The Anus and You

by Zoe Lin

Definitely, no other part of our body is so poorly attended than this part. We have beautiful pictures to entertain our eyes, wonderful music for our ears, gloves for protecting our hands, and shoes for our feet. But we've done nothing to either entertain or protect this part of our body. Its work receives little appreciation; instead, its presence often evokes disdain! What an unfair world! The victim of such unjust treatment is none other than our anus.

The anus as we know it does the work of the emission or holding back of shit, yet these are not easy jobs. If we neglect to eat fibrous foods, our anus will suffer in agony with constipation, or, perhaps, get terrible piles. One other function of the anus is breaking winds, that is, releasing gases that make our bodies uncomfortable. Yet when such function is carried out, the holes higher above would complain frowningly, 'Smelly enough!' Then, what else could the poor anus do except admitting that it did release the smelly gas?

Fortunately, things are not so bad after all. The anus may be despised in its bodily functions, yet its cultural significance has always been recognized. In Freud's theory of the development of psychosexual stages, the anus does play an important role. When we were just babies about 1 to 2 years old, our pleasure sensations were built around the retentivity and expulsion of shits that are controlled by our anus - that period of our life is called the anal stage. It may affect our personality if we can't satisfy the pleasure with the stimulation of the anus. Thus, the anus has won its own status in scholarly circles and we have to satisfy our anus in order to develop a sound personality. At my guess, Freud's anus, if it knew, would be very proud of his master's great achievement.

In fact, the shame and disdain we feel toward the anus lies in that it reminds us we are animals after all. No matter how much superior and saintly we are, we all need to shit. The existence of the anus happens to destroy the 'superior and saintly image' we consider for sure: no body would in their love letters refer to his/her lover's shit smells as sweet or adore their posture of taking a shit. Even Hitchcock was so proud of having shot the flushing toilet in 'Psycho' because no one dared to do it before. So, naturally and necessarily, the existence of our anus becomes a taboo. It somehow exposes our fear of destroying the perfect, divine and greatness of the human status. However, it's a shame that we can't face our fears but have to disdain our anus in order to release our anxiety.

Let's just put the conventional oppression away for the moment! Since the anus is a part of our bodies, we have to treat it well undoubtedly. Don't forget to give it a cleaning while taking a bath. Try to appreciate and imagine the harmless wind it breaks as if it were lovely music. And always keep in mind to eat fibrous foods every day. Do something good and be gentle to your anus; after all, you'll know it is not only for taking a shit. Besides, it can benefit you when you release your sentiments in creating an amazing toilet literature of your own!

回上頁