Hello, my name is Rafael, I’m 22 years old, I’m a bi guy from Spain, and I love burps.
In my experience, they carry many connotations that make them fascinating. For being such a simple sound, they provoke a strong social rejection: in the West, burping is considered rude. That’s how I was taught at home, especially by my mother. However, at school and high school I noticed that among boys it was something common, even with little competitions about who could burp louder or more often. They saw that as a funny thing, I guess that’s because Disney or Nickelodeon shows, which we all watched, also portrayed burps as a humorous device…
I didn’t take part in such competitions because I had been taught it was inappropriate, but I watched them with curiosity. Good burpers held a certain status, so I tried to learn. I discovered that it wasn’t so easy to achieve long, powerful burps—in fact, I never managed to do it—but that made me value even more the technique of those who could. I remember a boy called Marc, who could string together burps of around ten seconds, and another called Alejandro, who could unleash 30 or 40 in less than a minute. ‘‘Whether they cause disgust or laughter, there is evident control behind them’’ I thought. That technical side started to interest me, and later I also saw them as a symbol of rebellion against norms and against my mother, with whom I had many conflicts in my childhood. Over time they became, for me, a sign of masculinity: practically all the boys did it, and I even came to find it very attractive. In fact, several of the ones I liked most in high school stood out for that. I’m bi and I also like girls, but unfortunately I’ve never seen any girl burping in person.
Reflecting later, I discovered that in many countries burping is not only not frowned upon, but even considered polite, which shows how relative that norm is. As a composer, being musical as I am, I also think we work with sound in all its forms, and burps are sound: varied in length and intensity, capable of conveying emotions as different as laughter or disgust. I really enjoy that sound, and I would even find it interesting to incorporate it into my music. In fact, since we mentioned Disney shows earlier, I remember in the series Jessie when the character Luke said he liked playing the accordion because “it’s an instrument that makes beautiful sounds by expelling air from its body, like me,” a line I found as funny as it was sweet. Actually, burps do have that nice and even emotional component: when someone burps, they share with you something from within themselves, sometimes even the smell of what they’ve eaten. It’s like sharing their intimacy with you—it’s very beautiful… Much of this also applies to farts, which I also like quite a lot, but to a lesser extent since they don’t carry as many positive connotations or popularity.
I’ve never spoken about this because I know many would find it strange. My other interests take up much more space in my life, and the most I’ve done has been to pretend playful interest like the others, taking the opportunity to quietly enjoy some classmates’ burps and fantasize about what they might mean if they shared my feelings. I suppose it will be something I’ll just keep to myself.