A Dung beetle is suppose to appreciate poop.
As a Mom I knew the very minute my baby needed to be potty trained. When you gag at your own baby’s poo-poos it’s time for the toilet talk and a trip to get big girl panties.
So poop being a bad smell? I have to say it’s universal. IMO
I can say that I was not as thrilled changing my sons diapers post-solid food as I was before…yuck.
I work in radiation therapy and all our prostate patients have to have full bladders and empty rectums. I don’t know how the poor bastards do it, I know it would be hard for me.
Yes it is. It’s one of the things in which I’m on the same side as 1.SiL’s Mom, while my Mom and 1.SiL are on the other side. So, from the one time it came up in conversation and from the follow-up research, I can confirm that it is quite possible and for some of us, routine; for others, impossible. It might have something to do with the area’s muscles or something like that.
I just decided that English needs another word to distinguish between active and passive smelling, because I can’t quite decide if you were leaning over the bowl with intent or just passing by.
IIRC, that draft was titled Poop and Prejudice
Are you suggesting that it’s possible you could not distinguish your own poop from somebody else’s poop in a blinded test? The reaction is so visceral that I’m skeptical that this could be the case, but for Science I suppose a group poop-sniffing session in total darkness is called for.
There are obvious reasons why there would be strong natural selection for an olfactory repugnance for other people’s germ-laden shit, more extreme when they are ill. And a milder aversion to our own shit, since it’s less harmful but still doesn’t belong in our upper GI tract.
I’m suggesting that we should find out whether the repugnance is chemical or psychological. Many people have psychological reactions to things that otherwise have no organic cause, such as fainting at the sight of blood, which is itself a pretty visceral reaction. People may not mind the smell of their own shit for the same reason that people can’t tickle themselves. I’m not suggesting what’s possible so much as not ruling anything out. The answer should be sought through science.
Just to clarify, since the brain is obviously part of the olfactory system, the distinction you are drawing with a “psychological” reaction is a differential reaction that’s based solely on knowledge of whether the poop is your own, correct, not the smell itself? In other words, a reaction that you define as “psychological” would not differentiate between self and non-self poop in a blind test.
Of course. My point was that a priori it would be surprising if the reaction turned out to be purely psychological. There are obvious reasons for strong selective pressure to be able to detect the presence of foreign poop. We already know that many other animals can do this, and it doesn’t require any sophisticated mechanism of self tolerance at the molecular level like the immune system - just learned familiarity with the smell of one’s own poop.
:lol: the only time in “intentionally” smelled someone else’s shit was when I changed the diapers of my babies. And sometimes I could tell by the odor that the kid was sick. But I guess even then, it wasn’t so much intentionally smelling as intentionally handling diapers in a way such that it was impossible not to smell it.
My guess is that most people can’t tell the difference. What you CAN tell is whether that smell is because “I JUST did that” or whether you smell shit in any other context.
It is such a commonplace that there is apparently a saying in German: “Eigener Dreck stinkt nicht” (ones own shit doesn’t stink) that Einstein is reputed to have comment on seeing a poor article on physics.