Theoretically, I should have one hell of a messed up colon.
I haven’t eaten a vegetable since 1965 and, even though
I feel kind of bad about it politically, every week I probably
consume about eight pounds of red meat.
That’s
not supposed to be the healthiest thing a man can do. In fact,
just being alive and as healthy as I appear to be has turned
me into something of a medical curiosity. Not that long ago,
I was offered a substantial wad of cash by a team of researchers
at Columbia University in exchange for my allowing them to probe
the mystery that is my digestive system. I declined. If there
is anything scarier to me than my mother’s mashed turnips,
it’s doctors and hospitals.
But
in my weaker moments, I do occasionally stress out over the
reality that my eating habits will no doubt kill me at an early
age. The concern that my meat-only diet raises in the various
health professionals I’ve visited over the years does
nothing to alleviate the stress either. Apparently if my heart
doesn’t give out on me in the next 10 years, then all
the muck in my colon is going to mutate into cancer and I’m
going to have to suffer the indignity of wearing a colostomy
bag until the good lord takes mercy on my soul and finally claims
me.
So
what to do?
COLONICS
OR DEATH
I’ve
been hearing about the miracle of colonics for close to 10 years
now. The health-conscious people I know who become aware of
my diet will invariably -- and always with the same panicky
tone -- make a big ordeal of how important it is that I start
getting the treatments immediately. “You need a cleansing
and now! Or you’re going to die,” they perpetually
cry.
But
a colonic . . . That’s just never sounded like a whole
lot of fun. Especially since I’ve never been truly convinced
I needed one, given that my old bowel gets moved pretty regularly
and I’m rarely constipated. I mean, think about it: hot
shooting liquids, shit, grease, ass probing, a chick in a nurse’s
uniform. Sure, it has all the elements of some of my more interesting
erotic adventures but, in the context of a preventative health
measure, it decidedly loses much of its allure. So I have to
wonder, what’s the point?
Well,
apparently healthy colon maintenance is the point. According
to the people who champion this procedure, having your hole
professionally cleansed on a regular basis will keep those nasty
cancer cells from forming, reinforce your immune system, and
leave you with a general sense of well being. But that ain’t
all; after your colon gets irrigated you’re supposed to
be able to think more clearly, sleep better and, if you’ve
been constipated for awhile, have the edge taken off your foul
mood.
Lucie
Courchesne is a naturopath who does a brisk business in hydrotherapy
-- the polite term for colonic irrigation, aka getting your
ass blasted with treated water and cleaning out all the leftover
fecal matter that’s stuck to your insides. She works her
magic out in Montreal’s NDG and tells me that the majority
of her customers are clogged-up, middle-aged professional women.
“Most men aren’t all that comfortable about having
things inserted into their anuses,” she notes.
And
I suppose you can count me among them, but as a serious health
journalist with a colon that has plans to kill me in the next
decade or so, I recently decided it was time to stop being a
sissy, bend over and get the treatment. I picked up the phone
and called for an appointment, and exactly one week later I
was lying on Lucie’s table with a hose up my ass and a
smile on my face.
UNDENIABLE
SENSUALITY
A lot
of people seem to think that hydrotherapy is a smelly, degrading
procedure that is both uncomfortable and a little humiliating.
But answer me this: what possibly could be undignified about
lying ass bared on your back with your feet locked in stirrups
and a hose up your bum while a disturbingly pleasant young lady,
who has just probed your behind with lubricant, takes complete
and utter control of your bowel? That’s right: nothing.
Unless the sheer and undeniable sensuality of it all renders
you with a big old involuntary erection, which is a potential
side effect I’d prefer not to discuss at this juncture.
Truth
be told, the procedure is neither particularly messy or uncomfortable
and Lucie, considerate to the fact that many of her customers
may find surrendering control of their bowel to a stranger somewhat
compromising, has taken measures to keep the humiliation factor
to a minimum.
After
a short interview wherein I revealed my dietary and elimination
practices to Lucie’s shocked dismay, I was sent off to
the changing room to put on a pair of colonic shorts (a terrycloth
number with a flap on the backside allowing easy access to the
good stuff). I was encouraged to see that my colonic shorts
fit like a glove and did a bang up job of accentuating the finer
details of my best parts, leaving me with a nice pouch and flattering
the curves of my behind.
“Can
I take these with me when I leave?” I asked Lucie while
proudly emerging from the changing room to take my place on
her colonic table, “These would be bitchin’ at my
next fetish party.”
But
the colonic table is no place to be making jokes, and before
I knew it, a determined Lucie had me greased up and was inserting
a sterilized hose, about two inches long, into my rectum. It
felt kind of good.
COAXING
THE COLON
One
end of the hose is hooked up to a sophisticated distribution
system that pumps filtered water up your colon, while another
works as a drain to remove all the nastiness that the water
pressure clears from deep inside your gut. Lucie controls how
much pressure goes up your ass while alternately massaging your
abdomen with a semen-like substance, gently manipulating your
colon in to parting with the stubborn sweet stuff.
By
your feet is a mirror aimed at a clear plastic tube in the drainage
system which allows you to observe and admire some of the goodies
you’ve been nurturing as they swim through the tube and
make their way in to the sewer system like little brown goldfish,
never to be seen again. Visually, it’s actually quite
soothing.
Unlike
an enema, where you suck a whole bunch of liquid into your ass
and then run as fast as you can to the crapper, the whole colonic
mechanism is enclosed. So you don’t get the chance to
enjoy the smells generally associated with bowel relief or have
any opportunities to roll around in your fecal matter. There
is no spillage whatsoever and, in fact, at the end of the 45-minute
session, the colonic table is so clean you might be tempted
to eat off it.
When
we were done and all the crap had been cleansed from my system,
Lucie shot a syringeful of healing bacteria up my rump to replenish
the supply that had been drained through the treatment and handed
me a maxi-pad to stick in my underwear in the event that some
goop would decide to drip out while I was walking home.
“But
I’m not wearing any underwear,” I told her.
“Well,
just stick it in your pants then, there probably won’t
be any leakage, but just in case you don’t want to be
caught in an embarrassing situation,” she told me.
Certainly
not. So I paid her the $60 she charges for her service, slipped
in my maxi-pad, and sashayed home through the Alexis-Nihon Plaza,
feeling light-headed and thoroughly rejuvenated. At peace with
both my body and the world.
That
is, of course, until my maxi pad came loose and started sliding
down the leg of my trousers, forcing me to grip the side of
my pants until I could get out on to the street and covertly
shake it out past my ankle. An event which some might construe
as an embarrassing situation, but in my enlightened post-colonic
state of being, just seemed like the funniest thing in the world.
As
for the condition of my colon, I’m proud to report that
I continue to baffle the experts in the medical community. Lucie
says my digestive system is A-1 and I don’t need to go
back for another session for at least another six months. Will
I ever go back? Sure, why not? Having your colon blasted is
a much more pleasant experience than most people realize.
