May 12, 2009
Dear Clusterflock
Isn’t it amazing that we don’t have any fur? We actually evolved to lose our fur! Most of the other mammals walking around on land have fur or hair or fleece. We have lost ours! Isn’t that remarkable?
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apparently you haven’t seen my butt.
No but by the wonder of the internet, I have pretty much seen all of the rest of you, D.
all will be revealed.
Dammit. If you CFers could stop stealing my thoughts today, that’d be great (my thoughts having been about my own butt, thank you very much).
or is that reviled?
Hmm, you make a very fair point. I have been ruminating and I am willing to concede your point without the photographic evidence.
If anyone else would like to talk about the wonder of evolution, please consider this a safe space. I know a lot of you are living in Texas.
Lucy, are you thinking we are related to such creatures as Chihuahuas and those Chinese crested dogs?
Well there are also those really weirdy weirdy bald naked cats with unpleasant features. But I was really just looking at Tar today, and thinking about how he is good to go in most weathers, with his handy fur. And how it was a very sensible thing, and it just made an awful lot of sense that animals had fur to keep them warm, mostly. And how we were the only creatures, apart from those weirdy cats and stuff, to not have fur, and how very very strange that is. That we had to invent clothes!
I’m not a lover of body hair so am kinda glad I don’t have any. Well, not much.
I seemed to spend a lot of my formative years wishing I could grow a beard or have a hairy chest. I have neither, well, you know patchy growth that frankly isn’t that attractive! So, I have rebelled against it and want no body hair. Mmmm I quite like my hairy legs, will it look silly if I just have hairy legs, well, and thew hair on my head – I have managed to keep all of that. 51 and it all still grows.
Now I have confused myself. Okay, if I can’t have a full growth of beard I shall hate the little I have – shaving is a pain in the ass, I hate it!
Okay, I’m taking questions now.
What about the other “hairless” mammals? Whales and dolphins? Pigs and elephants? They have even less hair than humans yet seem perfectly fine in their environments. I think clothing is the crazy thing about humans, not our relative lack of hair.
That said, I think I’d like to be completely hairless. Also, I love clothes, so don’t use my words above to start in on any nudist shit.
Ok but whales and dolphins are in water, where hair would be, literally, a drag. Pigs have a little hair, it is just very fine. And elephants have really thick skin. I just cannot believe nature left us so vulnerable. It is plain weird.
I’m with you, Cindy, none of that nudist shit. I worked with one, why are they all old men? Why did he delight in bringing his ‘holiday snaps’ in to show the girls, but, not to show me.
I know I’m generalising, it’s what I do best, but, I don’t want to play table tennis or smoke a pipe whilst naked!
Hairless would be sweet though!
Deron has more hair than a pig.
Phil: do you shave your chest? I may regret asking this question.
Even I have more hair than a pig, but, as we are going to kill ‘em, skin ‘em and eat ‘em – piggie hair issues are not important.
Now, goats, they are hairy and damn cute with an evil smile.
They taste good too, but we don’t eat them unless it is a celebration.
I don’t think nature left us vulnerable. I suspect that we have relatively little hair because we invented clothing. It also has something to do with Adam and Eve, I think.
Umm. Pigs are damn cute too.
My first husband shaved his underarms. That was weird.
Yes Cindy – I think as God made himself scarce at some stage – we took on the role of masters of the universe and so, we don’t need hair because we need to move fast and be in charge. Well, that was what some drunk guy told me the other night.
Deron appears to have more hair than most orangutans. The only question that remains is: is he as handy around the house?
Shaved his armpits? That IS weird.
I want to live with that ape. So sad and lovely.
I like to keep what hair I have trimmed – I’m always afraid if it gets too bushy I’ll find stuff in there – -best keep it short so you can see what is going on.
Yeah, it gets hot in Texas, and men do tend to get pretty hairy in the pits, so I understood it from a comfort level–but, still, it was weird. Evolutionarily-speaking, though, I wonder why humans have so much armpit hair Is it to cool the body through sweat collection?
Ok but you made a very provocative and interesting point there, when you suggested that nature quit her work with our body hair when we invented clothing. This is very very interesting. I mean, which came first? And why did we invent clothing in the first place? Did status creep in at that early stage? To mark out specific tribal groups? And then somebody discovered the cosiness of fleecey jumpsuits?
