Exploring the taboo rhinotillexomania picking ones nose by Jake Patton

Exploring the Taboo: Rhinotillexomania (Picking ones nose)

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Exploring the Taboo: Rhinotillexomania (Picking ones nose)

By. Jacob Patton

Contents 1. Why? 3. Pick us a winner. 8. Types of Pick.

2. Good or Bad? 11. You decide. 13. Picking it & Eating it.

3. Be Defiant

19. Pick your nose. 21. The 7 steps to picking your nose in public.

1. Why?

Pick us a 3

The question isn’t do you pick your nose, it’s do you pick your nose and eat it? Most of us do it, but few of us will admit to it. If we get caught red-handed, we experience shame and regret. And we tend to frown upon others when they do it in public. I’m talking, of course, about reaching up into your nostrils with a finger in an effort to scrape out snot. Is nose-picking really all that bad? How prevalent or bad is it, really? And why (really, why?) would anybody ever decide to see what snot tastes like? Ashley Montagu suggests that various forms of handling the nose throughout life, including picking it, might be related to sensory memories of breastfeeding: “In nursing at the breast the baby’s nose is frequently in contact with the mother’s breast, and it is quite possible that the Rhinal experiences there enjoyed or un-enjoyed may have something to do with these various later manipulations of the nose.” He notes that monkeys and apes pick their noses, and often eat what they find there - a behaviour commonly seen in kids, and sometimes in adults. He remarks “The association of picking one’s nose and eating in such cases suggests the possibility of some form of early conditioning, and that nose picking alone may be a form of self-gratification regressive to such an early period of experience.” We carry bacteria in our noses, which builds up and becomes irritating, but this can hardly account for how much we pick.

We touch our faces one to three times every five minutes, according to Jennifer Ackerman. To avoid doing so greatly reduces one’s chances of picking up colds. But try abstaining from something you do, usually unconsciously, two hundred to six hundred times a day. Good luck. That kind of compulsive behaviour, despite negative consequences in health and sexual success, is quite probably rooted in deep, instinctual need.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t admit to picking their nose.

9% 4

91% Admit to picking their nose.

No one knows who it was who first used their digits to scrounge around inside their nasal passages for tasty morsels, for, like the discovery of fire, the advent of nose-picking occurred before there were written records. However, we have some good evidence that nose-picking was already fairly widespread as of about ten thousand years before the birth of Christ; for, in the south of France, among other places, researchers have found exquisite cave paintings clearly depicting primitive nose-pickers among figures performing several other day-to-day activities, such as hunting, farming, fishing, communing with the People’s Representatives from the Dog Star, and not having sex.

wall of King Tutankhamun’s tomb shows Nut, the Sky-goddess of ancient Egypt, delicately picking the nose of the young pharaoh. Clearly, ritual nosepicking was expected to continue in the after-life.

The first surviving written record of nose-picking was discovered by Wilbur Leakey in the late seventies while working in Egypt. Here we have a marvelously well-preserved papyrus scroll used for daily accounts by the scribe of the famous boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, noting the payment of three head of cattle in addition to food and lodging given to the young king’s personal nose-picker. That the ruling class had by this time--approximately 1350 BC--evolved the need for a specialized nose-picker is testimony to its widespread practice. That some historians have dismissed this evidence, asserting that Tutankhamun was certainly an anomaly in having his own picker, shows only their shallow reading of the contemporary texts; several other papyri dated only a few decades after Tut’s death clearly denote the importance of nose-picking to the nobles of Egypt.

Nose-picking, of course, went on regardless, though now it was confined to the privacy of one’s own home. The great Emperor Constantine issued a decree in 299 AD stating, among other things, that anyone caught with a finger in their nose deeper than the first joint was to be summarily executed. A contemporary account, which comes to us rendered into English from the Latin by the learned medieval scholar St. Rectus, details an event that took place in Rome around 300 AD: ``Ther was dwellynge at Rebus a mayden who, after interrogaciouns, confess’d that she was wont to pyck her nose. She was ston’d in accordans wyth law, and her abode burnt.’’

