I think men are conditioned from early childhood to believe that farting is more socially acceptable for them than it is for women. Let’s face it, we expect men to fart. That’s what they do. Men are fine with farting. Women, on the other hand, are conditioned to believe that farting is unladylike and unacceptable. A man will take his family for a nice drive in the country, lock the automatic window locks, roll up the windows and release a silent-but-deadly fart. Then he’ll smile and wait for the grip-of-death reaction, while ignoring the desperate pleas to unlock the windows. This control pleases the man. Men are dominant farters. It’s a rare woman who will do such a dastardly deed.

Women engage in clandestine farting. Women worry about farting. We might call this fart anxiety. For example, when a woman goes to the gynecologist, she hopes and prays that her appointment will fall on a day when she isn’t….ummm….gassy. For a woman, the worst case scenario goes something like this:

She arrives in the parking lot at the doctor’s office and realizes that she has to fart. “Uh oh”, she says to herself, hoping that the parking lot fart will be the end of it. Once inside, she sits in the waiting area where several other patients are waiting. As she reads a magazine, it hits her. She has to fart again. This is where the pre-fart surveillance comes in. She surveys the room. There are too many people sitting much too close to her. She wonders whether she can put a silencer on it. But, what if it smells REALLY bad?

With that, she steps into the hallway and walks around, pretending to be looking for an office a few doors down. She furtively glances left, then right. If the coast is clear, she farts. She quickly leaves the area so as not to be implicated in the fart. Hoping that will be the end ot it, she goes back to the waiting area and takes a seat. The nurse calls her name and takes her to the examining room, where she’s told to undress and put a gown on. At this point, she feels very vulnerable. While she’s waiting for the doctor to come in she has a horrible realization that she needs to fart again, but this time she can tell it’s going to be the BIG ONE. She considers farting before the doctor enters the room, but brushes that idea aside because she knows that he could walk in at any second and the whole room might become saturated with the smell of the fart.

Later, as the doctor examines her, he asks her if she’s nervous (as though her white knuckles and broken kneecaps weren’t a clue).

The doctor is completely unaware of her terror as she clenches every relevant muscle in her body and tries desperately not to fart while he’s examining her.

Ladies, this is our very own, special nightmare, isn’t it? And there’s nothing worse than a slow gynecologist.

Well, actually I went to a slow gynecologist one time and desperately had to fart. His nurse was a very prim and proper older lady who had an old fashioned 1950’s beehive hairdo and horn rimmed glasses. If you aren’t aware of this, a beehive hairdo combined with horn rimmed glasses is the ultimate form of gynecological intimidation. She stayed in the room during the entire examination. I’ve never experienced such terror as I did that day! There’s something about a beehive hairdo and horn rimmed glasses that sends a very strong subliminal “If You Fart, You Will Die” message.

I don’t think men have a worst case scenario when it comes to farting, primarily because I’m convinced that over time, men have developed an enormous ability to control their farts. Men can fart at will and practice deliberate farting so much that they have incredible muscle control and are better able to avoid farting in those rare situations when they prefer not to. It’s precisely that feeling of being fine with farting that has given men the advantage over women in terms of self-control.

Age seems to be the melting pot when it comes to farting. Many elderly people, regardless of gender, fart freely, loudly and often. Elderly people who engage in public farting often pretend to be so hard of hearing that even they cannot hear the noise or feel the physical sensation of their own farts. Whether you realized this or not, most people cannot fart and speak at the same time during a conversation without a brief pause, however elderly people who fart publicly never miss a beat. They are so smooth and so stealthy as they fart that their audience is left feeling confused about whether the pafootle they just heard actually was a fart or not. And yes, the proper term for a fart emitted by an elderly person is “pafootle.” This behavior is best described as Geriatric Ambivalent - Aggressive Farting Syndrome.

Despite the differences in the attitudes of men and women about farting, aging seems to be the great equalizer in our twilight years. Perhaps we call them the twilight years because using a light bulb brighter than 20 watts would cause an explosion.

Now there is one uncomfortable situation that many men and women have in common - the public restroom fart. You’re in a store or other public place when you realize that you are about to fart. As the fart rumbles through your colon, it becomes apparent that this isn’t just any fart. This one might be a record breaker. You head for the nearest public restroom and settle in for what you hope will be the relief you’re after. Just as you’re about to let go, someone enters the stall next to you. There are two choices here: (1) You could wait for the person the finish their business and leave the restroom while you try to hold it back, or (2) You could just throw caution and social stigma to the wind and set your fart free. If you decide to fart while the person is in the stall next to you, your next thoughts will turn to exit strategy. Most of us will quietly sit things out in our stall until the faucets quit running and we hear the door close. Then we’ll add a time buffer - just enough time to assure us that the person who heard us fart will not be outside the restroom door as we exit. This assures us that we won’t be identified as the farter. As we leave the restroom. we might even feign disgust, as though we just heard someone else fart in the restroom, further preventing us from being identified as the farter. In case you haven’t noticed yet, there is an almost commando aspect to farting and the methods that farters use to release their farts and disguise the fart event.

Women often complain that men don’t communicate effectively, but I’ll settle for whatever verbal communication I can get. If my husband and I were goldfish, I would be spending most of my time following him around, staring at his fecal tube in the hope that he’d fart an “I love you” now and then. Meanwhile, I would be angry that he didn’t notice how often I farted “I just want you to hold me!” Then we’d get into that whole communication issue, “Was that one bubble or two?” or “Honey, I didn’t get what you just said, could you fart that again?” Not to mention the misunderstandings from the occasional slip of the fart.

And there you have it, 2141 words about farts and farting, courtesy of MudSoup.com.