Coprophagia

Coprophagia is the consumption of feces, from the Greek copros (feces) and phagein (eat). Many animal species have evolved to practice coprophagia; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions. Only in rare cases is it practiced by humans, most cases revolving around sexual scenarios.

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Evolved coprophagia

Coprophagous insects consume and redigest the feces of large animals; these feces contain substantial amounts of semi-digested food. (Herbivore digestive systems are especially inefficient.) The most famous feces-eating insect is dung-beetle and the most ubiquitous is the fly.

Pigs are most commonly associated with eating not only their own dung, but those of other animals and humans.

Rabbits, cavies and related species do not have the complicated ruminant digestive system. Instead they extract more nutrition from grass by giving their food a second pass through the gut. Soft caecal pellets of partially digested food are excreted and generally consumed immediately. They also produce normal droppings, which are not eaten.

Young elephants, pandas, koalas, and hippos eat the feces of their mother to obtain the necessary bacteria for the proper digestion of the vegetation found on the savannah and in the jungle. When they are born, their intestines do not contain these bacteria (they are completely sterile). Without them, they would be unable to get any nutritional value from plants.

Gorillas eat their own feces and the feces of other gorillas.

Hamsters eat their own droppings; this is thought to be a source of vitamins B and K, produced by bacteria in the gut. Apes have been observed eating horse feces for the salt. Monkeys have been observed to eat elephant feces. Coprophagia has also been observed in the naked mole rat.

Theories on dogs

Coprophagia is a behavior sometimes observed in dogs. Hofmeister, Cumming, and Dhein (2001) wrote that this behavior in dogs has not been well-researched, and are currently preparing a study. In a preliminary paper, they write that there are various hypotheses for this, although none have been proven:

• To get attention from their owners.
• From anxiety, stress, or having been punished for bad behaviors.
• They had been punished for having defecated in the past, and attempt to clean up out of fear to be punished again.
• From boredom.
• In an attempt to clean up in crowded conditions.
• Imitation of behavior observed when their owners pick up feces (allelomimetic behavior). This is highly improbable because the behavior has also been observed in environments where owners never picked up the dog's (or other) feces.
• Because puppies taste everything and discover that feces are edible and, perhaps, tasty, especially when fed a high fat content diet.
• Because dogs are, by nature, scavengers, and this is within the range of scavenger behavior.
• To prevent the scent from attracting predators, especially mother dogs eating their offspring's feces.
• Because the texture and temperature of fresh feces approximates that of regurgitated food, which is how canine mothers in the wild would provide solid food.
• Because of the protein content of the feces (particularly cat feces), or over-feeding, leading to large concentrations of undigested matter in the feces.
• Due to assorted health problems, including:
  • Pancreatitis
  • Intestinal infections
  • Food allergies, creating mal-absorption
• Because they are hungry, such as when eating routines are changed, food is withheld, or nutrients are not properly absorbed.
• Carnivores may sometimes eat or roll in the feces of their prey to ingest and exude scents which camouflage their own.

The most obvious reason--desperate hunger--is rarely considered.

Some veterinarians recommend putting meat tenderizer in dogfood, since this makes the feces taste excessively bad to dogs. Several companies produce food additives that can also be added to the animal's food to make feces taste bad.^{[citation needed]}

Due to the attraction of dogs to their feces, a popular Chinese idiom goes "A dog cannot change its habit of eating feces", which usually refers to a bad habit that is hard to correct.^{[citation needed]}

Humans

Coprophagia is extremely uncommon in humans. It is generally thought to be the result of the paraphilia known as coprophilia, although it is only diagnosable in extreme cases where it disturbs one's functioning. From the medical literature, coprophagia has been observed in a small number of patients with dementia, schizophrenia[1] and depression[2]. Consuming other people's feces carries the risk of contracting diseases spread through fecal matter, such as Hepatitis A, Hepatitis E, pneumonia, and influenza. Vaccinations are generally recommended for those who engage in this practice. Similar risk can apply to related sexual practices, such as anilingus or inserting an object into the mouth that has recently been in the anus (see ass to mouth). The practice of coprophagia in humans is also depicted in a handful of motion pictures. For examples see section Coprophagia in motion pictures below.

Lewin (2001) reports that "... consumption of fresh, warm camel feces has been recommended by Bedouins as a remedy for bacterial dysentery; its efficacy (probably attributable to the antibiotic subtilisin from Bacillus subtilis) was confirmed by German soldiers in Africa during World War II."

Coprophagia is also sometimes depicted in pornography, usually under the terms "scat" or "shitplay".

