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It's not unlike the stigma behind a completely natural and necessary process that almost all of people have, which is defecation. Operationally speaking, the tw
by xyzzyz 11y ago
It's not unlike the stigma behind a completely natural and necessary process that almost all of people have, which is defecation. Operationally speaking, the two are very similar. So, why is there a stigma behind defecation?
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoWhy is there a stronger stigma behind menstruation, though? In many societies, people who had recently menstruated were seen as "unclean", yet defecation did not have the same stigma.
- moron4hire 11y agoI think that's not entirely correct. In those same societies, the left hand is considered "unclean" because of its association with wiping.
- marrs 11y agoWhat societies are those?
- jacquesm 11y agohttp://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/america_3.html http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/america_3.html For instance.
- marrs 11y agoNot having any experience with orthodox Judaism, it's hard to put those passages into context. It's rather hard to decide what to make of that page. It seems to have an agenda, though I'm not sure I understand what it is.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoJewish society in biblical times comes to mind. I'm sure it's not unique.
- braythwayt 11y agoI don’t know about operational speaking, but epedemiologically speaking, the two are very different. One of them is associated with e. coli, a lethal bacterium that even in modern times and developed nations kills people on a regular basis, e.g. Walkerton, Ontario, where seven people were killed by improperly treated drinking water in 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak It’s easy to see why humans have developed behaviours and social stigma around defecation. Menstruation is very different. Our social behaviours around it may have more to do with our social behaviours around genders, sexual availability, and other stuff. I’m not an anthropologist, so I’ll just stop here before I dig a hole for myself. I’ll just note that the two are very unlike in very important ways.
- moron4hire 11y agoNot very unlike. They are mostly alike. They have differences, which is why we only say they are alike, not equivalent.
- braythwayt 11y agoThey are only “mostly alike” if you carefully cherry-pick the ways in which you count similarity, while handwaving over the number and importance of the ways in which they are different. Humans care about deciding which things are actually alike and which things are only superficially alike, because such choices have important consequences. For example, if we decided they are “mostly alike,’ we might decide that all you need is a pad to absorb defecation, and you need only change it when it cannot absorb any more liquid. After many such discoveries, we change our minds and say, “Although they may appear to be alike at first glance, it turns out that they are mostly different."
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>They are only “mostly alike” if you carefully cherry-pick the ways in which you count similarity, while handwaving over the number and importance of the ways in which they are different. They are very alike if you look at all the other bodily activities and then rank them based on how different they are. Is 1mm a short distance or a huge distance? Without knowing the scale, you can't say if a 1mm difference is important or rounding error. 10000mm and 10001mm is not a big difference. .001mm and 1.001mm is a big difference. But both are only the difference of 1mm. In the same way, these bodily functions are different, but their differences are not great compared to the differences between these and other bodily functions. Urination is one of the only things I can think is closer... and it also has a lot of stigma around it.
- rndmind 11y agoAlmost all people? I am sure you mean all people.