Hot girls with IBS, wait all girls have IBS. Okay, maybe not all girls but dang, why is there such a great big handful of us girls with IBS? My question is why can’t we talk about it? We can, it just seems that it has been taboo for girls to do gross things like poop. Have a bowel movement. Fart. Okay, I said all of the words, now clear the air (literally), and let’s keep talking about this. Women do poop. Women have IBS.
In the US it has been said that two out of three people struggling with IBS are women. We don’t talk about this amongst ourselves. Sometimes you find a woman friend that you open up to about your digestive woes. Maybe it’s just that friend you spend the most time with so they witness the butt-clenched run to the bathroom. They have watched you make a quick exit one too many times and know something is up.
Women do poop
You can’t hide it after the dart out the door run to the bathroom mid-conversation. So this person becomes the one who understands and doesn’t throw shade in your direction because you have a bowel movement, which we all have.
Come to find out they have some gastric distress as well. It is funny how when you go through something together it brings you closer and are then willing to talk about something you have been hiding. Or maybe not hiding, but just not advertising.
It is not a pretty topic of conversation, Oh I almost shit my pants on the way to work this morning. But it does bond you to someone. It makes us better friends who understand the realism of life. There is a term to describe the friends you share these intimate details with. They call this friend a “poop friend”.
Poop Friends ’till the End
I hope you have one, I hope everyone has one. Poop happens to all of us, and when the bad poop stories happen it feels better to laugh about it with a friend. Because that is really all you can do, laugh about it, and as odd as it may be, sharing it makes it feel less embarrassing. It makes you feel not alone in a shitty situation.
My advice, unsolicited as it is, is to open up the conversation to bowel movements. It doesn’t have to be a daily coffee break talk, but if it is, good. We are all going poop and it shouldn’t be a taboo subject. The more we talk poop the easier it gets and we can begin to normalize that everyone does it. Some of us more than others. Some of us women. Women do poop.
Do you have a friend you text when you are in gastric distress?
Do you feel like it is taboo for women to poop?
