I wanted to write about the anxiety girls feel when they have to use a public bathroom when there are people around. At first I thought it was just me, but after candid discussions and a little reading, I found out it even has a name: parauresis. I realize that men can have this problem, but I'm going to limit this article to women on the grounds that I don't know what it's like to have to face your fear in the men's room, where the urinals are public and you don't even have the privacy of stalls.
I'm sure it hasn't always been this way - at least, not for me. When I was a baby, I did my business where I wanted, when I wanted. Mom was really busy with the groceries? Too bad, I had just dropped a stinker. Dad had just gotten ready to go out? Perfect time to let him know I needed him.
I had no shame. For two years, I harassed my parents left and right, and I think this is why my younger brother, born directly a year after me, was such a good baby. God probably figured I was three times the trouble of a normal child and made him the sleepiest, chubbiest baby ever born. No problem at all.
When I was a little older, my parents endeavored to teach me some manners, but all I got out of this was that you shouldn't poop in front of people, so I would go behind a door (usually their bedroom door) and complete my business there. Depending on what I ate, they wouldn't smell it for a good long time, and I was pretty pleased with myself for being so polite.
Of course, my mother, being only human, eventually snapped. She began the most rigorous potty training routine known to man, so rigorous that I was fully potty trained by two and even knew how to pee into a bottle, standing up. (Not that I was allowed to talk about this, obviously, until now.) (Not that I even remembered.)
For years I was a moral, upstanding member of society, one that politely requested to use the bathroom (or washroom, depending on where I was) rather than just bluntly saying what she needed to do there. Everything went fine, until I hit puberty.
Then I became very self-conscious of whether other people could hear me in the bathroom. I would literally choke my bladder if I heard someone in the next stall, and I'd wait till they flushed to let loose. If we both walked out of the stalls at the same time, I'd feel the need to avoid eye contact, so as not to shame us both.
I don't even understand it now. Why? Why did it matter so much if the girl next door heard me drop a particularly large log?
Why does it matter to us what our poop smells like, or if it's too stinky? You didn't go in there to make perfume, did you? (Did you???)
This question ate at me for a long, long time, but I'm not a paid researcher, so I had no way to carry out my numerous hypotheses. Was it a gender thing? Is it genetic? Am I just a freak who spends way too much time answering strange questions like this one?
I suppose it all boils down to society. If we're not allowed to even talk about certain things, then how are we supposed to do them in the same area as others? Maybe bathroom talk should be legal. We should organize a revolution (carefully, though, lest it go too far and we end up making "what was your poop like" the next "how's the weather"). It should be something like that one Nickelodeon campaign that taught kids farting was natural. It's okay! Poop smells! Peeing is loud! We get it, and nobody's judging you!
........
I looked for a clever way to end this article but I can't think of one, so goodbye!
