Mailman Dave
Sometimes I’ll be browsing Reddit for hours and not find anything worthy enough to blog about. I have the normal subreddits that I’ll hit up, and one of them is offbeat, where they literally post about strange or weird news stories. Well, it took a matter of seconds until I found this article that was so strange I had to dive deeper, and it turns out it’s as weird as the title suggests.
In 19th century France, a young Joseph Pujol was taking a swim when he realized he could inhale vast volumes of water through his anus, eventually deciding to turn it into a hit stage show at the Moulin Rouge under the name Le Pétomane (the Fartomaniac). Years later, however, after recounting the anecdote to his friends in the French army, he decided to try it once more. With his friends gathered around, presumably resigned to the fact that the dinner party didn’t quite have the original classy tone they had intended, Pujol placed his anus below the surface of some water and sucked hard. Amazingly, he could still do it. With further training, he discovered he could suck up about two liters of water, and roughly the same volume of air, in one go by bending over and covering his nose and mouth, then contracting his diaphragm.
Ifl Science
There are so many things to unpack here. If this was nowadays, there’s no way it would be as tame as water being sucked up his asshole. This man would have a pitcher of beer behind him, and it would get the people going. I have never boofed or seen somebody boof in real life, but I hear it gets the people going. It’s normally a group of dudes in their early 20’s who have heard that chugging beer through your ass gets you drunk faster. There’s always one idiot who is willing to try it, and before you know it, somebody has their pants around their ankles and a tube stuck in their asshole while another idiot is pouring beer in a funnel. The only time I have seen this done is Steve-O in the second Jackass, and you know what, you just watch it instead.
As you can see, it works, but not really as Steve-O started to piss like a girl. Chugging water wasn’t enough for this man. Nope, Pujol stepped up his game when it came to all things revolving around his asshole.
A few training montages later, he could also vary the volume and pitch of his farts, do impressions of other people’s farts, play the flute from behind, and blow smoke rings out of his anus and mouth at the same time.
Ifl Science
Once again, this brings me right back to Jackass. See, Pujol had a show that he would sell out to idiots who wanted to hear his farts. Now the idiots of today watch clips and the movie Jackass to see what dumb things humans can do. Well, in Jackass 3, they brought Will the farter where they had him play the trumpet, shoot blow darts, and other stupid shit from his farts. You know what? Here’s the clip.
Like the Jackass crew, all things must come to an end. For the Jackass crew, it was because they got old and couldn’t keep putting their bodies through the torture for Pujol his age had nothing to do with it.
Pujol made a living for decades with his act – before WWI put a stop to things. After the war, his act had gone out of fashion, with some suggesting that that could have been because people viewed gas comedy as in poor taste following extensive war gassings – though it could also be that humor had moved on from a man violently farting out show tunes.
Ifl Science
If only this man were around today, he could go viral for his farting and ass chugging. Maybe his asshole would have had a longer career.
