I REALLY WONDER ABOUT certain folks like the ones that act all judgy and offended in social media communities. I’m sure you’ve encountered them, especially in kink groups. Like it’s an issue that consenting adults enjoy cosplaying in animal mascot regalia, having wrestling matches, and ending up in cuddle puddles. Seeing your favorite Bulldog mascot square off with your rival, the Wildcat? That’s must-see TV, and the speculation over what would result from the coupling is well worth the time and effort. It’s all in the name of fun, and nobody gets hurt unless the costumes have apertures. And remember, it’s consenting adults involving themselves.

Then you have the people who call out those folks who get off on gunging. What’s that, you ask? Sexy food fighting, where the aim is to cover opponents in the gooiest, stickiest, and tastiest stuff you can think of. Whipped cream? Yep. Add chocolate pudding, maple syrup, marshmallow cream, or melted peanut butter. Let your mind go crazy.

If you want to really up the ante, lick each other clean.

Don’t get me started on how these twatwaffles respond to kink buddies who have a thing for farts, sharts, and queefs. They’re bodily functions, for fuck’s sake! It’s something the critics do themselves. How dare they roast people who rate these phenomena for various qualities, or have contests over tone, duration, or smelliness, or even people who turn themselves into human flamethrowers with a careful —or not —addition of fire to the proceedings?

Yeah, these fucks are all over the place, sticking their noses into personal enjoyment and making it harder for the kink crew to practice their particular off-brand religions. Granted, that custodian cleaning the restroom multiple times a day might be an eproctophile —don’t know what that means? Look it up, lazy ass! —or the person digging in the trash for used tampons and sanitary pads might actually be a practicing menophiliac rather than a cop seeking a DNA sample. The point is, as long as they aren’t forcing their beliefs on others or committing any crimes, then they ought to be left alone.

I’m an amateur scholar of this type of stuff. I can enlighten you about all kinds of penchants you would call weird, things that might make you run screaming. I undertook this research to satisfy my own interests. After a long and arduous trek through the fetishes that put vanilla folks off their popcorn, I still hadn’t arrived at any satisfactory answers. Until I found what I was looking for, staring me right in the face on my social media feed.

I have a kink, you see, and it has yet to be defined because of its scope. It isn’t limited to one substance, you see. It’s a composite of several, united by a common term.

I’m a kink in search of a community, and I haven’t yet run across folks who share my fetish. I think that makes me special —I don’t give a shit about what others think.

I’m an Abjectophiliac, and my fetish is called Abjectophilia. If you think that sounds gross and don’t want to hear any more, I invite you to leave now. I’m about to elucidate. See ya ‘round folks! Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. And just remember, at some point in your lives you probably did what I’m about to talk about.

Good, the pussies have left. Let’s get down to the gritty nitty, and believe me, some of what I’m about to share is so gritty it leaves particles between your teeth.

Let’s start with the etymology of the word. Abject is a noun. It’s been part of the critical lexicon for a while now. A theorist named Kristeva coined the word, an umbrella term covering a lot of things that, if brought up in everyday conversation, make people squirm. Which surprises me. I mean, everyone produces these substances in most cases. Put as simply as possible, the abject is all the waste your body produces: shit, piss, menstrual blood, diarrhea, toenail fungus, snot or boogers, phlegm, earwax, smegma, dingleberries, scabs, and the shit that comes out of pimples, blackheads, cysts, lipomas —if your body produces it, and you find it gross, it’s considered the abject. And, yes, a corpse is part of this fetish. It’s the hardcore abjectophiliacs who find excitement in putrescence, the squishy sounds of a decomposing body, or the farts from hell that the bloated dead release when punctured. I’m not quite there yet, mainly because I’m unsure how to go about acquiring a decomposing body, but it does intrigue me.

Okay, we all understand the abject. Any questions? None? Good. Now, let me clarify the other part of the word.

“Philiac” is from the Greek, “philiakos.” A word that makes a specific noun out of the word “abjectophilia.” Essentially, I’m someone who is attracted to the abject —more about that after I finish this part of my lecture. Bluntly, I get off on all the stuff that you, and everybody else, slough off.

