The Butt of Every Joke (Pun Intended)

 "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been 6 days since my last confession."
The other day in a conversation between myself and a friend I was confronted on my vanity, my pursuit of wanting to be remembered, wanting to be written, wanting to be in history as more than a crowd member. To be remembered as special- for something good.

There is a piece of me that thinks every human has this desire to an extent and of course it waxes and wanes. At times I am just as happy to be remembered by friends and family, at other times even more extreme I curse myself and hope to be forgotten, and of course at other times I wish to give a good speech, write a good paper, create a good work, a good community, and be remembered as someone good. I do not desire celebrity as such, just to be remembered fondly.

Today I was thinking, yes but at what level would your good deed have to be in order to be remembered fondly, for you see I am the joke of every person, child and adult of every culture.

From a young age I remember thinking very positively of trips to the bathroom.

I suppose all children get a certain joy from going to the bathroom, after all Freud labeled it a stage in development, the anal stage, whether his theories have any relevance to my particular shame I have no idea.

What is coprophilia?

Exactly what I have been trying to understand about myself for years.

When I was young I was just interested, played like it was a toy, like it was mud, but later it became a sexual interest. When dreams became fantasies, became wet dreams. When ideas about diapers and forced feeding, punishments and presents all took the form of shit in my mind. That was when I knew I was different.

 Let me describe my earliest fantasy.

I am a small child (not the age I was when I had the fantasy). I am at the daycare I remember the most, a very clean place with many children that was part of a church center as well. I have done something wrong, I don't remember what, I may or may not have done it on purpose. The very large woman who is my daycare teacher (not a real person) says "You know what that means" I fake embarrassment and fear, and she forces me to jump into a giant dumpster of dirty diapers. She locks me in there for a long time, but rather than being disgusted I feel a strange dirty sexy feeling.

At this point I assume most people are grossed out. Being grossed out by shit is normal right?

This is why from around the age of 5 or 6 I realized I was "not normal."  This only became worse when it became sexualized and rather than thinking about girl's emerging breasts I thought about their trip to the bathroom, fantasized about being in there with them.

Its strange in writing this down I remember certain events that may or may not have contributed to this locked in shame:  A) I was going to the bathroom (an embarrassing thing for me since as far as I can remember) and my favorite girl at the before mentioned daycare walked in. She left immediately but not before seeing me on the toilet. B) When I was younger I remember showing my excrement to a group of older boys trying to impress them, rather than being impressed they teased me.

But both of these events took place after I had been playing with shit already (I showed the boys hoping I was not the only one). The desire itself has changed over time, at one point I was into spreading it all over my body, which would lead to a lot of explanation as to why the bathroom smelled so bad and why I showered so often, at other times I dabbled in self-coprophagia. These experiments also lead me to develop or notice my obsession with butts in general. In my fantasies it became not just the excrement (dirty diapers etc) but also the butts of the other kids and teachers. Eventually I started to play with my own butt, sticking fingers and small objects into it for sexual pleasure.

These experiments and thoughts had a particularly troubling affect on my social life and self esteem. During the age of puberty I not only had to recognize and consider the sexualization of this fetish, but also the normal  changes in my body and mind. Beyond that adolescence is a troubling time for any person, but throw in the idea that you are weird and alone into the mix and it becomes a very depressing and isolating experience. Luckily I had a great family and wonderful friends but I shared none of this with any of them for fear that they would not love me anymore. Instead I bottled it up, sought out information from others and eventually decided that because I would never be "normal," I shouldn't try. I sought out the weirdest and grossest things I could find. The disturbing, the haunting, the terrible things people do to each other and that happen in our world and I found them in abundance in books, movies and eventually the internet. I spent many nights trying to shock myself into feeling normal... after all if these things happen (dismemberment, abuse, torture, degradation) than what I am interested in must happen too right? I must be somewhere on the scale even if it is in the extreme.

This information though haunting also caused me to feel less isolated. I stopped thinking about killing myself and instead tried to imagine meeting people who were into what I found out was called "scat." 

For those of you very vanilla people out there, there are many people in the world who are into "weird" fetishes. These people sometimes go by the general term of being Queer, and I am starting to recognize the positive use of this term in my life, but in general the internet has opened up a world of connection where in the past people might have been totally isolated. The problem though is that this leads people to chat rooms, porn sites and risky encounters with other people who may or may not be shady. It also leads people into a world in which they continue to keep these feelings and thoughts fairly repressed and secret from the outside world. This has been my case.

With the exception of you, I have only confessed this to a few, they being my lovers it was inevitable that they found out.

There are many implications of this fetish, but one is that I always seem to have reason to doubt myself and the love of others. This brings me roundabout back to both the title and the first part of this post, the butt of every joke. How can I believe that anyone could love me, care for me, have respect for me when Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo and every third grader are telling jokes about poop being the funniest thing on earth (and anyone who likes it being contemptible). The things that make people laugh in disgust, are the things I am turned on by...
Second, how could I ever be famous enough to live it down.

Person A: Did you hear? He created world peace and fed all the starving children.

Person B: Yeah probably just cuz he wanted to eat their shit.

