Abstract

This chapter examines the human enteric nervous system to discern some of the physiological effects of sexism, sexual abuse, and male privilege. It argues that to understand the gut, we must appreciate the affective relationship of the entire digestive tract with both itself and the pelvic floor. Examining the body’s digestive tube from the throat to the cloaca—the phylogenetic common origin of the pelvic floor’s separate urinary, genital, and anal tracts—Chapter 2 develops cloacal thinking, which treats the gut and pelvic floor as psychosomatically integrated. Cloacal thinking blurs without erasing boundaries between the function and substance of the digestive tract’s “parts,” refusing to consider them as isolated from either each other or from the “outside” world. It also can help us appreciate gut functioning as transgenerational. The gut’s particular relationship with the world can result in a person’s physiologically passing the harmful effects of sexism and sexual abuse to her offspring.