Now, I’m sure that among you are some silly souls who at one point in your lives took pictures of huge dumps or had fart contests or watched that television show about the dermatologist who excises goiters or the podiatrists who deal with malformed toenails. If you live on social media, maybe you’ve even gravitated toward videos of the guys who trim cows’ hooves. And if you’re brave enough to venture into the dark web, you can find videos with the cameras embedded in toilets, to give you the experience of the inner and outer workings of the fudge factory. The point I’m trying to make here is that the whole business of the abject has been normalized to some degree by mainstream and social media platforms. It’s validated the truism stated in the famous kids’ book. Maybe you’ve even had it read to you: Everybody Poops. And, of course, we get any number of reminders that most everyone has acne, out-of-control toenails, menstrual cramps (okay, that’s a little over half the population) and so on. You would think that mainstreaming would take away some of the taboo associated with these substances.

And you would be wrong.

Ever tried having an intelligent conversation about the quality of your last dump? Or showed someone your toilet paper after you wiped, or your Kleenex after you blew your nose? It’s not for everyone. Neither is the twist on my abjectophilia.

Some of you may want to take this opportunity to exit the room because what I’m about to discuss is something that, well, can induce vomiting. And yes, that’s another part of the abject.

See, I don’t just worship the abject —I consume it.

There they go, off to the races. No interest in learning something new. Hypocrites, the lot of them. I’m sure if you dosed the critics among us with truth serum we’d see a whole lot of admitting to chowing down on that crunchy bloody booger extricated from a nostril.

Okay, intrepid souls who chose to stick around, let me spin you a yarn about how I realized I have this fetish, and, more importantly, how I came to terms with it and found inner peace.

When I was born, my mother wanted the placenta saved. Unlike mothers who preserve it for its genetic material, my mother bought into something she heard somewhere —church, probably —about the therapeutic qualities of consuming fresh placenta. As soon as she had the opportunity, down it went. I don’t know if it did anything for her health, but I dimly remember seeing her gobbling down the membranes and blood in her hospital bed after my siblings were born.

My first memory of the abject in my life is a vivid one —mother carefully examining the shit in my diaper and smelling it. As I grew up, this became a regular ritual. My mother would exhort me to not flush so she could make sure there was nothing amiss with my rectal waste. She also assisted me with wiping far longer than what I now know as normal, until I went off to school. She would critique the quality of the smear on the toilet paper and encourage me to wipe until there was nothing left. One might say this is nothing more than usual parental concern over a child’s bowel habits and an effort to cultivate appreciation for personal hygiene. I won’t argue the point. I will say by the time I went to school I had a well-developed sense of appreciation for my daily act of evacuation.

My schoolmates found my ritual of checking the quality of both evacuation and cleanup befuddling, and soon hung the sobriquet of “Pooper Snooper” on me. The name stuck —to this day people still call me “Snoop.” I didn’t like this name initially, and I would either come home crying because of the torment, or bruised from the fights I’d get into. My mother told me to ignore the teasing. Personal health and hygiene was just that, she reasoned, and it was nobody’s business how I approached it. I resorted to using the restroom at odd times so no one would bother me and I could perform my ritual in peace. It was during one of these times that I realized that I might have a slightly broader interest.

Many of my schoolmates were less fastidious, and oftentimes I would enter a bathroom stall and find the toilet unflushed with partially dissolved turds floating in the water. The waste came in multiple shapes, from long, fully formed logs, to bumpy clusters that looked like lopsided balls, to pellets that made me wonder if whoever left them was part rabbit. The colors were as varied as the texture. My thinking logically went to wondering if what you eat affects what you poop, and if the color variation means that the turd has taken on the characteristics of the food that preceded it.

My curiosity finally got the better of me.

One day I entered a stall and saw that the previous occupant hadn’t bothered to flush and left the bowl partially filled with pelletized feces, each about the size of a peanut chocolate candy. I locked the stall door, fished one out, and popped it into my mouth.

It was like manna, but I didn’t dare fish out any more because I didn’t want to get caught. I took care of my business, cleaned up, and filed the knowledge for future reference.

