The Longer I'm in the Industry
...the more I think about scat.
It's true. And terrible. Scat is the big one, the one that nobody champions, yet everyone knows something about. An argument could be made that snuff is the really big one, but snuff films are basically mythical, as no one has ever brought one to light.
Everybody knows that Cartman's mother was in a German Scheisse film, and everyone immediately knew what "scheisse" meant, despite a general lack of formal German language classes in American high schools. But odds are, unless you have particularly cruel friends who have sent you a terrible link via email, that you have never actually seen a scat film. It's the most niched of the niches, the thing that sends diehard perverts gagging their way from a room. A porn star’s asshole? Commonplace. That asshole performing its primary function? Repulsive.
In the next office over, a film by a group of ridiculously sexy, Swiss, mohawked, gothic homosexuals is playing. Poop, though not center-stage in the film, has made a few appearances, and that- not the fisting, the frighteningly large anal-beads, the choking, or the bondage- is what is garnering the most impassioned responses. (The phrase that made it on the quote board was from Frank: “Oh, God! Is he gonna poop in the book?”) And from an office that puts out the filthiest gay porn imaginable, those responses are even more interesting.
I think that the reason for this (and I doubt that this is the first time the idea has been posited), is that people are raised to equate shit with death, and the eroticizing of shit is an eroticizing of death. A celebration of death, not in a heavy-eyeliner, weekend-goth kind of way- more like hugging Thanatos close to your chest and taking a big whiff.
Dig- it is one of four (at my count) waste products of the human body. The others are piss (which has been rather successful in garnering a more mainstream- no pun- acceptance- more on that later), snot (too humorous to ever really be considered erotic), and pus (which I have never seen make an appearance in porn, and I'll have to think about why that is at a later date). It is also the most disturbing. Guys will piss next to each other, either in stalls or in alleys. No one has any real problems with blowing their nose in public. And popping zits, while gross, isn't as hard of a taboo to get past as is doing the doo in full view of another person. Shitting is private, and to a certain extent, shameful. Toilets are the white porcelain mausoleums to bowel movement, and they are the gravestone present in every household. They are rarely painted festive colors. They are white, and imposing.
Shit is the disgusting by-product of eating. What we eat, no matter how deliciously flavored or scented, no matter how aesthetically presented, comes out brown, amorphous, and foul-smelling. It is what is left over when our bodies have sapped food of nutrients and fuel. It is a reminder of the human machine, and that machine's inefficiency and mortality.
Piss, on the other hand, is (with the exception of the famed asparagus-pee) reasonably benign. For one thing, it is sterile, aseptic. The acids in it are proven to be good for your skin, and a number of cultures encourage people to drink their own urine for its health benefits. It runs from clear to a playful vitamin-yellow, and it can melt snow in fun ways. It is still offensive, but is considered harmless enough, culturally, that "water sports" are a common pornographic theme.
Scat turns our collective stomachs, yet it is something of a mystery. I know a man who has curated a museum of sexual curiosities, and he said that the most common questions and requests were scatological. This is the "car accident" conundrum- people slowing down to take in the carnage, even though they don't want to actually see it. Why do we do that? Are we looking for something to soften our own fears of death, or is it that we are secretly in love with the idea of other people dying? Or of our own deaths?
Maybe everyone should give it a go- in the interest that you should try everything once, but I don't recommend it- it's fucking nasty.
It's true. And terrible. Scat is the big one, the one that nobody champions, yet everyone knows something about. An argument could be made that snuff is the really big one, but snuff films are basically mythical, as no one has ever brought one to light.
Everybody knows that Cartman's mother was in a German Scheisse film, and everyone immediately knew what "scheisse" meant, despite a general lack of formal German language classes in American high schools. But odds are, unless you have particularly cruel friends who have sent you a terrible link via email, that you have never actually seen a scat film. It's the most niched of the niches, the thing that sends diehard perverts gagging their way from a room. A porn star’s asshole? Commonplace. That asshole performing its primary function? Repulsive.
In the next office over, a film by a group of ridiculously sexy, Swiss, mohawked, gothic homosexuals is playing. Poop, though not center-stage in the film, has made a few appearances, and that- not the fisting, the frighteningly large anal-beads, the choking, or the bondage- is what is garnering the most impassioned responses. (The phrase that made it on the quote board was from Frank: “Oh, God! Is he gonna poop in the book?”) And from an office that puts out the filthiest gay porn imaginable, those responses are even more interesting.
I think that the reason for this (and I doubt that this is the first time the idea has been posited), is that people are raised to equate shit with death, and the eroticizing of shit is an eroticizing of death. A celebration of death, not in a heavy-eyeliner, weekend-goth kind of way- more like hugging Thanatos close to your chest and taking a big whiff.
Dig- it is one of four (at my count) waste products of the human body. The others are piss (which has been rather successful in garnering a more mainstream- no pun- acceptance- more on that later), snot (too humorous to ever really be considered erotic), and pus (which I have never seen make an appearance in porn, and I'll have to think about why that is at a later date). It is also the most disturbing. Guys will piss next to each other, either in stalls or in alleys. No one has any real problems with blowing their nose in public. And popping zits, while gross, isn't as hard of a taboo to get past as is doing the doo in full view of another person. Shitting is private, and to a certain extent, shameful. Toilets are the white porcelain mausoleums to bowel movement, and they are the gravestone present in every household. They are rarely painted festive colors. They are white, and imposing.
Shit is the disgusting by-product of eating. What we eat, no matter how deliciously flavored or scented, no matter how aesthetically presented, comes out brown, amorphous, and foul-smelling. It is what is left over when our bodies have sapped food of nutrients and fuel. It is a reminder of the human machine, and that machine's inefficiency and mortality.
Piss, on the other hand, is (with the exception of the famed asparagus-pee) reasonably benign. For one thing, it is sterile, aseptic. The acids in it are proven to be good for your skin, and a number of cultures encourage people to drink their own urine for its health benefits. It runs from clear to a playful vitamin-yellow, and it can melt snow in fun ways. It is still offensive, but is considered harmless enough, culturally, that "water sports" are a common pornographic theme.
Scat turns our collective stomachs, yet it is something of a mystery. I know a man who has curated a museum of sexual curiosities, and he said that the most common questions and requests were scatological. This is the "car accident" conundrum- people slowing down to take in the carnage, even though they don't want to actually see it. Why do we do that? Are we looking for something to soften our own fears of death, or is it that we are secretly in love with the idea of other people dying? Or of our own deaths?
Maybe everyone should give it a go- in the interest that you should try everything once, but I don't recommend it- it's fucking nasty.
posted by Jack Jablonsky at 11:55 AM
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