And in regards to a “mechanics of power,” these controls are part of a “discipline [that] produces subjected and practiced bodies, ‘docile’ bodies” (Foucault 138). The timing and placing of where we pass waste or gas is exceedingly kairotic and connected to relations of power and bodies. Bodies, after all, exist sometime and someplace. Kairos is a concept that reminds us that bodies are not abstract concepts beyond and/or without time or place.

Kairos has long been an important concept in rhetoric, with many believing its study has received too little attention in recent decades. In his article “(Re)Claiming the Ground: Image Events, Kairos, and Discourse,” Hunter Stephenson explores the roots and applications of kairos beyond the common American view of the appeal as being restricted to timing. He establishes through analysis of numerous ancient texts what we’ve explained here as well, that kairos is concerned with making a given appeal in the appropriate place at an opportune time. But he also explores the root of the word “kairos.” He cites R.B. Onians when explaining the two roots of the word kairos are related to archery and weaving, and that these two terms, kairós and kaĩros, “originally denoted openings that were limited both spatially and temporally.” That is, “In either case, kairos was not a ‘mere abstraction’ but referred to a physical location.”

The ancients, furthermore, held kairos in high esteem. Gorgias, for example, made kairos central to his teaching of effective oration, as well as his own work as a rhetor. In his examination of Gorgias’s most famous works, John Poulakos asserts that “his words are largely a function of kairos by manufacturing controlled opportunities within his texts” and that “Gorgias creates and captures opportunities by demonstrating ways in which the force of unforeseen circumstances determines human words and deeds” (Poulakos 90–91). More directly, the essence of effective communication and persuasion, in the eyes of Gorgias, was the effective creation and manipulation of circumstance.

Kairos, to Gorgias, was the most important rhetorical appeal of all. The same can be said about Plato and Cicero, according to James L. Kinneavy’s “Kairos: A Neglected Concept in Classical Rhetoric.” Kinneavy supports and builds upon Poulakos’s interpretation of Gorgias’s relationship with kairos as he notes that “it was Gorgias who made kairos the conerstone of his entire epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and rhetoric.”

While Plato viewed kairos as less central to effective oration, Kinneavy explains that “Plato used kairos as the foundation on which to construct his theory of virtue as a mean between two extremes” (Kinneavy 81–82). Later, Cicero would take up the mantle of kairos, making “the notion of propriety...the basis of his entire theory of style, particularly in the Orator” (Kinneavy 92).

But this centrality of kairos has fallen on the wayside in the eyes of many modern scholars. John E. Smith describes how kairos, in its full expression, has been largely ignored by modern rhetoricians. Like Stephenson, he points to the ancients to stress the importance of kairos to early rhetoricians. Plato, for example, highlights the way “Occasion...points to a right or favorable time which makes possible what, under different circumstances, could not come to pass” (54). Ancient rhetors did not employ kairos as something that is stumbled upon, but instead kairotic moments are carefully created in a given situation. Smith is also careful to point out that kairos is not limited to appropriate time and place, but means also the “‘right measure’ or proportion as expressed, in the saying of Hesiod, ‘Observe due measure, and proportion (kairos) is best in all things” (47). We agree with Smith and Stephenson in both the significance of kairos, what it encompasses, and also the “full expression” of it. For our purposes, we see flatulence, excrement, and the meaning surrounding them as highly kairotic or guided by kairotic principles of decorum. The normalizing structures dictating how people behave surrounding waste and gas make thoughtful decisions around time, place, and measure essential. Like Plato said, we do not make appeals of kairos out of thin air; they are based on the situation and how they can be utilized to the rhetor’s or author’s advantage.

Sheridan, Michel, and Rudolfo describe a little more of this advantage in their discussion of visual activism: “Rhetors need to make kairotic decisions about modes, media, and the technologies of production, reproduction, and distribution” related to the message in question. Similarly, choosing which “mode” to select when addressing the need to pass gas or waste is essential to the flatulating rhetor and is a kairotic decision. Beano can prevent gas, but so can avoiding certain foods. Abstaining from a food that increases one’s need to poop is an act that causes or prevents physical, bodily changes, and is therefore a daily, substantial rhetorical act. We believe that the work of the ancients and others mentioned here discuss kairos in such a way that supports our view of kairos. Stephenson’s analysis of Onians dictates that appeals of kairos are limited spatially and temporally. That is to say in a given time and place one must either create or manipulate circumstances to communicate or persuade most effectively. In the case of passing gas or excrement, these circumstances must be manipulated in such a way that it is acceptable to participate in an act that is seen as shameful.