I think it’s all about sex, Cindy. Armpit hair reminds us of that other special place where we have hair (if we’re not Deron, and don’t have it growing everywhere, that is).
Phil, I like the drunk guy’s theory. Move fast and be in charge. That’s what I’d have gone for soon as the Almighty ducked out of it.
I mean, what else have we got besides moving fast and being in charge?
I don’t think I could sleep with a man who shaved his armpits. I am glad you two divorced.
I think humans invented clothing to keep warm in winter, and it just took off from there. This is probably something we could verify rather easily, but why do that when we can just discuss it here and figure everything out ourselves? If we keep at it, we might discover that the world is round, like an orange.
Oh, yes, we had to divorce. Thank you for your understanding.
Totally.
Cindy, you are definitely the scientist amongst us. We ought to be suspicious of you. Forward thinker.
Let’s ask Phil. Phil, do you shave your armpits?
Phil, do you shave your armpits?
Galileo would have died eventually, anyway.
I don’t shave in the sense of SMOOTH but I hate that bushy thing going on so I keep it cut back – damn, you girls know more than my wife!
Right.
Um, I was responding to Cindy’s Galileo comment there. Let’s see. So you trim, Phil? What do we think of that, Cindy?
Oh, thank you, Phil. Perhaps your wife isn’t interested in the scientific details, but Lucy and I often collaborate on grant projects and need to know these things. We won’t use your name in our papers.
Lucy, I think all kinds of things, but we mustn’t let on to Phil, who might think we’re drawing conclusions about him and will, in response, hold back on such questions in the future. Shhhh.
Cindy, please feel free to use it. Phil isn’t my real name anyway.
Well, we might ask for some trimmed armpit hair, though, Phil.
And in fact Galileo did die anyway. Hairy and with very few intellectual equals.
I can supply that – it is the only place it grows – that figures, what with it being armpit hair! You know what I mean.
Yes, some trimmed armpit hair, please, “Phil.”
We might like to use your armpit hair in our future grant applications, Phil. We might also like to take pictures of you trimming, for verification purposes, you understand. If they find their way to clusterflock, goddammit it was some kind of a leak. Some mole. We can’t keep the organisation totally sealed, Phil.
Cooper, do you know armpit hair stops growing at a particular length? I’ll bet Galileo knew.
Hairy and with very few intellectual equals.
Dude must have been lonely.
We will all turn to mulch, hairy or not, intellectual equals or no.
Insight courtesy of me about age nine.
I must leave now. If you discover anything important, please save it for me.
I saw something about this on the BBC. The reason why we have no fur is that we walk upright and have developed an incredible way of cooling our bodies: sweat glands. No other animal has sweat glands that are as developed as ours. The main part of our body that is exposed to the sun remains hairy: our heads.
Pubic hairs serve a function as well, mainly for pheromones.
I shave my armpits, you close-minded motherfrankers! You know you like it!
My sweat glands are highly developed.
And I will be pleased to trim my armpit hair in the interest of research.
Excellent, range. Just as our resident Scientist, Cindy Scroggins, left the building, along you came. Welcome. So this is very useful and plausible information, except that what about all the places where there is cold weather? Wouldn’t it have stood to reason according to that theory that the people in the cold places would thus have kept their hair?
Pheromones, yes. Sex, sex, it’s all about sex. Nature is really really filthy.
Oh that is probably the most entertaining occasion I have been called ‘closed minded’. Thank you so much for that, Aaron. Thank you.
Sheila, or is it, “Sheila”? We will put your name in our next grant application, and very possibly make a fleur de lys decorative border all around the document, made of your trimmed armpit hair. We will contact you shortly about this, “Sheila”.
I’m serious. Why do people in cold places not still have fur?
Okay but Cindy does not sweat. Except on her upper lip in rare cases. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t really go outside except to get to the car….
Also, I wonder if this means that men with the pattern baldness gene are more highly evolved?
See now we’re getting really scientific.
I apologise to anybody who is allergic to italics, for my recent comments.
Trickster god: “Let’s strip them down, make them think it’s getting real warm–then hit ‘em with another ice age!”
