Ew, that's so gross! Women on bodies and nastiness

About a year ago, I found out I have a secret reputation at work. I was The Girl Who Hocked Lugees in the Bathroom. Apparently the women who worked in another department, and whose offices were close to the bathroom, had been keeping a tally of the number of times a day I coughed something up for my lungs, discussing amongst themselves how gross it was. I had been trying hard to keep it to once a day, and only when I was basically choking on phlegm, and only when I didn't have time to walk outside to do it, but there I was, coming to terms with the fact that my asthma was water cooler conversation material.

I also found out that these women kept tabs on everyone's bowel movements. They knew who spent "too much" time in the bathroom, who took hilarious reading materials in, and most importantly, who stunk the place up the most. Even after this department moved to a different part of the building, they still gossip about this. Just the other day, my closest work friend was incredulously commenting on someone who had to take a dump every morning around 11:30ish. I really don't see what the problem is with this. Should people be... less regular, because it would make someone happier? Should we try to only go once every other day, so that we reduce our impact on the workplace? If we have digestive disorders, should we just go home to defecate so that people can't tell by the time or smell that something is wrong? Are we supposed to wait or something?

Sorry to break it to you, but that's not gonna happen with IBS or IBD. Around this time last year I was going to the bathroom at work up to 7 times a day. Never for very long, of course, but... if people are keeping tabs on our bodies like this, I don't know how they wouldn't have noticed that. I've never heard these BM rumors about myself, but I can't imagine that they don't exist. Perhaps mine are so bad that people can't admit that they've discussed it. How did it happen that women became the world's poop monitors? Men might joke about this shit, but women actually care about it.

This reminds me of the issue with women farting. When I was growing up I had a female friend who was convinced that women shouldn't fart, which I assume she learned this from her parents (my parents are medical peeps so if anything I heard too much about bodily functions). In high school she started dating a boy and told him early on that women just don't fart. Biologically. Medically. That's just the way it was. She tried to get me to side with her, and help convince him of this fact, but I didn't really want to get involved. He kind of believed her, and I guess I can see why he would because she managed not to fart in front of him for years. Then one day we were all sitting around, watching a movie, and she finally lost it. We all laughed and the only thing he was bothered by was the cover-up. He was a guy, so of course he was OK with natural body functions.

I think these things are examples of how all of us, and women in particular, are socialized not to accept our bodies as they are. From birth we learn that our bodies are something to be managed, constantly cleaned, and groomed, lest they fall back into their natural "nasty" state. Some of this is, of course, to our benefit, but in the case of women the grooming bit takes on its own life. We learn that it's better if we have certain hairstyles, if we do our nails, and if we wear make-up. Skin is meant to be unbroken, waistlines as small as possible, and of course no visible signs of illness or deformity. And of course similar socialization occurs to encourage people to look as white as possible. All of this is to present the highest-class, most valuable (and consequently healthy) image. When we hear people talk about the nasty things our bodies do, to our face or behind our backs, it exerts a socializing force on us, shaming us, and often subconsciously forcing us to act differently. A stealth cover-up ensues, and the illusion that our bodies aren't gross is preserved.

Personally, I think we could come a long way in accepting bodies as they are, as there is no standard operating mode. Most people are healthier in some regards, and unhealthier in others. This is much in the same way that some people have more money, red hair, a nice ass, or skin that tans nicely. These are things that should be personal and arbitrary, but become factors that determine way too much in our society. Just as we value different races, classes, genders, and sexualities, so too do we value better functioning bodies, reinforcing the myths that we're all healthy and that healthy people are always better.