# The sweet smell of farts and crapping...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 12, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182 "2003-04-12T02:40:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/1 "2003-04-12T02:40:50Z")
What is it about our own farts and crap?
For some reason, the smell of other peoples farts is nasty, but my own farts just smell of home cooking.
In the restroom at work, other peoples crapping makes me feel nauseous, but the smell of my own crap seems quite comforting, like a warm blanket with which I cosset myself.
Is there a special stink-o-meter in our brains which can seek out our own bodily outputs?
Please tell me I’m not alone… and if I am, is there a support group I can join?
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### Author:  [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/2 "2003-04-12T02:52:25Z")
You’re not alone. I can’t say as I find my own bodily emissions as comforting as you seem to find yours, but I definitely don’t find them as noxious as other peoples’. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s so we don’t just kill ourselves because we’re so disgusted with ourselves, or something.
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### Author:  [@plain\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plain_jane)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/3 "2003-04-12T02:56:54Z")
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that smells are physical: it’s someone else’s bodily functions going up your nose… Not so bad when it’s your own, but the idea of inhaling someone else’s emissions is just gross.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/4 "2003-04-12T02:59:16Z")
I dunno. I’ve occasionally emitted flatulence I just _had_ to escape from.
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### Author:  [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/5 "2003-04-12T03:01:48Z")
'Tis true. MY shit don’t stink! 😃
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### Author:  [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/6 "2003-04-12T03:15:00Z")
My farts smell like violets.
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### Author:  [@Larz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larz)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/7 "2003-04-12T03:25:54Z")
My farts smell like other peoples farts, stinky!
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### Author:  [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/8 "2003-04-12T03:37:17Z")
I went to high school with a girl who claimed to love the smell of farts. Anybody’s. Otherwise, she was quite normal and went on to become a high-school mathematics teacher.
There must be a connection. 😃
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### Author:  [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/9 "2003-04-12T06:06:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by masonite \*
> \*\*My farts smell like violets. \*\*
:eek: Then they _must_ smell good! :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/10 "2003-04-12T06:16:57Z")
Further proof that math teachers are evil.
Though I, myself, have been known to produce the Blue Cloud of Doom on occasion…
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### Author:  [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2003, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/11 "2003-04-14T10:50:49Z")
I don’t crap, I excrete rose petals through my belly button.
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### Author:  [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/12 "2003-04-14T13:37:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Tir Tinuviel \*
> \*\*I don’t crap, I excrete rose petals through my belly button. \*\*
That’s nothing, I can excrete _sugar_ violets through my ears. On occasion, I’ve been asked to decorate cakes.
Ava
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/13 "2003-04-14T13:47:24Z")
It is amazing, isn’t it, how a couple of entities that were seperated at birth can later favor each other so.
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### Author:  [@Loneraven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loneraven)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/14 "2003-04-14T14:22:28Z")
**samarm** - um… never mind. I lost the will to live shortly after opening this thread.
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### Author:  [@Sidewinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sidewinder)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/15 "2003-04-14T18:28:38Z")
What a wonderful online community! Any group of people who unabashedly share the details of their own excreta is surely enlightened!
Which is not to say that I haven’t laid a few that could blister paint… But nothing compares to cat farts after they’ve been eating soft food. ARGH!
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### Author:  [@Marius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marius)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/16 "2003-04-15T03:39:25Z")
Actually, this has to do with a part of your own brain.
The temporal lobe, or the hippocampus to be specific. This is the part of your brain that deals with perception and auditory/old factory/sensory stimuli.
Take for an example, when someone tickles you. This part of your brain erupts with stimuli, you laugh and your body usually starts to jerk uncontrollably.
However, when you try to tickle yourself, you usually can’t. Your hippocampus does not respond to “internal” stimuli as opposed to “external” stimuli in the same manner.
As such, an “internal” stimuli, such as your own gasses or other such, are not as offensive as an “external” stimuli such as your room mate leaving a stench in the washroom that would render nuclear waste harmless.
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### Author:  [@Marius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marius)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sweet-smell-of-farts-and-crapping/168182/17 "2003-04-15T03:40:29Z")
Of course, I would like to point out that this is a general thing, and may not apply to everyone! 🙂