Profanity

In the book THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, Holden Caulfield, the main character, shows incredibly obsessive compulsive tendencies in the way he tries to save the world for children, and be their "catcher" in the "rye." If you have never read the novel, you should. It is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) American novels ever written. By "saving the world" for children, he inadvertently "protects" them from experiencing the true trials and tribulations of life--one of these is the whole notion of bathroom profanity. In the story, he visits his sister Phoebe at her school. In the bathroom, he notices spacklings of profanity scratched, scribbled, and carved all over the stall doors. Quickly, he cleans it up, so as to "shield" the other students from seeing the bad words; he just can't understand why people would do this.

As the school year gets off to its start, I find myself contemplating the whole idea of bathroom profanity. Sure, I swear, tell "dirty" jokes, and say "that's what she said" whenever I can. But I have never, ever felt the need to manifest my love of bad words by engraving them in a public restroom someplace. Bathroom profanity is something so commonplace, yet so mysterious. What is the motivation for someone to write dirty words on bathroom walls? Think about it.

The profanity at Winslow High School is similarly amusing, yet concerning. In one of the stalls the other day, someone wrote BOOBS! and then drew two big orbs with little dots in the middle. In a different bathroom today (a brand new bathroom in the new wing of the school) I noticed a big "phallic symbol" scribbled in pencil right next to the soap dispenser. Finally, in yet another stall, some latent poet exclaimed, in red pen, "SEX IS FREAKIN' RAD!" This one is my favorite. So simple, yet so rich; I imagine so much time went into this one.

I know its a taboo sort of subject, but I just find it interesting that people do this. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about it . . .what do you think??