Nor was nose-picking confined to the relatively advanced society of the Nile River valley. It is believed that the Celts were notorious nose-pickers; in fact, there is some evidence that the henges scattered about the British Isles--of which Stonehenge is the most famous and well-preserved--were used not only as astronomical calendars, but also as the sites for enormous snot-hunting ceremonies. Also, several manuscripts from ancient India, which a few researchers think may very well be the missing 33 books of the Vedas, allude to nose-picking and boogereating, believing that such practices lead to a better sense of smell and a smooth, warm complexion. This marvellously well-preserved painting from the

Only a scant thousand years later, though, nosepicking fell into disrepute. Aristotle, writing circa 350 BC, admonishes, ``Being, or that which is, can be said to be in many ways, as has been previously stated, in accordance with Nature, an entirely non-nosepicking enterprise.’’ Archimedes was to top Aristotle just a century later, stating, ``My screw will not be used for the benefit of nose-pickers, for they are truly unpleasant fellows.’’

With the eventual decline and collapse of the Roman Empire, nose-picking again became a favored sport of the populace. All through the Middle Ages, nosepicking was considered, if not a noble activity, at the very least an accepted one. From all accounts, it was not considered uncouth to pick one’s nose at table; and we find even the poorest baron could count among his possessions a gilded nose-picking spoon. The wealthier houses actually rediscovered the need, first expressed in ancient Egypt, for a nose-picking assistant; this position was highly coveted by lesser landless nobles as well as the peasantry. It was not uncommon for counts to give visiting dignitaries the honor of their own personal mucous, and no prince was unmoved by the prospect of being allowed to slip his pinky into the nostril of the king. A table has been uncovered, too, which, on its underside, bears the distinctive marks of trailing boogers having been scraped off.

Winner This medieval woodcut depicts the predominant Christian belief of the time: that nose-picking was the prerogative of an undoubtedly shady person. King John of England was particularly known for his nose-picking habits, and the wealth and plenty of his boogers was well thought of throughout the land. But such approval did not extend as far as Rome: When word reached the pope of John’s activities, he immediately had the king excommunicated. Soon after, however, John did penance and was restored to the Church, though he never did wholly cease his nasal explorations. In the following years, the papal distaste for matters olfactory grew, until Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull banning nose-picking under pain of eternal damnation. The bull got deeper, though, as the fifteenth century drew to a close, with Sixtus’ successors on the throne of St. Peter waging an allout war against the practice of nose-picking. At about this time, the last known copy of Gropius’ classic Latin treatise, On Nose-picking, was burned with great ceremony at the Vatican, and to this day we only know about it through second-hand sources. Juan Bautista de Naranja bolo Querecza sierre Padre del Jomama y Tupapi Castrolonuevajorca. The similarity bewteen this portrait and contemporaneous portraits of Shakespeare has led some modern scholars to believe that Castrolonuevajorca was, in fact, like Cervantes, the Spanish translator of the works attributed to him from Shakespeare’s English. The Renaissance dawned for all human endeavors, but somehow the ancient art of picking choice bits from one’s nose was left behind. While many other arts and sciences found their fulfillment in the greatest of their proponents--da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and so on--nosepicking fell to men of much shorter stature for its advancement and nurture. In particular, one Juan Bautista de Naranja bolo Querecza sierre Padre del Jomama y Tupapi Castrolonuevajorca wrote several small tracts regarding nose-picking, some of which have survived to the present day. ``Picking one’s nose,’’ he writes, in a manner oddly similar to recent comments, ``is like making love to a fine woman; one must be subtle and graceful, and never dig too deeply, except when occasion truly demands it.’’

During World War II, posters such as this one, showing a German soldier preparing to flick a booger at the Allies and ridiculing the ``Huns’’ for their alleged nose-picking practices, were commonly seen in the United States. More often than not, these posters were sponsored by automobile manufacturers, who competed for their steel with the many nosespoon companies that had sprung up between the wars. Most of those companies were bankrupt by 1942, in part due to this propaganda. The last few centuries have seen a slow but sure resurgence in the practice of nose-picking. This does not mean, however, that it does not have a great deal of social stigma still attached to it--as late as 1942, American anti-Hitler propaganda declared the Germans to be ``rapers of women, eaters of children, defilers of the dead, and pickers of their noses’’ and picking one’s nose in public is still a capital offense in some Middle Eastern countries. However, the trend has certainly been towards a much more open attitude about nose-pickers and nose-picking in general. For example, during the United States presidential elections in 1992, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton admitted to having picked his nose in college--though he denied having eaten his boogers-and was later elected president. In addition, several powerful world leaders were photographed shamelessly digging deep into their nostrils during public ceremonies; these photos, though wellpublicized, were not received with the acrimony the publishers had expected, and in fact most of those leaders are still alive today.

