An observation I made from being infrequently involved in the care of my late parents, and now of my father in law who needs a pit stop before and after we take him from the nursing home for a wheelchair excursion:
Handling someone‘s full commode stool bowl or adult diaper makes me gag, badly. I am hard put to keep my stomach where it belongs.
Now my own excreta I consider disgusting too and best rid of soonest (sometimes one cannot simply flush, as when hiking), but I never gag at the smell.
Seems so from my observation, but also I notice so many other’s bowel movements are very noisy.
We have a large bathroom where I work, and every time I’m in there to urinate and/or wash up ( it’s a place where the nature of the work one gets their hands dirty often ) there are always some people in the toilet stalls doing their thing. Apparently my GI system leads a charmed life, so quiet and effortless are my own excretions. Seems so many others have either bad diets, problematic GIs or both. I overhear lots of grunting, plopping sounds, or explosive movements that sound so messy that these people don’t need a roll of toilet paper; they need a hose and a mop head.
Also, old shit that’s been sitting around smells worse than fresh shit.
But when I’ve smelled other people’s fresh, healthy shit (usually my husband, but something other people in public restrooms) it doesn’t really bother me more than the smell of my own healthy fresh shit. I mean, I don’t like it, but it’s not a horrible smell, just, shitty, ya know?
Of course, the smell of shit in an inappropriate place is horrible. I’m talking about smelling someone else’s shit when I happen to be close to them in a restroom.
Now, y’all may find other people’s shit worse than your own. But I don’t, so it’s not universal.
Fwiw, my shit usually isn’t too bad, but some foods make it more offensive, and a stomach bug can make it really vile.
And, good lord, chemotherapy shit…! Not only is it a peculiar toxic-chemical reek on top of sick-person stench it actually IS toxic. I bought special chemo-resistant gloves when caring for my dying husband. Held my breath a lot. Oh. My. God.
There are people with nerve damage who can no longer control their bowels but would be considered healthy otherwise. Some of them are even athletes. But such people can usually change their own diapers. Unless they have so much nerve damage they can’t move their arms.
That’s where I am. I don’t like the smell, it’s unpleasant, but it doesn’t usually make me gag. I don’t know if I have a higher tolerance for stink or a poor sense of smell or what. Maybe it was those five years I worked at a horse farm in exchange for a reduced price on lessons - I shoveled a LOT of horseshit in those years (good prep for internet flame wars).
And this - diet can make a dig difference. People with lactose intolerance who insist on consuming dairy can generate war-crime levels of stink, for example.
The only time I can remember the smell of shit nearly making me vomit was when one of my dogs had puppies.* After they were weaned, they slept in a crate over night. Since they’d had not house training yet, there was a certain amount of clean-up in the mornings. I had to hold my breath or mouth breathe when I was bundling up the pee pads and cleaning out the crate. DisGUSTing.
She was a rescue with health issues, so she wasn’t spayed by the rescue organization when we got her. We were treating her and building up her strength for surgery. Surprise! We had puppies before the surgery happened.
Usually my bowel excretions are pretty quiet. It is also something I try to avoid doing in a public restroom. Usually that is rather easy, as it is something I do once a day, in the morning.
If I have to use a public restroom for this purpose, there is usually something wrong. I’ve been stricken with a fast-acting illness, like the flu can be. Or I ate some bad food. So on the rare occasion when I’m “doing that” in a public restroom, it is more likely to be noisy and stinky.
If it *is *universal, then is it chemical (the olfactory is somehow tuned to not reject your own body products) or psychological (proven through double-blind studies)?
And to piggyback: is it possible for people to poop without peeing? I know I can’t. Even if I didn’t feel like I needed to pee some still always manages to come along for the ride, so to speak.
