Shit Sex

I practice safe sex. The dangerous variety has never really appealed. To this end, I always keep two condoms in my wallet for whenever the occasion presents itself (any more could be misconstrued as a desire for commitment). How fortunate it is, then, that I live in the modern era and am not an Ancient Egyptian.

As you may be aware, Ancient Egyptians used crocodile shit as a contraceptive, given that it has natural spermicidal qualities. (Presumably, it was sufficiently pliable to be easily shaped into ribbed, "tickler", and ultra-sensitive varieties) Nevertheless, I'm sure that the substance per se imposed certain restrictions on the sex lives of the socially responsible citizens of Karnak and Heliopolis.

Suppose, for example, it was a Friday night in downtown Djedu and you were "feeling lucky". The first thing you'd have to do before hitting the clubs and bars would be to pick up some shit. I'd imagine, though, that to the uninitiated, crocodile shit is basically indistinguishable from any other variety. So, unless you were actually standing nearby while the animal itself took a dump (never a good idea with crocodiles), you probably wouldn't know, and might acquire some useless donkey or dog shit by mistake and, nine months later, find yourself being sued for paternity.

What men most likely did, therefore, was go to a dedicated shit shop where the quality and provenance of the material was guaranteed. Then again, how much allure and pulling-power can you exude if you're carrying a couple of pounds of shit in your wallet? Especially if it's a few days old. But what was the alternative? You couldn't really take a crocodile into the bar with you to produce the stuff fresh as and when required because: (1) It would then be perfectly obviously to the women in the place that you were only there seeking sex rather than anything long-term, which would put them off; and (2) It might eat her (or you) before you managed to get a shag. A baby crocodile would be safer, of course, tucked out of sight down your loin cloth. But there's always a risk that it could wriggle overly or give your dick a painful bite. Its mother might even come looking for it while you were in flagrante.

Thinking this through, the only logical way it could have worked was for a shit dispensing machine to be set up in the toilets. Once you deposited your coin, the mechanism would spin into action, causing a laxative to be fed to one of the crocodiles inside, making it spontaneously excrete. The only danger, of course, being that, if there were male and female crocodiles in the machine, they might breed and, eventually, escape. So the next time you went to the toilets in order to take a piss, you could find yourself being eaten. I imagine this explains the reason behind the decline of Ancient Egypt as a regional superpower. Similarly, I'm sure if Gordon Brown or Vladimir Putin got attacked by crocodiles every time they went for a piss or shit, their political and economic influence would eventually wane, too.