Coprophagia in motion pictures

• Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma: A young woman is forced to eat the feces of the Duke; later, the other victims are presented with a giant meal of human feces (the "feces" were created with chocolate sauce and orange marmalade)
• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me: Fat Bastard's feces is being studied by Basil Exposition, and Austin mistakenly thinks it is coffee, smells it and soon after takes a drink, commenting that "it's a bit nutty".
• Jackass: Number Two: Dave England is offered $200 to consume horse feces.
• American Wedding (American Pie 3): Steve Stifler eats dog feces in an attempt to hide a wedding ring in the droppings from the mother of the bride, who mistakes the feces for a chocolate truffle.
• When Cesar investigates the nonsense the mouse causes in the movie Mouse Hunt, he eats mouse feces to evaluate them; just to discover calcium deficiencies in the mouse's system.
• Pink Flamingos: The drag queen Divine chews up and swallows real dog feces. ^[1]
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: The main character, Ron Burgundy, eats a piece of cat feces, served to him in replacement of a steak by a restaurant because he spoke crudely about San Diego (This scene appears only in the unrated version of the film.)
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: Eric Cartman's mom is seen on the internet in a German coprophagia porn film, where she is consuming a German man's feces. In the German version of the film she eats an English man's feces.
• South Park Episode 1007 "Tsst": Supernanny Jo Frost is put into a mental state where all she does is cry and eat her own feces after attempting to improve Eric Cartman's behaviour
• South Park Mr Hankey, The Christmas Poo - Just after the fight at the Christmas play, there is a fake live-action commercial for the "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo Playset". It features a family of a mom, her son and two daughters. The mom uses a fish net to recover a piece of feces from their toilet, and they dress it up with clothes and accessories from the set. At the end of it, the baby eats it.
• Vase de Noces: The farmer is shown making tea out of his own feces and urine.
• Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead: Treat Williams' character Critical Bill describes the feces he ate for US$500 while in prison as "spongy."
• The Power of One: Morgan Freeman's inmate character, Geel Piet, was forced by the prisoner guard to eat horse feces.
• The Acid House: Bob's parents describe eating feces as part of their sado-masochistic sexual relationship.
• The X-Files season 3 episode "War of the Coprophages: The episode relates the story of a cockroach invasion and contains a number of feces-related jokes.
• The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover: In the opening scene to the film, restaurant owner Albert strips an associate and forces him to eat dog feces.
• Epic Movie: In the scene when the four orphans visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, Eddie starts drinking from a chocolate river and pulls a large piece of chocolate and takes a bite of it later to find out that he was actually drinking from a cess pool, obviously making the piece of chocolate a turd.
• The Ladies' Man: In the scene in the bar where Tim Meadows and Rocky Carroll engage in a contest in which they eat pickled eggs and hog balls among other things, the last thing consumed by Rocky Carroll's character Cyrus Cunningham is a turd, as explained by John Witherspoon's character by saying quickly, "You just ate some shit!"
• Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For the Road: Bill Engvall shares anecdotes about his family dogs including his dog Duke, a basset hound, who eats his own turds, and Bill's wife is unaware of this because she loves to let the dog lick her in the face.
• Kill Buljo: In the Norwegian film "Kill Buljo" it is strongly suggested, but not depicted, that the character "Troll-Tove" is making dinner out of her own feces and urine

Coprophagia in literature

• In Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, there is an insane coprophage.
• In Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow there is another case of coprophagia.
• In The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade, many of the characters practice coprophagia.
• In Life of Pi, Pi Patel attempts to eat tiger excrement in order to survive while stranded in a lifeboat. However, he realizes the feces lack nutritional value.
• In Timbuktu by Paul Auster, the main character consumes his own feces after ingesting large quantities of illegal drugs.
• In It by Stephen King, Pennywise, disguised as an old woman, serves Beverly a cup of tea which is actually human excrement.
• In a Hellraiser graphic novel, Wordsworth, written by Neil Gaiman, the title character visits a coprophagia restaurant to read the last word on their menu (which is just ordinary Coffee) for the answer to a crossword puzzle.

See also

• BDSM
• Cecotropes
• Feces
• Urolagnia

Notes

1. ^ Ebert, Roger (1997-04-11). Pink Flamingos. Retrieved on 2007-08-16. “All the details of these events are shown in the film, including the notorious scene in which Divine actually ingests that least appetizing residue of the canine.”

References

• Lewin, Ralph A. (2001). ""More on Merde"". Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44 (4): 594-607. PMID 11600805
• Hofmeister, Erik, Melinda Cumming, and Cheryl Dhein (2001). "Owner Documentation of Coprophagia in the Canine".. Accessed November 17, 2005.
• Wise, T.N., and R.L. Goldberg (1995). ""Escalation of a fetish: coprophagia in a nonpsychotic adult of normal intelligence"". J. Sex Marital Ther. 21 (4): 272-5. PMID 8789509