Deep Salvage Pick

Reminiscent of the deep sea exploration to find the Titanic ship, you probe deep into your nasal passages.

Utensil Pick

When fingers, and even your thumb, just aren’t enough to get the job done to your satisfaction.

Extra Pick

Making A Meal Out Of It

You do it so furiously, and for so long, you’re probably entitled to dessert.

Surprise Pickings

When a sneeze or laugh causes snot to come hurling out of your nose, and you have to gracefully clean it off your shirt.

Autopick

When you have been digging for nuggets hours upon hours and suddenly you hit the jackpot! Excitement only equalled by winning the lottery.

The kind you do in a car, when no one’s looking. Also can mean automatic pick, the one you do when your not even thinking about it, at work, while talking to a coworker, during a meeting....

Depression Pick

Pick Your Brains

When you’re sad, and the only way to fill the void is to pick so hard and fast that the agony overcomes your feeling of remorse and depression.

Pick A Lot

What we would call abnormal amounts of picking. Anything in the three digit realm we consider a bit too much for a 24 hour time frame.

Kiddie Pick

When you’re by yourself and you uninhibitedly twist your forefinger into your nostril with childlike joy and freedom. And the best part is, there’s no time limit!

Camouflaged Kiddie Pick

When, in the presence of other people, you wrap your forefinger in a tissue, then thrust it in deep and hold back the smile.

Fake Nose Scratch

When you make believe you’ve got an itch but you’re really trolling the nostril edge for stray boogers.

Done in private, this is the one where your finger goes in so far, it passes the septum.

Pick And Save

When you have to pick it quickly, just when someone looks away, and then you pocket the snot so they don’t catch on to what you did.

Pick And Flick

Snot now becomes a weapon against your sister and others in range around you.

Pick And Stick

You wanted it to be a “Pick and Flick,” but it stubbornly clings to your fingertip.

Pipe Cleaner Pick

The kind where you remove a piece of snot so big, it improves your breathing by 90%.

2. Good or Bad?

You Decide. 11

Does physically taking boogers out of your nose, putting them in your mouth and swallowing boost your immune system? The short answer is probably not. You ingest your snot all the time without needing to channel it through your mouth. So if there is a benefit here, you get it without needing to munch your nose nuggets. That said, there are a couple medical professionals willing to comment on the benefits of mining for green candy, particularly touting benefits to one’s immune system. One of the more credible sounding proponents of the habit is Scott Napper, a professor of biochemistry who made waves around the world’s media outlets in 2013 when he half-heartedly proposed to a group of his students that eating one’s boogers allows our bodies to safely develop anti-bodies to the weakened pathogens present in our snot and noses. He also suggested that the reason boogers have a sugary taste is to entice children to eat them, thus helping bolster their immune systems… It’s evolution. You can’t fight it. While he was mostly just trying to get students interested in doing science by an unconventional proposition, Napper’s hypothesis, thanks largely to the media, has since morphed into many seeming to think that he actually did some sort of study on this, and that there is evidence to support it. The truth is that to date no such study has been done, though Napper has expressed interest in doing one, and no doubt would win an IG Nobel Prize for his work if he ever does it.

Of course, as you might expect, finding a large sample size of volunteers is something of a hurdle. Another name that comes up whenever the subject of eating boogers is mentioned is lung specialist Dr. Friedrich Bischinger. In 2004, he reasoned that eating boogers is healthy for a similar reason that Napper did. The Museum of Hoaxes did a little background check on the good doctor and noted that Dr. Friedrich Bischinger has never published a medical study on the subject and his original quote about the benefits of eating boogers comes from a poorly translated interview with a German magazine. As far as we can tell, Bischinger has never really elaborated upon his original hypothesis since then. So without any study to date on the subject, to answer the question at hand, we’ll need to analyze the plausibility of the hypothesis. Is he correct about the microbes and other things in your nasal mucus? Yes, that’s one of the functions of it- to help filter out dust and pathogens. But there is a problem from here. As pointed out by Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, we humans ingest our nasal mucus all the time- day and night. The wet mucus in our noses generally gets shuttled back into our throats via cilia, and sometimes via simple gravity when our heads are in the right position. So, if you didn’t know it before reading this article, you ingest boogers every day. You might have just swallowed some right now. Think about it. Needless to say, few medical professionals give

