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The article discusses social and medical discourses about flatulence in 17th-century England. Relying on sources such as diaries, satires, and advice publications, the author seeks to show how the propriety or impropriety of farting depended on specific contexts and circumstances, including social status and class imagery, standards of and concerns about public manners and morals, and gender stereotypes and cultural expectations of masculinity and femininity. The author considers these questions in relation to the notion of the civilizing process, as introduced by sociologist Norbert Elias.