(Which wouldn't be true by the way)

I included wrath and envy in this one because I am often disgusted with myself over this and wish to be like others. Sloth could also be included because being so ashamed of myself I have at times been unable to act for myself or others, and have been unwilling to judge those that hurt others because I am afraid of being judged myself.
There will be plenty more on this, but that is it for now.

7 Mortal Sins

Though I am not Catholic and rarely call myself Christian I find the mythology appealing (hence the title). I was raised a certain brand of Protestant Christian and often find that it affects my view on life, thought and action.

I am a religious and spiritual person. I attend a spiritual group regularly. I engage in religious and spiritual devotional activities. I pray, sing, dance, create and spread the love and joy of (God) whenever I can or remember to and this pursuit is not limited to external ambition but thoroughly internal as well. In this blog I hope to share what I often feel I cannot share with the outside world. I hope to do this because I want to be who I am and also happy, and also proud, and also good... and sometimes I allow these thoughts and feelings to keep me from being happy, proud or good.

Maybe at some point I will share this intentionally with loved ones... but for now a modern confessional.

7 Mortal Sins (they change over time but here is what I will write about)

Lust

Gluttony

Envy
Wrath *inward and outward

Pride/Vanity

Sloth

Greed

So lets begin awkwardly enough with tonight shall we?

You will have to indulge me I am not a Catholic, so I may ruin the ritual, but I haven't ever really confessed so in my mind I last confessed a day or two ago.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been a day or two since my last confession."

I was at a restaurant tonight, on the way in I noticed several attractive people, mostly women, but also appreciated the marble streaks of white hair on the middle aged men's heads.  I stood in line thinking about how I would be dining alone and thought about how nice it would be to have a girlfriend. I scanned the room in search of someone delightful, I found many ladies, most of whom seemed engaged in pleasant conversation with friends and loved ones. In many ways I find this beautiful, but sometimes can't help but be jealous. Tonight however I was content to eat alone... and perhaps that is the sin of sloth poking its head in a small way... keeping me from pursuing what I could, or perhaps I am just satisfied with my own company. Regardless I noticed I was in line behind a tall man who seemed to be the father of a little girl. In front of him in line was a equally tall blond woman who I assumed (incorrectly) to be the mother.  The man was tickling his daughter in a playful way. Nothing wrong about that but things like that always stand out to me, because I know that is how some things start. Overly sensitive to the sins we commit ourselves I guess, I watched out of the corner of my eye, this young girl with tangled hair and big eyes, peering joyfully at her father whom she loves.

I remember that big eyed look. It wasn't my daughter, I was too young at the time. I was 6 years her senior though, 6 years is a world of difference at that age. I was a teen, I thought I knew everything, I thought if I could get away with things it was worth it. I was all black and white thinking (not that I have moved beyond that too much) and often times when she was around it was the one, and often times when I was alone in thought it was that one too, but all other times it was the other. I knew it was wrong, though no laws were broken, I knew I was betraying a young girl's trust and shaming her innocence though I didn't understand quite how... I hoped she would think it was all a game. I dreamed each night that she lusted after me like I did her.
But every time I saw her it was that same innocence... and then a growing and gradual... distrust, a growing yet gradual pushing away. It wasn't till I was 16 that I had the wake up call I needed to stop, but even then I didn't, not right away. I was addicted to this girl who followed me in my dreams and whom my body craved. She was a regular in my fantasies. She was a regular in my daily life routines.
I gradually broke away, by changing patterns. She did too, by growing into a person, a troubled teen and not some innocent plaything.

For the record, we were never nude together (except in my thoughts). But what I longed for was her smell.
I would position her in ways in which I could smell her, rub my face in her clothed private areas. In so many ways I am disgusted, I was then too, but I didn't stop. And still to this day I sometimes dream about her.

The less judgemental of you out there might say "Why didn't you pursue her when she was older?"
Because it wasn't just the sin of Lust, its the Pride and Wrath that comes along with it.
Its the million nights of fantasy, contrasted with the guilt and shame. The judgment and assumed judgment if anyone found out.  So whats to be ashamed about?  Well besides the age difference which I don't condone, though it may not be out of the ordinary (in our very strange world), we come to our second taboo... which is that she was related to me.
I hate to say it but I am excited by taboo and as a teenager I attempted to prove that everything that was extreme was my friend or at least my associate and even now some of those images and thoughts haunt me. So this was my relative, this child not yet a teen, this hurt and neglected girl, who I treated like a thing.
The assumed reasons fill pages, the rationale, the reasoning, the hypothetical responses to confrontation, but none has happened. It sort of haunts me still. The look in her eye that wonders if she can trust me. The inability to actually know or care or relate because of this secret perpetrated at her expense, and am I to bring it up? Perhaps throw her from her security in reminding her of things done, and even if I take all the blame she can never deny it away again.  Not to mention she tells our family, not to mention the social consequences of breaking taboos.

So this is my first sin of lust against another.  This repeated action hidden in shame. But shame makes you do terrible things to yourself and sometimes others. So I shall confess other sins, eventually to cleanse the soul, and then? Well if it doesn't become the mundane and daily sins, then surely the contemplation of what these concepts are... taboo, sin, good and evil, cruelty, vice and habit, fetish, soul and self, the role of the society and of the individual. Perhaps I will even throw God into the mix, to contemplate on just what type of person I am and  who I am called to be. Or who we are all called to be.