True story. So I was in R.C. grade school in Detroit. And we were in gym class, walking to the monastery field for some activity. And this boy, R., kept spitting every couple of feet. We would be walking, keeping a good pace. And every so often, he would get a look of disgust on his face, and spit on the ground. Mind you, this was outside. So he was just spitting on the grass. Anyways, our unusually butch female gym teacher (;)), Miss C. finally put an end to it. She told him, you spit one more time, and I am going to rub your face in it. And believe me, if you knew Miss C., she wasn’t lying. She’d really do it.
But why to men spit? I’ve never spit. Girls certainly don’t spit. My mother eventually said, apparently at her wits’ end with my cousin doing it, that she thought it was because they were angry.
Is that true? Or in any event, what is spitting meant to represent–or even accomplish? I am not kidding, I honestly don’t know, but would like to. It is still such a revolting habit.
Our culture teaches boys and girls that they shouldn’t spit. Other cultures don’t do this. Boys in the U.S. are usually taught not to spit, but find that it’s more accepted - at some times, in some places, in some subcultures - to do so as men. Woman are not supposed to do so, but that’s a peculiarity of modern western culture, not a human trait.
Why people spit has many factors. In the old days, every place where men gathered had a spittoon because men chewed tobacco and spat out the juice. That certainly made spitting acceptable in our culture. Other foods may cause salivation. Some people simply have more active salivary glands than others. Sometimes it’s better to spit than swallow. And I’m not even referring to *that *time.
I have wondered this too. I don’t spit unless I get something nasty in my mouth or hawk up some phlegm. But there are guys who, every time they walk into a men’s room, spit into the urinal. I am thinking, “Are they ‘holding it’ this whole time until they get the chance to go to the men’s room?” Or is it a territory-marking behavior? My son started spitting all the time when he played baseball, and I’m talking about at 12 years old.
For some men it’s just a habit they got into as kids. I don’t know if it serves any purpose other than being something they habitually do. I learned to spit eating sunflower seeds in little league. Watch professional baseball players and you will often see someone spitting.
I do it all the time. phlegm, dirt debrise from air, too much saliva or anything you don’t want to swallow. I’ve seen plenty of women spit as well.
People like me with allergies that might get that post nasal drip often get phlegm in their mouth. Post nasal drip, if you don’t blow your nose all the time often runs down into your throat, probably 98% of the reason I spit often.
I think in baseball that often because they chew, even without chew in their mouths, it’s a habit like how a smoker might stick a toothpick in their mouth in between smokes.
I’ve always viewed it as a masculine cultural habit derived at least partly from sports (it’s easier to spit than not to spit when you’re winded and feel like you have phlegm caught in your throat) and maybe chewing tobacco. There’s a certain ‘‘don’t give a damn’’ quality to it that makes the behavior desirable for boys showing off.
On the rare occasions that I spit, usually discretely outdoors on my own property, it is because my saliva tastes bad for whatever reason. Just seems more desirable to spit than swallow, as it were.
I spit because sometimes there are triggers that cause my glands to produce an excess of saliva. And trying to swallow that excess amount of saliva would just make me gag.
[ul]Some of those triggers are:
Exercise (or being more active than usual)
Coughing.
Bad smells.
Somebody talking about gross shit like curdled milk or something.
[/ul]
There are probably more triggers I’m not thinking of.
I agree with this, and I think it’s also a social thing (particularly with young boys). If the leader of the cool-kids clique is habitually spitting, soon all all of them will be.
When I lived in a small town, I frequently saw gaggles of adolescent boys standing around in public places—there’s nothing to do and they’re too young to drive, so they do a lot of standing around—and they’d all be spitting constantly. (Or none of them would be spitting, but that was rare.)
It used to be that in the UK, one would see footballers spitting during matches. A long time ago, 70s maybe, there was a concerted effort to stop them doing it because it was a bad example. I rarely watch the sport, but when I do, spitting seems to be much less frequent.
When I was a boy, there were posters telling us not to spit like this one from the V&A in an effort to stop the spread of TB.
When I was in the military, men spitting in formation was always a problem. A guy would spit and get dropped, and do it again an hour later. They just didn’t care. 20 push-ups was somehow nothing compared to the satisfaction of spitting.
Women NEVER spit in formation. But women tried really hard not to get dropped, and were dropped much less frequently than men. It was like women and men had totally different attitudes. Men looked upon push-ups as some kind of currency: he wants to do something, like spit in formation; how much will it cost? 20 push-up? he can afford that.
With women, it’s a PUNISHMENT. You could give women a chocolate drop for screwing up, and the women would still word hard not to get the chocolate drop, because no one would want to be seen getting handed the chocolate drop by the drill sergeants, and having everyone know she’d messed up.
The upshot seems to be that with women, and I assume girls, it’s usually enough to say “Don’t do it.” Boys need a reason, and it needs to be a good one. Now, I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of overlap-- boys who always listen, and girls who never do, but I’m generalizing, based on my experience.
