The Voodoo Of Public Pooping

For a young American boy to Poop at school, or even to step into that stall is, (as every boy comes to learn) completely taboo. 
​It simply is not done.

CoEd Observation Level Bathrooms, Eiffel Tower

The world sorts at birth, by gender -- But politics gets hard coded by the bathroom stall.

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Every American boy is sovereign over Pissing freely nearly everywhere. This is the singular most noteworthy super-power which distinguished my youth from that of my sister's, and their friends. It's fair to say that before a child is conscious of their psychological manipulation -- "Going to the bathroom" becomes method to lord power over  parents.  Parenting a puppy or a toddler begins with this initial battle of will; "Just how long will it take for the little one to learn where and when to poop and pee properly?" -- The incantation is steeped in myth, will, psychology, and compromise. Both kids and puppies appear "cute as hell" to human adults as a protection against retaliation, for this challenge alone. All a Parent wants for Xmas, their Birthday, and their Anniversary, is for the 'wee one' to learn this singular procedure. To Comply with social norms over "The Business".... As some never do,  Others will carry trauma over lost battles into their adult politics.

Whilst, it would appear that many babies exercise some unconscious negotiation skills, e.g. dragging the fight out far longer than is reasonable -- Others succumb promptly. Carpets, Beds, Clothes, Hardwood, Sofas, Tile, Car Seats, Trains, Planes, Desk Chairs, Laps, Picnics, Church Pews, even Beach-blankets, all spoiled in a seemingly un-winnable stand-off.  
Men's-room stigmata moves mysteriously from
​"Do Not Doo-Doo EVER!" to "Why not, Sure Set a Spell..."

Until -- Alas something shifts slightly... (An acknowledgement perhaps), over who is actually running shit now. The Parent concedes to several unspoken demands, and the child concedes to "do it" properly.  There will still be the occasional "Mistake", with perhaps a parent holding an empty latte, or fountain drink cup while a kid steers urgent pee-pee on the back seat.  Pulling over on a snowy road,  then pushing a kid out the passenger side to piss upon a gravel shoulder, separates the willing from those who will forever hold it too long. Those precious flowers  become Marjorie's, and Donald's -- Those who hold it, are sad, dark, dour, insufferable Karen's who tell on you for cheating, chewing gum, smoking, and skateboarding in the hallway.  The so called civilized world divides upon the topic of public pooping and peeing, and perhaps politically as well.  My sisters, liberal ladies themselves -- also learned to pee nearly anywhere. Hence, compromise & negotiation,  forearm like flash-cards, using Poop and Pee-Pee as text.  What comes later is something so dark, and unrelentingly dogmatic that no conjurer, no shaman, and no wicken have an incantation to break it's curse. The Boy's Stall is way fucking off limits.  In fact the boy's toilet in any elementary school is literally the cleanest surface of my youth. A Boy will not go in there, and as such these hallowed spaces can be converted into confessionals, urinals, or vending machines. It comes as no surprise that the bathroom stall and the bathroom at large would become a primal adolescent cave, in which angry hunters strategize conquest, through expressive painting, and symbology. But for men, (like so many other developmental dystrophies), the bathroom stall would not become a canvas until post Middle-school.  The ancient art of cave painting began with humankind doing the math on how to prey upon their predators. Without this first step... And to become comfortable with these expressive  confines -- a Human is stunted. The cave-wall calculus to imagine oneself taking charge of one's full faculties, Overcomes their disadvantage of fear. Illustrations in turn hashed out how and when to get the upper hand.  Those without a fundamental construct of expression likely become repressed politicians. These are the ones who break the stall door, trying to cover and bar it against infiltration.  Shy Poopers will become destructive fascists.

I'm always surprised just how difficult it seems for male carnivores in airports to get their business done. At the risk of missing a departure, it is literally impossible to find a men's stall unoccupied in any airport, and when they are "available" they are so untenable as to be the seventh circle of hell.  The evolutionary shift from learning to manipulate one's parents, to learning to poop, and then the wholesale avoidance of the bathroom stall -- Seems to have led to regressive stage-fright for making it happen.  Men's room stigmata moves mysteriously from "Do Not Doo-Doo EVER!" to a creative flourish with a sharpie and a joint... to "Why Sure, Of Course Set a Spell..."

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​For a young boy to Poop in school, or even step into that stall is (as every boy comes to learn) completely taboo.  It simply is not done.  No Way, No How, Never! Boys are not allowed to poop in school. This is where the second social order is learned.  A secret society which preaches many alternatives, even perhaps behind a gravestone on the walk home from school, but NEVER in the stall.  Perhaps, stopping in the back of the Piggly Wiggly?, Perhaps dropping trow beside a bank, or beside a bakery, but a boy cannot be caught dead or alive in the bathroom stall.  So it follows... that the "Girls Room" has lurid graffiti on the stall wall, yet the men would not begin to learn cave painting until they'd learned to smoke, drink, or do drugs in the stall.   The singular acceptable activity for the men's bathroom stall in a high-school is illicit activity., ...but never a poop.

Those who distrust in "the process" invent bad policies, and bad politics. In short, they become Republicans...  
I've shared a stall for a smoke, a joint, and to help children and the elderly do the business, I've written poems, and scrawled bad graffiti, I've had the occasional romantic tryst in the undesirable luxury stall of a notorious punk bar, and It is remarkable the shifting respect even ambivalence I've held toward the sanctuary of a bathroom stall.  Whatever business one conducts in the stall, it is fair not to understate it's evolutive conditioning in development of both our culture, and our politics. Those afraid to discuss the sanctity of the stall are forever stunted by  it's taboo, whereas those who were raised with a single bathroom quickly learn to share.
​At a friends home yesterday there was cheering from the powder room, as celebrants praised his 4 year old for proper pooping.  Not because he was not already adept at using the throne, but because he'd not done so for 7 days straight.  I was amazed and astonished, but not embarrassed.  Everyone poops, and for most it should be a minor celebration, but for those who find it tough to talk about, well they become conservatives.  The same ones who fabricated the social stigma preventing kids from using the stall.  Whether religious dogma, social taboo, or simple conservative puritanism, Those who distrust in "the process" invent bad policies, and bad politics. In short, they become Republicans...  And when was the last time anyone paid to watch a conservative republican stand-up comedian, talk about doing his business?

There are no Conservative Republican Comedians except perhaps, Colin Jost.

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