Permission to Fart Freely

So you've found love. Your weekends are a blissful haze of eating, boozing, and frolicking in the sack. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining bright. There's a spring in your step and a bladder infection creeping up your pee-hole from too much beefing, but you don't care! Everything is going splendidly, except for one thing: another second of holding in your mounting gas may just kill you. Your butthole has been clenched for so many hours you've forgotten what it feels like to relax.

You’re not the only one to endure this torture. Through the ages women have wondered, “When is the right time to fart in front of my new beaux?” Did Vivien Leigh give Laurence Olivier nightly Dutch ovens? Did Carole Lombard blast one in Clark Gable’s face while he was sleeping? Or, dreadfully, are you supposed to endure this pain forever?

My own experience fighting the farts has itself been a painful one. When I started dating my devastatingly handsome BF, David, he lived in St. Helena which is about 15 miles from my home. I would spend entire weekends at his apartment humping, eating, and swilling hooch until I became a large wine sack that had to be rolled out the door. The caldron of wine sloshing in my gut formed a firey cyclone of farts bursting to leave my anus, but I wouldn't let them for fear of Judgment.

"'Please God, make him go to the bathroom so I can set the demons free,' I thought to myself, clenching in agony."

Often times I'd wait for him to go to sleep, sneak into the bathroom and hold my asscheeks apart, thus letting the fart escape with a silent whisper. Other times, I would quickly say my goodbyes, sprint to the car, anticipating the sweet earth-shattering release of three days worth of built up fumes. Only by that time, the fart was pissed at me and would refuse to come out. Then, about a half mile down the road, a rumbling would start to swell. I swear, I would fart for a solid 45 seconds, nearly blowing a hole in my underwear and catching the seat on fire. I could have laid face down on a skateboard and propelled myself the remaining 14.5 miles to my house.

I could not endure this suffering much longer. After three months I felt I was finally comfortable enough to fart in front of him, but didn't know how to let the first one fly. Should I announce it with a bugle? Pass the steaming wind and pretend it didn't happen? Light it with a match? It took another four months of anguish before I finally came out of the closet as a farter.

I'll always remember my first time. Handsome David and I were watching the Nip/Tuck season finale in which the Carver's identity was revealed (something I had been looking forward to for months!). I had prepared champagne, a buffet, and donned my favorite pink flannel nightgown. This should have been an evening of joy, but I was in despair as I could feel each new fart stack on top of the last fart without liberation. My legs were crossed as tightly as possible, I was as stiff as a board, and beads of sweat began to form on my brow. “Please God, make him go to the bathroom so I can set the demons free,” I thought to myself, clenching in agony.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. “I have to fart really bad,” I winced. “Go for—” David was cut off by the release of my epic tour de force tremoring eruption of pungent gas. It felt like heaven, David didn’t run out screaming, and I wondered why I had tormented myself for so long.

Other she-farters have struggled with this problem as well. “I have a little speech for my manslaves,” my friend Sarah said as she cut the cheese for my own enjoyment. “It goes something like this: 'Look, I fart. You fart. You want to spend so much time with me, and holding it in is fucking killing my stomach. If you want to hang out so much I have to be able to fart.' They laugh and say, ‘Don't even worry.’ Then, not realizing how gassy I am, they are horrified when I get up, bend over the bed and just let one rip.”

As a result of feedback from her direct approach, Sarah has developed a theory on the subject of the BF farting timeline. According to her, how much you like your BF is directly proportional to the amount of time you wait before farting—the more you like him, the longer you will wait. Her current boyfriend of over a year has never known the sweet stench of her lady clouds. Other BFs were given the fart treatment in less than a week.

I declare that no man is worth the abuse to my digestive system. A life spent with a clenched butthole is a life unlived. Hopefully Sarah will learn this lesson when her butthole falls out, and she dies buttholeless and alone. Furthermore, farting has only brought joy and laughter to my relationship. A fart is a gift you give yourself, your loved ones, and strangers on the bus. So this holiday season, give the gift of farts.

Supplement to this article: “Farts Bring Joy” chapter 6 in Men Like Bars, Women Don’t Have a Penis