Seeking out an excremental “holiday” means seeking a kairotically acceptable rhetorical situation that will allow passing of waste or flatulence to be seen as socially acceptable. Sheridan, Michel, and Rudolfo discuss the essential nature of modes when discussing visual activism. So, too, is mode kairotically significant when passing waste or gas. Consider Smith’s study of the ancients that calls for “due measure, and proportion.” In the case of excrement, understanding when to take Beano and what amount of vegetables or beans or other foods are “safe” to consume for Beano to work is an understanding of measure based on a given time and place context. Similarly, knowing how much information to provide when excusing oneself to go to the bathroom is kairotic. Most people carefully take products like Beano, or excuse themselves to “take care of business” at opportune times. In order to meet social mores people learn to recognize, as Carolyn Erikson Hill puts it, that “a kairotic event is an instantaneous now that embeds the whole episode. Every circumstance has its own continually transforming moments that resonate with others” and “involve intent and sensitivity to situation” (216). In other words, missing one’s opportunity—a discrete moment to pop a Beano tablet, or a lull in conversation to excuse oneself to the bathroom—could be disastrous. The difference between “Please excuse me for a moment” and “I gotta take a dump” are significant and can be equally effective depending on time and place. In this way, language and physical substance (food and excrement) are closely linked and both exceedingly kairotic. They also serve as clear examples of the ways in which social norms of action and language are unequal between genders. Obviously the more vulgar references to excrement are not considered acceptable for women in most cases. While everyone is restricted by time and place to some extent in the way they are allowed to speak and act, these restraints fall unequally on women as compared to men. Kairos is, thus, highy significant to studies of gender and material rhetoric. It is important to understand how time, place, and measure connect to broader social constraints and affordances guide how bodies practice self-discipline and perform kairotic acts of gender (the differentiated ways “right” time, place, and due measure are differentiated through gender).

Situated and Invented Kairos

To better understand the complicated relationship between kairos and excrement, we find it useful to examine two types of kairos: invented kairos and situated kairos. These two forms of kairos build on our previous discussion of kairos and help us better understand how kairotic moments are not uniform for rhetors and depend on situational contexts. Determining which of these uses of kairos is at play in any given instance of passing waste or flatulence is essential to understanding how the communicative nature of these actions are rhetorical and thoughtfully controlled.

Situated kairos is concerned with how rhetors negotiate pre-existing times and spaces where flatulence or passing waste is generally deemed acceptable. In other words, situated kairos describes how rhetors utilize cultures of use: "The conventions, norms and values for using a particular tool that grow up among a particular group of users" (Jones and Hafner 193). For most people, these are times and spaces very ritualized. Holidays (a cultural tool) are examples of situated kairos in general terms. Rhetors' actions in observing these days are highly situated or expected (e.g. a box of chocolates in a heart shaped box is not rhetorically appropriate for someone celebrating St. Patrick's Day). Similarly, with bowel movements and gas, there are certain “holidays” we take where they are acceptable rhetorical moves, such as being alone in a bathroom in your own home. Bathrooms—though they have other uses—are, in most Western cultures, used to hide the taboo of passing waste or flatulence. Utilizing these spaces or using one's "home base" for excrementory acts are kairotic spaces to hide them. To be kairotically timely, these events often occur in the margins: before and/or after a movie, before and after going out, and when you know no one can hear you.

Invented kairos, on the other hand, is when a rhetor invents or creates a "propitious" time and/or space for a rhetorical action. This is not to say it isn't dependent on situation. Rather, invented kairos is where a rhetor generates what might be considered an unusual culture of use for him/her. Invented kairos, thus, is the scaffolding a rhetor performs to make a given action appropriate for a given time or place. For example, a rhetor who cannot appropriately use the margins in a situation of flatulatory distress or embarrassment, might need to invent a situation. So when a bloated rhetor says, "I'll be right back. I need to get some cereal," he/she is using a grocery store (tool) and words (tool) to invent a space and time where he/she can relieve the gaseous build up without his/her companions around. Similarly, when a rhetor has mastered flatulental disguise by coughing while gassing, he/she is inventing appropriate time and space for flatulence.