anal retention

[imamartian]

i am an intelligent guy... (open to discussion), but i think i am... however, i really don't understand what "anal retention" means... i know it is supposed to describe someone with an obsessive attention to detail... and i've read the Freud derivation..... but how does someone who likes to keep things up their bum mean they like to line their shoes up in the cupboard....?

 

[megawatt]

Bored tonight?

 

[imamartian]

lol, can you tell....
but i haven't made it up... i also struggle with... "don't do anything i wouldn't do".. i'm a computer programmer and can deal with any logical and, or, if statement, with nots and brackets,... but that statement blows my mind...

maybe i should get some sleep..

 

[roughcaster]

I would Ima, it's getting late. Night Night. It'll be alright in the morning.

Roughcaster

 

[megawatt]

My foot went to sleep over an hour ago and I'm trying to catch it up

 

[Persimmon]

Don't forget to put your clocks forward....

 

[solo]

I put my clock forward and it fell off the mantlepiece.

 

[Softus]

I'm very keen to retain my anus.

 

[vinty]

Sounds like a euphemism for constipation.

 

[Space cat]

Cats are very retentive; dogs aren't (unless trained that way) and will cr*p anywhere. Monkeys and cows do the same. There's a reason for this. Wolves, from which all dogs are descended, move around following their prey. They come, they cr*p, they move on. Cows did the same until we fenced them in. Monkeys cr*p into the void below; somebody else can clean it up!

Cats are different because they tend to stay in one place. Now cr*p is a good medium for spreading infection so there's an obvious survival advantage in either (a) burying it or (b) dumping it outside of your own territory. Cats do both - as anyone with a cat next door will tell you!

I would suggest that any ground dwelling animal that stays in one place would do the same - and that certainly includes us humans. The next step, which Freud postulated, is a bit more tenuous but it makes some sense. Our instinctive urge to 'keep our cr*p tidy' carries over into a general desire to keep everything else tidy as well. Conclusion: Those who are obsessively tidy have a greater than average desire to avoid 'cr*pping in their own nest'.

 

[megawatt]

Softus wrote:

I'm very keen to retain my anus.

You don't say