That taboo thing

Kings and queens, poor and rich, insects, mammals, birds, quadruplets, reptiles, reptilians, unicorns and even Britney Spears, they have one thing in common... And more precisely: WE have one thing in common. What's that? Surely you've already made some guesses: ''is it breathing?'' you may ask. Yes, it could be a correct answer but I was thinking about something else. The thing that I'd like to discuss today belongs to a taboo set of questions and people don't talk openly about it, though it is a well-known fact (even if some people try to deny it). So the answer to my question is... everybody poops.

On 19 November we ''celebrate'' the World Toilet Day. It's an observance established by United Nations in 2001 to raise awareness of sanitary problems that the humanity has still to cope with. Yet my first impression when I found out the existence of this day was a laughter. I didn't understand why someone had an idea of creating such a bizarre observance. However, when I started to learn more about the sanitary problems that still exist in the third world countries, the importance of basic hygiene has appeared clear to me. Today's western civilisation takes for granted the existence of toilets and ignores a fact that 2.6 billion people (that is to say one-third of the world population) still don't have access to lavatories. People living in the slums have to use improvised toilets elevated on sticks above water reservoirs (if you've watched ''Slumdog Millionnaire'' I'm sure you remember a scene with this kind of cloakroom) and when some people don't have access to such a construction they just defecate on the street. Being aware of the existence of microbes, we can imagine how slums are fodder for some grave diseases. Every year 760,000 children under 5 die from diarrhoea (source).

The ''stinky problem'' is an issue we've been facing throughout our history. Even the Bible talks about defecation (Deuteronomy 23:12). The Romans had a really efficient and clean system of latrines and, what's curious, they didn't find it embarrassing to share a cloakroom with other people, the taboo didn't exist then. But with the collapse of the Roman Empire, people had forgotten the rules of sanitation and it wasn't until the mid-19th century when the western civilisation has learned again how to get rid efficiently of the faeces, though we can trace the very origins of a flushing toilet to the Elizabethan age with an invention of a certain John Harrington. What's curious, it's with the arrival of toilets universally available, that the taboo has started to grow around a defecation and today's society is in a state of denial of what is a completely natural function.

If you want to learn more about a history of toilets, the poo taboo and a problem of sanitation in third world countries, I highly recommend watching this video that I've particularly enjoyed:

PS. The fear or inability to defecate in public places is called parcopresis and inability to urinate paruresis.