Jar of Farts: Stephanie Matto Hospitalized While Following Diet to Sell More Farts
Stephanie Matto made history on 90 Day Fiancé: her relationship with Erika Owens was the first same-sex partnership to be aired in the franchise’s history. Stephanie made news for herself recently when her business — selling her farts in artsy cork-topped jars to degenerate perverts on TikTok — landed her in the hospital with heart attack-like symptoms. She underwent a battery of tests for her chest pains and difficulty breathing, but doctors found no cardiac issues.
“I thought I was having a stroke and that these were my final moments,” Matto told the press. “I was overdoing it.”
Yep, I’d say a steady diet of eggs, beans, and protein shakes, is overkill. Matto claims she sold her jars for $1000 apiece, but can you put a price on health?
I want to be clear from the get-go: while the concept of selling farts is funny, the fetishization of female bodies –even their farts– is seriously misogynistic. Yep, I’m gonna be the feminist buzzkill. It’s hilarious and hilariously sad. Is there hope for women?
The world’s a bloody circus and it probably always will be. But this story isn’t about some underground network of creeps. A celebrity woman in the media’s mainstream wasn’t selling her farts to thin air, a lot of men were buying them. That’s the issue here: demand. Consent cannot be bought, even if the “worker” in question is supposedly #girlbossing. Selling farts is less gross than buying them, but we’re not laughing at the weird AF men buying them as much as we should be. Losers.
Less than a month ago, 31-year-old bisexual 90 Day Fiancé star Stephanie Matto “clapped back” at people criticizing her for selling farts, claiming she makes $45,000 for it in just one week and has made over $100,000 so far. Selling the jars for $1,000 a pop, that’s 450 weirdos a week spending $1,000 on a woman’s farts. That’s a lot of customers. There’s a lot of poverty in the world. Clearly men have far too much money.
In a video discussing how successful the business is, Stephanie advocates for capitalizing on misogyny as the #girlboss you are. “It’s a business, you’re making money, and you’re not hurting anyone,” she advises young women considering farting for cash. She gives women tips on the most efficient diet to produce the most farts, as if their body is a factory and their mind is the boss. It’s the mind-body dualism that capitalism thrives off: we are taught to see our mind as the mastermind behind our dumb body, dissociating from it, pushing it to exertion, to make a quick buck. There is no better example of this than in “sex work,” the classed-up, sanitized, euphemism for sexual exploitation.
Just months before Matto ended up in hospital, she announced a pornography platform to rival OnlyFans. “Sex work” being left unexamined, because the industry is “based on choice” –and therefore can’t possibly be critiqued–ends in a woman hospitalized after following a dangerous diet to sell more farts to perverted men. We aren’t anti-woman when critiquing the sex industry in the same way we’re not anti-factory worker when critiquing capitalism. Consent can’t be bought. The female body is not a factory.
Less than a week ago, Stephanie made a TikTok about how sad she is that she can’t sell farts anymore. “Me not being able to make $1,000 a week selling fart jars anymore after having a heart attack scare,” she wrote, with a depressed expression, lamenting how jealous she is that her dog can fart all day. You can’t make this shit up. Now she’s selling NFTs of her fart jars, begging the question: Which is more degenerate? Buying a fart in a jar? Or buying an instagram post of a fart in a jar?
This is “sex work” after all so, like the women on OnlyFans who boast about the millions they make doing totally consensual and not at all exploitative pornography (when the average user makes $180 a month) Stephanie Matto is recruiting more women to self-exploit by glorifying the “work” which landed her in hospital. She’s advertising and therefore persuading women to see self-objectification as #girlbossing. Anything for the hustle though, right?
Competitive consumerism mixed with misogyny means many women are willing to do anything –even selling farts– to buy expensive makeup, botox, a nose job, and laser hair removal. We’re socialized to see our bodies as the objects of male desire rather than our own. Males are socialized to see our bodies as objects of their desire, too. When we cater to the male gaze as bi or lesbian women, we market to lesbian fetishism, denying the possibility of women’s pleasure in the absence of men. Capitalism justifies misogynistic, homophobic consumerism because profiting off our oppression is wrongly upheld as “empowering.”
We need to bring back a bit of consciousness raising if we ever want to liberate women. Women need a good reminder that selling their farts is the farthest thing from female empowerment because, despite what capitalists want us to believe, dollars =/= liberation. Selling farts is not the answer.
