“Everyone does it but no one really wants to talk about it”: roles and meanings of bodily secretions in the confines of distance running groups

Abstract

ABSTRACT Bodily secretions such as urinating, expectorating, defaecating and flatulating during distance running often play an integral part in the distance runner’s routine, but to a large degree remain undiscussed in public. The aim of this study is to deconstruct this taboo topic by shedding light on the nexus between secretions and their sociocultural meanings and implications in the confines of running groups. Drawing on Douglas’s (1970) conceptual framework of the physical and social body-system, the paper provides a novel examination of bodily secretions and their dictated norms and assigned symbolic meanings. The contribution of this paper is to address the lacuna of research that focuses on the runner’s (lived) body in times of secretion and the way it is navigated in the process of being in and belonging to a running group. An ethnographic research design of three years was implemented in two running groups, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The data presented suggest that while the running social body often restricts the novice runner’s corporeal body in times of secretion, veteran runners seem to be looser and more unauthorised in the social system, treating their bodies and their secretions with less restraint and less feeling the need to hide or to be embarrassed by their secretions. Moreover, it is evident that bodily secretions are highly gendered. In this context, in contrast to male runners in the study, female runners are drastically more vigilant regarding the way they might be perceived, both to themselves and to others.