Talking Candidly About Flatulence

ED was once not dinner party conversation. The only ED people talked about in polite company had a Mister before its name. Now that’s all changed and ED is as American as “cherry pie” to reiterate H. Rap Brown’s famous words about violence. But the bar is always getting higher or lower as it were and flatulence is still not considered appropriate dinner party conversation, both flatulence and shit. But let’s stick to flatulence since it’s actually the lower bar to jump. Everyone breaks wind. Some do it quietly (“silent but deadly”) and others are like the big bad wolf who threatens the three little pigs. Still others radiate the worst of both worlds being both loud and smelly. Emily Post never dealt with the etiquette of farting on somebody, but when you’ve slept in the same bad for decades, it’s bound to happen. Talking about gas candidly with like-minded individuals hopefully will be a commonplace occurrence as people give up antiquated prejudices against bodily functions. If you're a person who farts a great deal, there's no reason to recuse yourself from society. Of course the litmus test is  whether you yourself are revolted by the smell of your own farts, but it’s probably more useful to cross that bridge when you come to it. The real subject is shame and the more everyone owns up to their farting and realizes that they’re all in this together the better off mankind will be. In the meanwhile, you'll be doing a great service to humanity if the next time you cut one you don’t try to pass the buck by looking accusingly in the direction of some innocent person.