The way you poop impacts your sex life.

I have a theory. My theory is that the way you poop impacts your sex life. Hear me out.

The way many of us poop is incorrect. If you've ever seen the hit viral video ''This unicorn changed the way I poop'' by Squatty Potty, with Dookie, the magical unicorn who poops ice cream, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, here's the gist. When people use defecation postural modification devices to squat, studies show, they poop more quickly, they strain less and they empty their bowels more completely compared to when they sit on the toilet (Modi et al., 2019).

So if you're pooping incorrectly and incompletely evacuating your bowels, some of that poop remains stored in your rectum. It is my belief that this lingering poop can cause irritation and even inflammation, particularly of the lower gastrointestinal tract.

It is this irritation and inflammation that may impact sexual function. Firstly, the closeness of the lower gastrointestinal tract to the pelvis can mean that pelvic floor muscles can be impacted by intestinal inflammation. This is certainly true for people with inflammatory bowel disease (Bondurri et al., 2015). Typically, this impact is aggravation and tension of the muscles. And we know that a tight pelvic diaphragm can lead to a slew of sexual function issues.

Secondly, the enteric nervous system is located along the gastrointestinal tract and controls functions such as regulation of local blood flow as well as interaction with the immune and endocrine systems (Furness, 2012). Again, it is my belief that irritation and inflammation possibly caused by incomplete evacuation can impact the enteric nervous system, thus negatively influencing blood flow to the pelvic area and the function of the endocrine system, both of which are important in sexual health and function.

Like I said this is just my theory, but pooping better can improve your sex life by bettering your sexual function. There is evidence that sexual abuse is a contributing factor of chronic constipation (Forootan et al., 2018), so I don't think its too farfetched to think that pooping and sex are linked.