Spring colon cleaning

Spring colon cleaning

One carnivore's brave encounter with colonic hydrotherapy

 
by CHRIS BARRY
Theoretically, I should have one motherfucker of a messed up colon. I haven't eaten a vegetable since 1965 and, even though I feel kind of bad about it politically, every week I probably consume about eight pounds of red meat.

That's not supposed to be the healthiest thing a man can do. In fact, just being alive and as healthy as I appear to be has turned me in to something of a medical curiosity. Not that long ago, I was offered a substantial wad of cash by a team of researchers at Columbia University in exchange for my allowing them to probe the mystery that is my digestive system. I declined. If there is anything scarier to me than my mother's mashed turnips, it's doctors and hospitals.

But in my weaker moments, I do occasionally stress out over the reality that my eating habits will no doubt kill me at an early age. The concern that my meat-only diet raises in the various health professionals I've visited over the years does nothing to alleviate the stress either. Apparently if my heart doesn't give out on me in the next 10 years, then all the muck in my colon is going to mutate into cancer and I'm going to have to suffer the indignity of wearing a colostomy bag until the good lord takes mercy on my soul and finally claims me.

So what to do?

Colonics or death

I've been hearing about the miracle of colonics for close to 10 years now. The health-conscious people I know who become aware of my diet will invariably--and always with the same panicky tone--make a big ordeal of how important it is that I start getting the treatments immediately. "You need a cleansing and now! Or you're going to die," they perpetually cry.

But a colonic... That's just never sounded like a whole lot of fun to me. Especially since I've never been truly convinced I needed one, given that my old bowel gets moved pretty regularly and I'm rarely constipated. I mean, think about it: hot shooting liquids, shit, grease, ass probing, a chick in a nurse's uniform. Sure, it has all the elements of some of my more interesting erotic adventures but, in the context of a preventative health measure, it decidedly loses much of its allure. So I have to wonder, what's the point?

Well, apparently healthy colon maintenance is the point. According to the people who champion this procedure, having your hole professionally cleansed on a regular basis will keep those nasty cancer cells from forming, reinforce your immune system, and leave you with a general sense of well being. But that ain't all--after your colon gets irrigated you're supposed to be able to think more clearly, sleep better and, if you've been constipated for awhile, have the edge taken off your foul mood.

Lucie Courchesne is a naturopath who does a brisk business in hydrotherapy--the polite term for colonic irrigation, aka getting your ass blasted with treated water and cleaning out all the leftover shit that is stuck to your insides. She works her magic in the basement of an office building on Ste-Catherine Street in Westmount, and tells me that the majority of her customers are clogged-up, middle-aged professional women. "Most men aren't all that comfortable about having things inserted in to their anuses," she notes.

And I suppose you can count me among them, but as a serious health journalist with a colon that has plans to kill me in the next decade or so, I recently decided it was time to stop being a sissy, bend over and get the treatment. I picked up the phone and called for an appointment, and exactly one week later I was lying on Lucie's table with a hose up my ass and a smile on my face.

Undeniable sensuality

A lot of people seem to think that hydrotherapy is a smelly, degrading procedure that is both uncomfortable and a little humiliating. But answer me this: what possibly could be undignified about lying ass bared on your back with your feet locked in stirrups and a hose up your bum while a disturbingly pleasant young lady, who has just finger-fucked your asshole with lubricant, takes complete and utter control of your bowel? That's right: nothing. Unless the sheer and undeniable sensuality of it all renders you with a big old involuntary erection, which is a potential side effect I'd prefer not to discuss at this juncture.

Truth be told, the procedure is neither particularly messy or uncomfortable and Lucie, considerate to the fact that many of her customers may find surrendering control of their bowel to a stranger somewhat compromising, has taken measures to keep the humiliation factor to a minimum.

After a short interview wherein I revealed my dietary and elimination practices to Lucie's shocked dismay, I was sent off to the changing room to put on a pair of colonic shorts (a terrycloth number with a flap on the backside allowing easy access to the good stuff). I was encouraged to see that my colonic shorts fit like a glove and did a bang up job of accentuating the finer details of my best parts, leaving me with a nice pouch and flattering the curves of my behind.

"Can I take these with me when I leave?" I asked Lucie while proudly emerging from the changing room to take my place on her colonic table, "These would be bitchin' at my next fetish party."

But the colonic table is no place to be making jokes, and before I knew it, a determined Lucie had me greased up and was inserting a sterilized hose, about two inches long, into my rectum. It felt kind of good.

Coaxing the colon

One end of the hose is hooked up to a sophisticated distribution system that pumps filtered water up your colon, while another works as a drain to remove all the nastiness that the water pressure clears from deep inside your gut. Lucie controls how much pressure goes up your ass while alternately massaging your abdomen with a semen-like substance, gently manipulating your colon in to parting with the stubborn sweet stuff.

By your feet is a mirror aimed at a clear plastic tube in the drainage system which allows you to observe and admire some of the goodies you've been nurturing as they swim through the tube and make their way in to the sewer system like little brown goldfish, never to be seen again. Visually, it's actually quite soothing.

Unlike an enema, where you suck a whole bunch of liquid into your ass and then run as fast as you can to the crapper, the whole colonic mechanism is enclosed. So you don't get the chance to enjoy the smells generally associated with bowel relief or have any opportunities to roll around in your fecal matter. There is no spillage whatsoever and, in fact, at the end of the 45-minute session, the colonic table is so clean you might be tempted to eat off it.

When we were done and all the shit had been cleansed from my system, Lucie shot a syringeful of healing bacteria up my rump to replenish the supply that had been drained through the treatment and handed me a maxi-pad to stick in my underwear in the event that some goop would decide to drip out while I was walking home.

"But I'm not wearing any underwear," I told her.

"Well, just stick it in your pants then, there probably won't be any leakage, but just in case you don't want to be caught in an embarrassing situation," she told me.

Certainly not. So I paid her the $60 she charges for her service, slipped in my maxi-pad, and sashayed home through the Alexis-Nihon Plaza, feeling light-headed and thoroughly rejuvenated. At peace with both my body and the world.

That is, of course, until my maxi pad came loose and started sliding down the leg of my trousers, forcing me to grip the side of my pants until I could get out on to the street and covertly shake it out past my ankle. An event which some might construe as an embarrassing situation, but in my enlightened post-colonic state of being, just seemed like the funniest thing in the world.

As for the condition of my colon, I'm proud to report that I continue to baffle the experts in the medical community. Lucie says my digestive system is A-1 and I don't need to go back for another session for at least another six months. Will I ever go back? Sure, why not? Having your colon blasted is a much more pleasant experience than most people realize.



Hydrothérapie Lucie Courchesne,

N.D., H.C.,T.R.P.

4055 Ste Catherine W. , #113,

935-7500