My interest in feces soon expanded. I wondered if there was a difference in the deposits made by girls, and adults. I became a phantom, sneaking into the girls’ restroom when opportunity presented itself. The investigation established that girls evacuated the same types of turds that boys did, and that girls were as cavalier as boys when it came to flushing. Did I ever get caught in the girls’ room? Of course, more than once. On such occasions I would say the boys’ was occupied and that I couldn’t wait. I was usually let off with a warning.

I soon found myself wanting more. Eating feces every now and then grew boring, and I was learning very little.

It took a bloody nose to expand my horizons.

I’d acquired a seasonal allergy that seriously irritated my nose, and I eventually found that blowing it did little to clear the obstructions. There was a particularly troublesome clump adhered to the inside of my nostril. It was irritating, and, after multiple attempts to blow it out, I decided to extricate it with a finger. After some probing and digging I got it loose. When I withdrew my finger I saw a green and red clump, slick and slimy with mucus and blood, and hardened in places. The mix of textures proved to be too intriguing, and before I could stop myself I shoved the mass in my mouth and chewed. The taste was coppery because of the blood, and softening the hardened section proved to be quite toothsome when I was able to chew it. It left particles on my teeth, which I would revisit throughout the day.

From such humble beginnings to a full-blown fetish. These two instances led me into other experiments and taste experiences. As a typical boy, I often got cuts and scrapes that produced scabs of varying sizes and textures. My mother wondered why the scabs came off before the healing was complete. I would also lick my fingers after extricating clusters of turd and toilet paper from my ass, chewing on the fruits of evacuation and wiping.

My bout with acne exposed me to the tastes of blackheads and the gunk inside pimples. It was this consumption that came back to me when I was watching videos on social media showing the extraction of blackheads. My mouth would water as I saw the sebum pulled from its crevice, and I got hard over a video of the trimming of fungus-riddled toenails, so I began to neglect my own toe care so that I might myself get toenail fungus.

I did, and it tastes exquisite.

You might wonder if this idée fixe has in any way affected my personal life —admittedly it has on occasion. One of my first girlfriends nearly had a mental breakdown when she found the stash of her used tampons hidden in my freezer. Later on, I met a woman who helped me earn my red and brown wings simultaneously, and I really thought she was the one. It takes a very special woman to let you eat her out while she’s having a chunky period and gifts you with a liquid shart as you finish. But, after the novelty wore off, she tired of my appetites. We went our separate ways after I wanted to give her a Cleveland Steamer that I would lick off her. The blumpkin I gave her when she had a horrible bout with the norovirus was also off-putting. I was just trying to be comforting and keep it clean if things erupted from both ends.

To answer the question, yes, I’m still on the market. Single and more than ready to mingle. If you have vaginal warts or herpes lesions, it’s a plus. I’m always looking to taste new things.

So that’s it.

My story is told and I hope you will leave here with a more enlightened and less judgmental perspective. I am completely at ease with this part of my life and in no way expect to inspire anyone to follow my lead. Just know that most of us, and most of the people we know, have probably done some of these things at some point. The abject unites us. It does not differentiate. Some appreciate it more than others, and others are more meticulous about dealing with it. Some have crafted careers studying it and sharing that knowledge with others for the betterment of society.

If there are still some among you who consider my interactions with the taboo and my respect for the abject noisome, I remind you that I do not judge your personal fetishes. I respect you for having them and embracing them.

I have one last bit of counsel for those who still judge.

Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.

About the Author:
J. Rocky Colavito (aka Dr. Damned) writes horror of many types as he transitions into retired life after forty-plus years of college teaching. In addition to short stories appearing in collections and magazines—Grindhouse Resurrection, The Sirens Call, Madame Gray’s Poe-Pourri of Terror, The Horror Zine, the inaugural issue of Carnage House, and a host of others—he is the creator of Buck Neighkyd, former porn star turned occult investigator. Buck’s adventures can be followed in serial form in Caveman Magazine, and his origin story, Creative Control, is available from Quest Omnimedia/The Caveman Adventure Library.

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