To Pee or Not to Pee: An examination of the jellyfish sting in Friends

 

The image above is from the fictional series Friends. Joey (left), Monica (middle), and Chandler (right) are on a beach in Montauk, NY, visiting their friend Phoebe's mother. While it appears to be a pleasant outing outdoors, the three friends’ looks of distress suggest otherwise. In the center, Monica’s face is contorted into a pained expression. She is grasping onto Chandler’s left arm while balancing on one leg, her right fist clenched firmly by her side. Chandler, holding Monica’s left arm and shoulder, is slightly hunched towards her. His expression is one of disgust, as his mouth is turned downward and his brow furrowed. Only Joey’s side profile is visible, yet his stern posture implies that he is contemplating a serious matter. He stares at Monica and Chandler with his right hand on his hip. In the background, ocean waves roll onto the shore and there is a small group of people huddled in the distance. Monica, who is wearing a bikini top, had just gotten stung by a jellyfish in the ocean. However, her look of distress is not only due to the sting, but also Joey’s offer to pee on her leg to alleviate the pain. Despite the extreme burning sensation of the jellyfish sting, the thought of Joey’s urine touching Monica disturbs both her and Chandler.

In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas explains how there is nothing inherently negative about dirt, as its removal is an “effort to organize the environment” (Douglas 2002: 2). While many people perceive dirt as dangerous, their fear more so represents a collective aversion to disorder rather than the actual object they call dirty. Echoing Durkheim’s theory of the sacred and profane, Douglas claims that humans determine what dirt is, that it is otherwise arbitrary. Douglas also argues that the human body can be used to symbolize the social organization of a society, that the “functions of its different parts and their relation afford a source of symbols for other complex structures” (Douglas 2022: 142). In essence, the body is a metaphor for society and its “margins” as well as the “matter issuing from them” represent “its specially vulnerable points” (Douglas 2002: 150) because they also represent the vulnerable points of society. Douglas later points out how the comparison of the body to society is gendered, as women are considered to be “the entry by which the pure content may be adulterated” (Douglas 2002: 156). She gives the example of Hindu women, who are expected to remain pure, while men are seen as “pores through which the precious stuff may ooze out.” Thus, women’s bodies are seemingly vessels waiting to be corrupted by male bodily fluids. 

Douglas’s argument that dirt is inherently meaningless applies to Monica’s jellyfish sting in Friends, as Monica’s reluctance to accept Joey’s offer signals a cultural aversion to urine rather than Monica’s individual anxiety. As a bodily excrement, urine is widely considered to be dirty and is not meant to touch or reenter the body. However, urine itself is mainly made up of the body's excess water. While it contains some toxins, humans are primarily the ones responsible for urine's unsanitary reputation. In addition to her fear of excrement making contact with her leg, Monica may also be affected by the dirtiness associated with the general region from which urine exits. In Friends, Joey is known for being very sexually active, which perhaps intensifies Monica’s disgust. Because urine and semen are linked tangentially by their source, the possibility of two of Joey’s bodily fluids touching Monica is meant to elicit an even stronger feeling of dirtiness. Monica being a woman further enhances that point. She does not want to be tainted by Joey's body matter. Although the show's creators may not have considered the deeper sociological significance of peeing on a jellyfish sting, it is nevertheless an example of Douglas's point in Purity and Danger, that dirtiness is determined by the collective conscience of a society. 

Douglas, Mary. 2002. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Routeledge.