The Way We Talk About Poop Matters More Than You Think

flickr/serakatie

Without language that normalizes discussion of poop, people with digestive and bowel disorders suffer.

There are few things I love more than a good fart or poop joke. In this way, I’m not alone; many people consider poop inordinately funny (see: every Judd Apatow movie ever), and it’s not hard to discern why — it’s uncomfortable to talk about, gross and taboo.

But outside of joking, we don’t really have the language to comfortably talk about (sh)it. And this is a problem.

Without language that makes talking about poop normalized, people with digestive and bowel disorders can’t discuss their symptoms — their lives — in a way that elicits understanding.

We don’t really have the language to comfortably talk about (sh)it.

In a piece for New York Magazine, Mary Roach, author of Stiff, Gulp, Bonk, and several other books that bravely discuss every aspect of human bodily functions, discussed the difficulty of approaching soldiers for her piece on the prevalence of diarrhea in wartime situations. She says, “I convinced the droll and adorable Camp Lemonnier public affairs officer, Lieutenant Seamus Nelson, to put a request in the daily email feed…