Invasion of the *ss-Crawlers!

How “Crawling up your *ss” became my new favorite phrase

Reader Advisory:  This post contains profanity, specifically the word “ass,” not referring to a donkey.  As a children’s book author, this may seem out of place, but I would like to remind readers that “ass” is a scientific term and should be discussed as such, using proper medical terminology, so as not to shame children about their body parts. Ass, anus, sphincter, colon, buttocks, pelvis, gluteus maximus, booty, boot, bum bum, cheeks, fanny, rump, tail, derriere, rear, caboose, haunches, tush, tushie, backside, and keister are all legitimate words – just like elbows and ears – to help people articulate their boundaries. Just like I can have a worm in my ear after, say, listening to a Harry Styles song, I can have someone crawling up my ass. To reassure readers, I never once used the term “ass” with my children when they were young, and I am aware that AI advises that  “crawling up your ass” is “highly offensive due to its explicit reference to the body; this phrase is considered extremely rude and should be used with caution, if at all.”  There goes AI again, crawling up my ass.

Boots and bumbles from Super Pooper and Whizz Kid: Potty Power! (Abrams Appleseed, 2018)

Crawling Up Someone’s Ass

In Season 10, Episode 10 of Shrinking, Paul, a therapist played by Harrison Ford, shows up to give an in-person reference for Gaby, who is interviewing with his old colleague, Gerald, for a job in academia:

Paul (entering office):  Stop being smug, Gerald. 

Gaby: Paul, what the f*ck are you doing here?  Also, how’d you know he’s being smug?

Paul: Because he’s Gerald. Even me barging in here won’t mean sh*t. 

Paul: All the good jobs around here go to whoever can crawl up his ass the farthest. 

Paul: By the way, is Lenny Klein still up there? Say hi for me.

Gerald:  I will. He’s coming with my lunch in 15 minutes.

Call me old, because I am, but this was the first time “crawling up someone’s ass” entered my lexicon, and I found it hysterically funny. In this context, Paul doesn’t use it in a mean way, as in “who crawled up your ass and died?”, but rather to privately illuminate the honest truth about an old friend’s behavior. The more I began to use the phrase, the more uses I found for it.

Boundaries

“Crawling up someone’s ass” is basically a phrase about boundaries. Talking about boundaries is notoriously difficult, because situations involving boundaries are innately tense. A lot of people recoil from recommended approaches, such as earnestly saying “Please don’t call me names. It hurts.”  Hah. On rare occasions, saying “Hey, you’re crawling up my ass,” in the right context with a humorous tone, might be a casual way to break the tension with humor. More importantly, though, it’s a juicy phrase to add to your internal lexicon when you need to identify and break your own tension around a boundary violation and see things clearly.

The idea of someone crawling up your ass – or you crawling up someone else’s ass – is visceral.  While a boundary violation can be subtle and even cause you to question your own sanity,  when you put it in terms of crawling up an ass, it is most definitely not.  It gets you out of your head and into your body.

Crawling up someone’s ass is also innately hilarious.  Imagining yourself crawling up someone’s butthole.  It’s stinky up there. It’s dark. It’s damp. It’s cramped.  Droppings are coming down. 

This year, my one-word theme is Confidence.  Confidence is all about staying out of other people’s assholes, and keeping them out of yours.  

There are many ways to ass-crawl:

Crawling Up Other People’s Asses

When you feel like you need to crawl up someone’s ass, you’re essentially trying to control their perception of you by saying “Look! I’m willing to do anything for you!” Classic people-pleasing.  

This happens any time you seek affirmation from another person, which is a slippery slope to self-betrayal.  For example, when someone likes something you posted on social media, you get a hit of dopamine. It feels great to be seen and connected. Nothing wrong with that.  But pretty soon you’re ass-crawling. You’re forgetting that their reaction is theirs, not yours, and you start chasing tail.  You do you.

We spend a lot of time crawling up society’s ass, trying to conform to its expectations only to get expurgated later. As a mom of teenagers, I see a lot of parents and kids crawling up the asses of college admissions officers, something my friend Irena Smith writes about with enema-like clarity and compassion in The Curmudgeon’s Guide to College Admissions.

Letting Other People Crawl Up Your Ass

Letting people crawl up your ass may feel good at first. It’s titillating. But eventually, you realize that you’re keeping them in the dark.  There’s not a lot of room for growth up there.  At some point, nature will call and you’re going to have to bear down and assert yourself.  They’re going to end up covered in dookie.

Let’s say you have a family member who you love to death, but you also drive each other crazy.  Every family visit is a ticking time bomb. Yet, they really want a close relationship with you (and you with them; the two of you are just not capable of it – yet). So they flatter you with hints about how much they love you, and their desire to be a close family, how all their friends are going on vacation with their grandkids, yada yada.  If you cave and invite them to go on a 10-day holiday with you, you are allowing them to crawl up your ass. 

As another example, it can feel good to help someone in need, say by giving them money or volunteering for a non-profit.  You get to feel virtuous. It feels good to give back, to be generous.  But if you’re not careful, you’ll both end up as ass-dwellers. 

Ass-dwellers be gone!

Ass-Crawling as Form of Control

Which brings me to ass-crawling as a form of control.  Crawling up asses is a classic part of the codependent dynamic.  Someone tries to “help” someone who doesn’t want or need to be helped. Often it’s “for their own good” or “in their own best interests.”  But ultimately, it’s just part of the person’s own unconscious ass-crawling agenda.  It feels comfortable up there, and we want to take up residence because it feels less scary than dealing with our own lives.

Unfortunately, this is especially common between mothers and children. In early childhood, mothers and babies are necessarily codependently attached. Babies need their mothers for survival, and mothers cede their wombs, their bodies, their time, their personalities, their friends, their jobs, and sometimes their sanity to meet the needs of their child.  Over time, both mother and child need to (thankfully) separate, allowing the child to individuate and the mother to self-actualize – all while maintaining a secure attachment.  Many mothers don’t attend to this transition and become stuck and controlling, as Kyra beautifully articulates here. I provide a template for a non-ass-crawling mother-child relationship in my children’s book, I Believe in You.

Crawling Up Your Own Ass

Finally, there’s the unfortunate reality of crawling up your own ass, a close cousin of having your head up there.  We all do it from time to time. We think our own stool doesn’t stink, or we wallow in it.  We buy into our own story of greatness or neuroticism or victimhood or fear or whatever, to the point that we can’t see clearly.  Crawling all the way up the ass lands you in your mind, ruminating in a diuretic stream of self-centered verbiage.  Don’t let’s go there.

So next time something doesn’t sit right with you, ask yourself: Am I ass-crawling? Is someone crawling up my ass?  Have a good laugh about it, and then use your sphincter.  While a little ass-crawling, say in the form of a favor or a compliment, might be fine – you don’t want to be a tight-ass, after all – keeping your ass clean and your movements regular are paramount to your health, and to the health of those around you.

That’s right! And you can crawl with clASS.