It's not about anal sex, it's not about some sort of dysfunctional relationship, though you're all welcome to relate your own experiences to the song because it frankly doesn't bother me.but the fact is, and this is what TOOL is renowned for believing in (facts).that this song is meant to wake us up and ask us 'what is the point?' If you've seen any or all of the Zeitgeist 'documentaries', you'll understand.Īlso, if you're simply perceptive enough to notice just how malleable western society really is, how easily manipulated and conditioned we are by corporate manipulation and media influence (think the hype generated around APPLE products and their ideals of planned and intrinsic obsolescence, and the values/mores fed to us by hollywood and pop/rap/rnb/hip-hop music), then the idea that this song could possibly be about something as petty as a relationship or even about sex, is simply ludicrous. This song is primarily about how everybody is becoming desensitised to everything. Sorry for rambling, but I wanted to share the inspiration I've drawn from Tool with you guys. I believe these themes can come together to make as interesting a character as Charles Foster Kane, Jake La Motta, or even Daniel Plainview. This is irrelevant, but I'm currently studying film (not in school mind you, but I just have a camera and some equipment and my own collection of movies and literature on the subject) and my absolute dream is to make films loosely based on the themes that Maynard writes into his lyrics. Of course there are so many ways to look at this song because there are so many elements to it: sado-masochism, addiction, desensitization, complacence, the treadmill theory, love and even hate as well. That way that things have come to be is pitiable because simple pleasures no longer cut it to keep the interest. What became of subtlety?' What happened to just being happy with either yourself or someone else? 'Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear' comes across as sarcastic to me because it's not so bad but it's hyped up as something intolerable. Hence 'there's something kind of sad about the way that things have come to be. It is my belief that he sees modern relationships as something more carnal that require a form self-mutilation in some shape or form to keep the interest, to quell the boredom. and I think Maynard also laments that that form of sado masochistic relationship, on an emotional, psychological, and a physical level, has become something that has been accepted to maintain excitement in a relationship or for an individual.

This is not a song about the freedom in satisfying debauched desire. Intensely powerful in its portrayal of the resultant personal cataclysm. I find the juxtaposition of the song's lyrics with the brutality of the music interesting, the music portraying the quality of over stimulation with the exception of the beautifully gentle middle break in which there is a mourning over the loss of subtlety. I couldn't listen to this song initially, thinking it was simply a naïve rebellion in profanity, but in fact this is very much a rebellious song, however it is rebelling against the very quality many people consider so important today the freedom to satisfy ones desires to the utmost, the greatest trick of our consumer driven existence.

While fist fucking in this song is metaphorical, it is also quite a literal example of our societal perversion due to our materialistic drive & loss of spiritual connection.

This song is about we as individuals & society as a whole being overstimulated with superfluous bullshit, including sexual titillation, that we have become numb to the subtle beauty of things, & must always be striving for more (over) stimulation to the point of brutal perversion, (as in fist fucking up to the shoulder which is tantamount to killing). If I really don't feel anything at all? Yeah This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to Show me that you love me and that we belong together Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear

Shoulder deep anal fisting