-long discussion of my life’s joys.  But, never one for the more traditional approaches, I intend to keep things a little off side, a tad outlandish, and always one foot outside of polite company.

TOILET HUMOUR

Scatological humour has long been derided as the white trash of the comedy world. For many, it’s like that schlubby, wife-beating uncle who sits in a lawn chair outside his derelict trailer and scratches his balls while waxing poetic about the “problem with the gays.”

Is it because scatological jokes are too easy? Or is it because, in our polite society, jokes about our various bodily functions are often deemed crass and/or gratuitous?

If you said both, then you’re probably right. But you’re also wrong.

This glorious bathroom? I built it. No, seriously. I will never do such a thing again, but I built this son of a bitch!  Heck yes!

The problem is with the imaginary divide we’ve imposed between what we consider our physical and our mental selves. If it is of the mind, be it clever or witty or inventive, then hip hip horary. But if it is of the body, if it is the farts, shits, and squirts that make the world go around, then boooooo!

But this, politely put, is horseshit.

Consider the devout Christian teenage boy who strives to remain pure of spirit and mind, and will forever fight against impure and lustful thoughts. Should he flog his molly, he will likely struggle with shame and self-loathing. Why? Because he wrongly believes that his purest, most true self is his self divorced from his physical body – his soul, in other words – whereupon he will no longer be slave to his baser needs. Which is to say, his boner isn’t really a part of his truest self but something altogether removed . . . likely a temptation from the devil. Satan can be a real dick that way.

But even if the soul does exist, its separation from the body (say when an elephant has just sat on your head) would make you an entirely different type of being. Who we are is so irrevocably dependant on our physical selves that to remove the physicality from it would leave us completely unrecognizable.

Or, more simply put, there just isn’t a separation between body and mind. The mind, dear friends, is of the body. Those base needs? Those come from your mind. I know. I’ll wait while the world explodes.

And is this why dick and poop jokes are actually hilarious?

Well, no, not necessarily, but it does mean that our derision for our bodies’ more intrusive pastimes (the farts, shits, and squirts) is misplaced. No, I’m not suggesting that we should completely give into our simpler desires and go frolic in the buff with our dangles flapping about. But I am saying that it’s okay to laugh if a dude gets an awkward erection during a presentation. It doesn’t make you any less of a person. Okay, maybe it makes you a bit of an asshole. But it’s still hilarious.

I’m laughing, anyway.

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Did you miss last week’s entry on TOMMY WISEAU?  Catch up here.

For a full list of all HOT DAMNs, click here.