“We at Popular Science are sometimes brought up short by the realization that there are aspects of science — entire jobs, even — that, when you strip away the imposing titles and advanced degrees, sound at best distasteful and at worst unbearable… Science is full of inquisitive people who take great pleasure in doing jobs that others would not touch with a 10-foot pole — and the world is indisputably a better place for their efforts. We’re grateful that someone out there is doing these jobs. Even more grateful that it isn’t us.” — Popular Science (US)

Popular Science has just released its list of the absolute worst jobs in science. A lot of the jobs are bad for obvious reasons: being an astronaut is extremely dangerous; being a mosquito researcher means you get bitten up all the time; being an endangered species ecologist is simply depressing; being a carcass cleaner or a fistula feeder or a corpse-flower grower is downright icky; and so on.

Of the absolute worst jobs in science, however, two of the top three bear remarkable resemblances to sexual perversions. The third-worst job, for example, is that of barnyard masturbator. Some of the hardy souls who become barnyard masturbators risk life and limb to slip an artificial vagina between a bull and his steer. Others train pigs — even more pig sex! — to ejaculate via “digital pressure,” i.e. handjob. Obviously this is a bad job because it requires a person to do something for the cause of science which a “normal” person would only do out of utter depravity. Which raises a funny point: why is it acceptable to fondle a pig in order to obtain semen for reproductive purposes, whereas it is wrong to fondle a pig for fun? Perversity has traditionally been defined as non-procreative sexuality, and here it seems to be transferred to bestiality as well: if you’re trying to help the pig reproduce, it’s ok. If not, well, you’re a pervert.

The absolute worst job in all of science, as decided by Popular Science, is that of flatus odor judge — in plain talk, fart smeller. A scientist in Minneapolis hired sixteen people to eat pinto beans and then “insert small plastic collection tubes into their anuses.” The gas was then syringed into a container in order to maintain “fart integrity.” Subsequently, the fart smellers had to sit down with 100 samples or more, open the containers, and breathe deeply. Then they were to rate how bad the smells were.

Without trivializing the fact that this really is important research — smell can be a key component in determining the exact nature of many health complaints — it’s remarkable how close this “job” comes to an episode from 120 Days of Sodom. There are numerous deviants in Sade who delight in smelling farts, not to mention other coprophiliac acts such as drinking urine or eating shit. Sometimes such acts are portrayed as fetishes — obsessions people have with all things fecal — other times they are portrayed as sadistic acts, as when young virgins are forced to sniff malodorous emissions from the backsides of aging degenerates. You could almost coin a new term for this, “fart rape,” which is when you force someone to smell your farts against his will — but then again, that would make us all guilty of rape, since without farting in people’s faces we still force our emissions on loved ones and passersby.

Being a “flatus odor judge” is therefore a lot like being one of the harrassed virgins in Sade, except that in science people are doing it for money. (Popular Science says the researcher “refuses to divulge the remuneration, but it would seem safe to characterize it thusly: Not enough.”) Then again, if the remuneration doesn’t amount to much, are the fart smellers really doing it for the money? Or do they do it out of some sheer perversity? It may not even be sexual perversity but rather the strange asexual perversity of deliberately doing something disgusting — because it’s funny, or it makes a good story, or you like to test yourself.

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