credence to Napper’s or Bischinger’s hypothesis. In order for it to be true, there would have to be something special about the relatively dried mucus that you have to pick out over the wet or dried mucus you snort up and swallow. And there is simply no reason to think there would be any significant difference other than, potentially, moisture content. However, not all hope is lost for you bogey fans, as Dr. Joseph Mercola notes, there’s an increasingly popular hypothesis that our obsession with cleanliness as a society is causing more of certain types of diseases because our bodies aren’t being exposed to certain pathogens regularly, and thus our immune systems are weaker as a result- the so called “Hygiene Hypothesis.” So it is plausible enough that ingesting mucus does indeed expose our bodies to pathogens it can handle and is helping the immune system in this way. But, as mentioned above, this happens anyway. There’s no need to manually pull it out of your nose and put it in your mouth… unless of course, you like it. Either way, it’s going to end up in your stomach. That said, while it may seem gross to those of us who’ve never tried (or don’t remember- nearly all children do this at one point or another), according to the sparse few studies that have been conducted on booger eaters, the vast number of people who eat their nasal mucus find it palatable, which probably isn’t a surprise to anyone as if they didn’t, they’d likely just stop. As Sidney Tarachow in a 1966 report on coprophagia (the compulsive eating bodily secretions) noted, “persons do eat nasal debris, and find it tasty, too!”

So to sum up, at least to date, there is no scientific proof that ingesting snot by passing it through your mouth is beneficial. That said, it is plausible that the snot we do all ingest all the time is benefiting us in the way snot-eating proponents suggest. It’s just that we don’t need to put it into our mouths to see the benefit, if such a benefit does exist as hypothesized. In the end, though, as long as you’re careful, picking and eating is not generally going to hurt you, and many find it tasty… so, if that’s your thing, bon appétit!

Picking It & Eating It.

If you catch a child with a finger up his nose, you probably discourage it. But could the “nasty” habit of nose-picking -- and eating it -- be more sanitary and even health-beneficial than we’ve been taught? A biochemist from the University of Saskatchewan has theorized that nasal mucus -- commonly known as boogers -- has a sugary taste that’s meant to entice children to... have a snack. But this may actually help introduce pathogens into the child’s immune system that will strengthen their body’s natural germ defense. Other experts believe this theory (which has yet to be tested) doesn’t necessarily hold water, since people swallow nasal secretions every day, even in their sleep, even if they don’t eat their boogers. Still, our culture seems to be somewhat obsessive about cleanliness, especially regarding children. But scolding kids for this particular habit may actually be counterproductive.

“The Only Good Germ Is a Dead Germ” Isn’t Exactly True An interesting theory -- the “Hygiene Hypothesis -may explain why certain allergies and diseases have nearly quadrupled in recent decades. The premise is that children raised in an environment devoid of dirt and germs are less able to build up natural disease resistance. Much worse: the growing tendency to ply children with antibiotics, which can kill healthy gut flora. Scientific evidence indicates that both practices contribute to increased vulnerability to illness later in life.

But how could dirt and germs keep you healthy? Your immune system plays two main protective roles. Specialized white blood cells called Th1 lymphocytes assault infected cells throughout your body. Th2 lymphocytes produce antibodies to block dangerous microbes from invading your body’s cells in the first place, while using other white blood cells to drive allergic responses to foreign organisms.

How Dirt Helps “Pump Up” Your Immune System

At birth, an infant’s immune system appears to rely primarily on the Th2 system while the Th1 system grows stronger. But the hygiene hypothesis suggests that the Th1 system grows stronger only through fighting infection or encounters with harmless microbes. Without such stimulation, the Th2 system flourishes and the immune system reacts with allergic responses more easily.

In other words, adults who never allow themselves or their children to be exposed to viruses, dirt, germs and parasites may be preventing their systems from kicking in natural disease resistance.

