Flush Your Husband Down The Toilet

I love talking about toilet rituals, don’t you?  I also love talking about those crazy Japanese.  Remember last week when we talked briefly about the Japanese human curling porn? This isn’t quite as odd as that, but almost.

Check it:

There’s a place in central Japan called Mantokuji Temple.  In Medieval times, the temple served as sort of a safe-haven for unhappy wives who needed to escape bad marriages during a time when divorce was not allowed. But it’s rather progressive function has changed with the times and now it’s emerging as a mecca for modern women with relationship issues.

Celebrating the deity of the toilet, female visitors go to the temple to write their aspirations on a piece of paper  and then flush it down the shitter.  Visitors to Mantokuji Temple can choose which kind of potty they need to use:  there’s a white  one for women who want to cut ties, and then there’s a black one for those who want to strengthen them.

My upstairs toilet is iris blue.  I wonder what that color is for. Maybe it’s for people who want to sever ties with bad decorating decisions? (Before anyone thinks I actually chose an iris blue toilet, think again.  It came free with my house, along with the orange 70′s smut rug in the basement. Actually, the rug is kind of awesome…)

Anyway, the idea is to flush the bad things down the toilet so you can be free of them and live a happy life.

Sounds fucking weird, right?

But before we go looking at those crazy Japanese with our Judgy Judgington eyes, we probably shouldn’t because everyone eventually flushes Something Unfortunate down the toilet (shudders delicately), so who are we to judge?

I should also point out that the idea of  the toilet having the power to help rid  people of  shitty relationships (get it?  Toilet? Shitty?  Hi-five!) is based on the Japanese spiritual premise that the gods are present in everything – and that includes the potty.  Kawaya no Kami is the toilet deity or the porcelain god the Japanese pray to to heal illnesses and help in childbirth, so I guess this ritual makes sense. The Japanese must give birth to a lot of Aqua Tots.  (That’s what those in the biz call babies who are born in the toilet.)

Sadly though, there actually are ignorant Japanese people (who knew?) who have used the ritual toilets to make their grunties and tinkles, so they had to put up a sign that said “Huahyahomohitasan!”
That’s Japanese for “You no poop in here! Ceremonial toilet ONLY!” for those of you who don’t speak Japanese.

The ritual seems to be evolving even more as some people visiting the temple are not there to sever or strengthen marital ties at all. They’re coming to ask ol’ Kawaya no Kkami for a little help kicking their bad habits, like drinking too much, or gambling, or hookers and blow, or smoking, or chronic masturbation.

Dear reader, are you a chronic masturbator? Well, you don’t have to worry anymore because now you can flush that habit down the toilet!

Oh wait. This is Toy with Me!

We WANT you to be a chronic masturbator, so please forget I said anything.  I don’t want to get fired.  Do NOT, I repeat, do not write “chronic masturbation” down on a piece of paper and flush it down the can, okay?

Once when I was little, my brother flushed my shoe down the toilet, but that was more because he was a little dickhead than him having a shoe fetish he was trying to get rid of. My mom was pretty mad, but not as mad as when I tried to give the cat a bath in there which totally would have worked if she hadn’t stopped me.

Speaking of my mom, she does not approve of this, by the way.  I told her all about it while we were washing dishes together on Zombie Jesus Day and she was all “gee.  I’m glad I don’t work in Japan then” because she’s a shrink and if people think they can just write their problems down on a piece of paper and be rid of them, she’d be out of a job.  I kinda promised I’d keep the whole ritual a secret, lest it catch on in the United States,  but I guess I didn’t.  Apparently, what happens in the kitchen on Zombie Jesus day does not stay in the kitchen.

Sorry, mom.

You’re really, really good at washing dishes though.  Maybe you can do that since your job might be in the shitter now.

OH SNAP!

God, I’m good.

All stupid jokes aside though, I don’t think the Japanese are crazy at all.  I mean, it’s sort of fun to flush stuff down the toilet.  I wonder if the ones at that temple are really satisfying to flush, like the industrial ones at the mall that go WHOOSH! and you kind of have to take a step back because it was such an impressive event, and also because for a split second,  you’re scared it sucked your pants in.

Anyway, I have to go now, Toy with Mes.   While researching this article, I kinda got some stuff stuck in my iris blue toilet.  I guess I should have just called my shrink instead…

About the Author

Crissy,a lifelong Rhode Islander, is 35 and has two little girls. Aside from doing a little bit of writing here and there, she doesn’t use a shred of her MA in English. She writes a blog where she is Queen of *&%$#@* Everything and reigns over her readers, whom she calls Queefs, with a loving but firm hand. In both 2008 and 2009 Crissy won the Blogger’s Choice Award for Hottest Mommy Blogger. In 2010, Crissy was chosen as one of Blogher's voices of the year.