I see evidence of your trickster god in my backyard.
I read a theory awhile ago that suggested that fur makes animals more susceptible to parasites and thus a less hairy mate would appear more desirable in terms of producing offspring who wouldn’t be overrun with bugs and the like.
Ah, so that’s why you shave your pits! That is sweet. I feel like I understand you better now, Aaron.
[...] all this furry and hairy and nekkid mammalian malarkey, I was waiting for Elizabeth Perry to chime in, but I think maybe she is making herself useful [...]
I had to go and cook and now I am so far behind I have no idea where to start!
Did someone want to film me trimming hair? I’d like to stress, it is trimming and not shaving – trimming, just trimming..
I have never waxed.
Ok cool. If you can film yourself trimming that would be very good. Deron will come and film you. He has a fucking amazing camera. He will get close ups and it will look like a mac ad by the time he is done with it. Cindy and I will study the footage, carefully. Then we will think about our next move.
Ok so what you can do in the meantime, is just keep on growing, Phil. Keep that armpit hair good and long, until we get the camera squad together.
Lucy, as of this moment I have ceased to shave. I’ll just wait – I know with confidence I can do that.
Could Phil’s armpit hair be dreadlocked?
And in answer to Cindy’s question, certainly my armpit hair gets a certain length, then stops. As does leg hair, my arm hair. . . . My head hair gets to a certain length, then I get out the shears.
“Phil” must cease trimming his armpit hair if he is to go all Rasta on us.
I don’t think my armpit hair will get that long. I’m not an expert, it’s just an inkling.
That will make an excellent documentary.
The shearing of “Cooper”?
I want to see Deron’s furry butt.
Kathy Hilen-Smith! How I’ve missed you! I have it on good authority that Deron’s furry butt will be on display at clusterflockstock. We will, of course, document the experiment, but if you want to experience Science as it is meant to be experienced, you will drive to Texas next week and observe the furry butt in its natural habitat.
…timing, timing, timing. Our own hairy monkey-love-child graduates from high school and we must pay him his propers.
I really want to see that butt. Send me a picture, will you?
Kathy, would you like a photo of my smooth butt as well?
Kathy Hilen-Smith, I’ll show you my butt but you’ll have to pay me one US dollar.
This is how they write entries for Wikipedia.
Also, for the record, I’ll go out on a limb and say my butt has at least as much fur as Deron’s.
One US dollar, MGS? I dunno. Maybe you might try for five. See if she bites. So to speak.
MichaelSmith: Furry butt out on a limb. Arboreal primate.
I have no hair on my butt, but, I’m prepared to pay a dollar if anyone will look – well, perhaps 86 UK pees
My theory of furless evolution:
Did you see that girl?
Which one?
The one with no fur from her waist up. Smokin’.
Dude, we used to mate.
Really? I’m hella jealous.
Her skin, that’s what she calls the baldness, is warm and smooth. Just thinking about it.
Why’d you guys break up?
I don’t want to talk about it.
It was that silverback, wasn’t it?
I don’t want to talk about it.
Anyway, I was just saying I could stare at that…what did you call it, skin?
Skin.
I could stare at that skin all day long.
That’s nothing, her cousin lives just down the river and she’s got no fur at all.
None?
Well, she has some on her head, but her body is furless. She shows so much skin she wears a piece of hide around her waist to cover her…uh…you know.
Really? What’s her name?
Eve.
Cometh the dear clusterflock, cometh the Michael Smith. Science!
Phil, is that offer retroactive? Does it apply to the many who have seen images of your bare behind on your website?
Sheila, I guess my hairless ass is there shining for all to see!
I would like to add though, I had not applied oil – my body either has a natural sheen or I was sweating with embarrassment. I’m really not sure which.
Thank you, Lucy, for bringing us back to Science. This group has a tendency to wander off sometimes.
Phil, you are very shiny. Have you noticed whether raccoons eye you with great longing?
Cindy, luckily raccoons are not a problem here and it was a tad chilly when I was in the states to be stumbling down stairs nekid!
[...] And that’s official. All we know about her is that grandma was titty. Remember folks: clusterflock is a Safe Space for you to explore your feelings about evolution. [...]