Allergies, Heart Disease and Depression Linked to “Clean Freak” Tendencies If you’re healthy, exposure to bacteria and viruses may serve as natural “vaccines” that strengthen your system and provide long-lasting disease immunity. If you don’t experience a healthy exposure to germs in your environment, you may end up sick. Health problems associated with the hygiene hypothesis include: • Allergies • Asthma • Eczema • Autoimmune diseases • Heart disease

One study even determined that childhood exposure to viral infections could reduce later-life heart disease risk by 90 percent. Even depression has been connected to early pathogen exposure via an inflammatory connection. Neuroscientist Charles Raison, M.D., observed: Since ancient times benign microorganisms, sometimes referred to as “old friends,” have taught your immune system how to tolerate other harmless microorganisms, and in the process, reduce inflammatory responses that have been linked to the development of most modern illnesses, from cancer to depression.

Your Immune System Dictates Whether or Not You Get Sick If you’re looking for further evidence that booger eating may not be so bad after all, consider that it’s the state of your immune system that determines your health after germ exposure. In one study, when 17 volunteers were infected with a flu virus, only half got sick. Researchers found that certain changes in blood took place 36 hours before flu symptoms showed up. While all the participants had an immune response even if they didn’t get sick, the responses were quite different. “Symptomatic” participants experienced antiviral and inflammatory reactions, which may have been related to virus-induced oxidative stress. But in the non-symptomatic participants, these responses were

tightly regulated. The asymptomatic group also had elevated expression of genes that function in antioxidant responses and cell-mediated responses. The scientists noted: Exposure to influenza viruses is necessary, but not sufficient, for healthy human hosts to develop symptomatic illness. The host response [emphasis added] is an important determinant of disease progression. The bottom line? If exposure to booger bacteria can help strengthen your immune system, a case could be made for their consumption... or at least, not scolding when you find a youngster with a finger up his nose. Fortunately, healthy germ exposure comes in other ways, too...

How to Avoid Being Overly Hygienic If the hygiene hypothesis is true -- and there’s mounting research that it is -- trying to keep your environment overly sterile could backfire and actually increase your risk of acute and chronic disease. You can avoid being “too clean,” and in turn help bolster your body’s natural immune responses by:

triclosan) are quite toxic and have even been found to promote the growth of resistant bacteria.

• Letting your child get dirty. Allow your kids to play outside and get dirty (and realize that if your kid eats boogers, it isn’t the end of the world).

• Serving locally grown or organic meats that do not contain antibiotics.

• Not using antibacterial soaps and other antibacterial household products, which wipe out the microorganisms your body needs to be exposed to in order to develop and maintain proper immune function. Simple soap and water are all you need to wash your hands. Antibacterial chemicals (typically

• Avoiding unnecessary antibiotics. Remember: Viral infections are impervious to antibiotics, as antibiotics only work on bacterial infections.

• Educating yourself on the differences between natural and artificial immunity, and making informed decisions about the use of vaccinations.

3. Be defiant

Pick your nose.

Deviance is often divided into two types of activities. The first, crime, is the violation of formally enacted laws and is referred to as formal deviance. Examples of formal deviance include robbery, theft, rape, murder, and assault. The second type of deviant behaviour involves violations of informal social norms (norms that have not been codified into law) and is referred to as informal deviance. Examples of informal deviance include picking oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nose, belching loudly, or standing unnecessarily close to another person.

The 7 steps to picking your nose in public

1. Position the index finger of the opposite-side hand alongside the exterior of the obstructed channel. 2. Nonchalantly slip the thumb as deep as necessary into the nostril. 3. Using the thumbnail, delicately clamp onto the dried mucous mass. 4. lowly withdraw the thumb and its payload from the nostril. At this step in the process be particularly vigilant for any trailing mucous which might be attached to the payload. These unnoticed “stringers” can jeopardize the entire operation. 5. Return the hand to a more natural position and discreetly execute a flicking motion with the thumb. This should launch the material sufficiently far away from you that it becomes someone else’s problem. 6. Remember...never wipe it on your shirt or trousers - it’s always a dead giveaway. 7. Always beware of flicking too hard. If the offending article sticks to the ceiling, it’ll be there forever.