As we all know, volumes have dropped off dramitically over the last few years, and as a result there are many times where there is no activity so my collegaues and I often end up talking a load of rubbish all day. this weeks topic/debate was regarding flatulance. What we want to know is : Why is it humans love the smell of thier own farts but are repulsed by others? We could not come up with any real good reasons. Anyone a clue?
I remember when I was at the dentist when I was little. I'm sitting in the chair and the dentist blows this major violent fart. The whole room smells like shit, I got all this gauze in my mouth I can't hold my nose or close my mouth, my eyes are burning. The dentist then calls my mom in the room and says "'well at least his breath doesn't smell as bad as his farts'. My mom is really embarrased and I'm trying in vain to deny it.
Ha- good story. The only reason we could come up with is that we adopt the "Primate" instinct as regards to our own Farts/Butt smell. Another example of this is when humans are in bed and do a Butt fart we instictively put our heads under the covers to smell it, but only when its our own fart and not our partners etc.. Why the hell do we do this!!??
Mr. Grund... On the subject of farts, I must say that you and I have dis-stink-ly differing points of view.
It's a manifestation of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
Whats that got to do with the original post? The question was why humans enjoy their own butt farts but are repulsed by other peoples.Still awaiting a reasonable reason as to why this is the case.
Ha- good analogy.There is a guy in my office that loves sniffing his own, so much so he cups his hands to try to capture all of the gas and then puts it to his nose, before attempting to " throw" the odour at some unsuspecting victim.One of his victims was actually physically sick last month due to the pure stench of the fart gas, which was produced after the previous nights curry and beer session.
Here's my barstool philosopher theory, which I just made up, but makes sense to me: The point of disgust is to motivate the creature to avoid stuff that will make it sick, stuff that may have new germs and viruses that the creature does not already have and would expose the creature to risk of getting sick. In this case, your own fart probably won't have new germs or viruses you don't already have, there's no risk of new sickness, so the disgust emotion doesn't get triggered. But, from another person, there's no way to know what kind of pathogens spew out in their fart, it could expose you to risk of all kinds of new sickness, so it triggers the disgust emotion. Then the disgust emotion tries to get you to run away from the fart so you don't get exposed to new germs. This would explain how the fart man in your office enjoys his own -- he is not getting any more bacteria than he had already. But the other person probably did not have as much germ in their system, so they got new germs carried in the fart and got sick.