My lover and I have a healthy and lively sex life. We share all our fantasies and indulge each other by acting on them. I am very open and I have enjoyed everything we have tried. Recently, he asked me if I would engage in some watersports, which I did and he seemed thrilled. But then he wanted to involve feces. He showed me some porn that had girls shitting, pissing and puking on each other and then even eating it. I was stunned into silence.

I love that he is so open, but this is the first time I have not understood one of his fantasies. It just seems juvenile to me, more like something an eight-year-old boy would laugh about with his friends. I have read about it, in order understand what is arousing about this, but I haven’t found anything useful written on the topic. I know I can refuse to do this, and he will accept it — but it is changing my opinion of him. And it’s not even doing the actual act that bothers me, it’s that I just don’t get what the appeal is. Do you know anything about this? What is it about piss, shit and puke that triggers excitement in someone? I just want to understand, because I am starting to look at him differently. GROSSED OUT

We haven’t really talked about it since — not while we were naked, anyway — but my boyfriend also couldn’t wait to show me 2 Girls 1 Cup. Go online and you’ll find jillions of response videos to it, at least a couple of dozen with an unwittingly kinky Freudian twist: people, with unabashed lascivious glee, making their parents watch it. We are fascinated and/or revolted one and all by this excrement-sex thing but if you want to talk origin and appeal, I find Freud himself — despite the fact that his theories are steeped in the social mores of his time — makes some interesting points, specifically in his essay “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love” (available at www.tinyurl.com/6mkqr5): “…sexual instincts find their first objects by attaching themselves to the valuations made by the ego — instincts, precisely in the way in which the first sexual satisfactions are experienced in attachment to the bodily functions necessary for the preservation of life.”

In other words, people develop sexual fixations towards shit (and I would extend that to vomit, adding to that an exciting element of loss of control) because they were praised for doing them, they feel good and they are vital to life. Who can argue with such positive motivations?
The problem is, of course, no matter how much psychological theory you throw at this fetish in an effort make it more tolerable, you’re still looking at a partner who wants to take a crap on you or vice versa, something that I’m afraid most people have as much interest in as having a composting bin that’s been stewing in the summer heat dumped over their head. And, yes, there is something distinctly juvenile about it. (One does wonder what Freud would have to say about all these people filming the folks who changed their diapers watching a coprophilia video.)

I’m also going to guess part of your concern is due to the fact that you’re worried all these other fantasies you willingly explored were simply pit stops on the way to this one unappealing fascination. It’s not hard to come across shit when you fuck, what with it being indigenous to one of the popular holes and all, but deliberately incorporating it? Hold up.
LOVE BITS

As the expression goes, there are two things you don’t want to see being made: sausage and legislation. I’d add another: an open relationship. Is it any wonder I’ve found so many polyamorous people I’ve rubbed shoulders with at parties lacking in cultural awareness and personal style? They’re too busy processing, negotiating and checking in to develop any interests outside of their relationships. And yet, according to the latest addition to the poly canon, Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up, it is precisely this kind of intense group navel-gazing that is required to make just about any relationship work, including monogamy, a model which Taormino holds in as much esteem as non-monogamy.

The book is a perfect metaphor for its subject: both rewarding and frustrating, at times feeling like a Márquez novel when interview subjects chime in with personal anecdotes (wait, which Buendia was she talking about, the boyfriend Buendia, the husband Buendia or the co-husband Buendia?).

“As a general rule,” Taormino writes, “people who are good at open relationships are organized. Seriously, you need a calendar, PDA, scheduling software.... Non-monogamous people must become skilled at scheduling, otherwise it won’t work.” In an interview on Polyamory Weekly (www.polyweekly.com), Taormino mentioned that before editing, the book was over 600 pages long (guess that’ll be the special lesbian edition — just kidding, ladies…) and you can see why. Opening Up delineates nearly every imaginable configuration and offers many excellent suggestions and tactics, not just for managing the relationships themselves but the legal and social ramifications involved in them.

And to Thanks, who asked about male-escort-for-female-client services last week, from Mary: “How very interesting that you would receive a letter about male escorts when I have been trying to summon the courage to write you asking where to find one. Simply put, I am an unattractive female. I do not get hit on; I have never been on a date. It has been over three years since I last had sex. I have toys that take care of any immediate needs but the one thing I miss and would like is touch. I recently read an article on massage parlours that offer happy endings to female customers. The letter writer could offer a massage service along these lines as well as full service. I would gladly hire him.”

Email Sasha at sasha@eyeweekly.com or send your questions to Sasha c/o Eye Weekly, 625 Church St, 6th fl, Toronto, M4Y 2G1.

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