Sometimes I wonder, how did people know that the penis and the vagina should be covered up with clothing? How did people figure out that THESE were the body parts that shouldn't be seen by other people? Why didn't they pick the elbow, or maybe the chin? What happened? Everyone was just walking around naked and one day some guy goes up to his friend, "Hmmm, ya know something Jim, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately... I don't think you should be seeing my penis." The other guy was like "Hmm, ya think?" "Yeah, I just got this feeling that maybe my penis shouldn't be seen by other people."
I have a feeling that 100 years before these guys came along, 2 other guys had the same exact conversation, except about their elbow. "Ya know something Bob, I don't think you should be able to see my elbow." "Ya think so?" "Yeah, I just have this feeling that other people shouldn't be seeing my elbows." For the next 100 years people were walking around completely naked with a leaf over their elbows.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - the pope
it's because they're SINFUL!
2 - Eric Olsen
You didn't get around to vaginas.
One of the funniest things that happened on our trip was when our 4 year-old daughter took a bath with her 4 year-old cousin after they had watched a Scooby Doo movie together where the pivotal moment in the action came when the good guys squirted the bad guys in the eye with a chili pepper.
In the bath our daughter remarked to her cousin that his penis looked like that chili. He was mortified, she said "What?" most innocently, but she knew.
3 - Harald
People put on clothes because they were cold. Simple.
4 - boomcrashbaby
There is a reason why the devil chose the phallic shaped snake to tempt Eve.
Cover it up, lest desire lead you to the dark side, Luke.
5 - Purple Tigress
Dearest sir:
You must have strayed considerably from the hunting and gathering model of the original men of the world. Otherwise, you would have known.
Consider going boar hunting with your penis swinging, or hunting the wooly mammoth who has a nose that grabs.
Consider hunting with a pack of your cold nosed pals--the precursor to the domestic dog. And what do dogs do to each other when they meet?
Consider going into battle against your rival tribes with things swinging around--not just knives and axes and clubs, but your phallus. I think you'd quickly want to cover it up.
As for women...it is true that other predators can smell blood and track, right? So what would happen if a woman is having her menses and your tribe is trying to evade the saber tooth cat?
And how comfy is it to discover poison ivy, poison oak or an anthill the hard way?
And for both genders, do you think the pesty mosquito and the numerous fleas would say: oh, no...I shall not bite there!
Let us see that even before the discovery of the cause of skin cancer that clothes are a good thing indeed.
As for the snake, please do not damn an animal for what people have done. Snakes are our friends. They eat mice that might eat our grain or give us plagues via their fleas.
There is no sin in sexual relations inside of marriage according to the Bible or the Koran or other holy scriptures so there is really nothing sinful with the vagina or the penis. Else, we would have to cover these organs in animals as well.
Adam and Eve had sex. The shame was in seeing each other naked. But I view this story as a parable and not as the true story of humankind. I am not, I admit, a Christian.
There is sin is the abuses of power. There is sin in rape. There is sin in having no more control of our sexual urges than an unneutered dog and an unaltered bitch.
But if we are to go forth and be fruitful, then there is no sin in sex within certain parameters according to the Bible.
Of course, the concept of sin, is not actually universal. You do not find it in Buddhism, for example.
But back to the original question. Why cover up these tender parts...Originally, I think out of common sense. We, in modern times, has distorted this and brought a sense of perversity to being clothed. But that is a different topic entirely if I understood the original missive correctly.
So, dear sirs, I think my argument has been sensible and logical. And I hope this has answered your rather farcical question.
6 - boomcrashbaby
oh oh, I was just playing with Adam and Eve. I know clothing has been around far longer than Christianity.
I've left the Church myself, and I consider the story of Adam and Eve to be a parable/fable. I believe in evolution.
But I really just wanted an excuse to say phallic.
7 - RJ Elliott
Uh, don't clothes that cover the penis and vagina also tend to cover that most disgusting and unsanitary part of the human body: The Asshole?
I think humans developed clothing because they didn't want to walk around with dingleberries hanging out. I mean, that's just fucking GROSS!
Or, maybe men didn't want their women to be walking around with their honey-pots open and available for rape. So they made them wear clothes. And men didn't want to have to look at another man's goods, so they all decided to cover them up.
This is really an interesting question, though. I'm not sure anyone has a definitive answer...
8 - Purple Tigress
Dingleberries and honey-pots? So you're saying men made women wear clothes so men could keep their property safe from other men and men were grossed out by the site of other men's penises?
Is that why in America, in the art museums we rarely see full male nudity? I guess the Europeans aren't as grossed out. Michelangelo's David doesn't wear a fig leaf there.
Perhaps men didn't want to know how they compared to each other.
As for gay men and women, perhaps this group doesn't find seeing male sex organs so gross.
9 - Kudd45
first of all, PURPLE TIGRESS, get the F#ck off yer cloud. Yes, you made fine and valid points but if you could come off any more arrogant i would like to see it, because i now and then find it ammusing to puke out of pure disgust. Secondly, speculating on such a pointless question is in itself pretty pointless. and last but not least..... what is a dingleberry? and if you answer me about that tigress ill track you down and figure out what could make a life so useless as to spend such a period pondering idiotic questions and feeling good about yoyrself because of it.
10 - Purple Tigress
My, my. I am not the person to ask what a dingleberry is since that word was brought into the conversation by someone else. I suggest you ask that person or try using your search engine.
But really, what is the point of such a juvenile rant as yours? Does threatening other people make you feel powerful? Censoring people with threats isn't good manners online or offline.
11 - Natalie Davis
I find seeing male sex organs terribly gross, but there are far worse things.
Funny story: My eight-year-old son and I were watching the news when a story came on about the recent cleansing of Michelangelo's David (which isn't gross at all). My son, whose name, coincidentally, is David, watched the report, which included shots of the statue, and quipped, "Now that's he's clean, maybe they should put some pants on him."
12 - bhw
lol, Natalie!
13 - Kudd45
The point, purple tigress, was to see if you'd waste some time responding because i find it entertaining. And... if you really felt threatened then i don't know what to say. I thought it clear enough to be a joke but it obviously got yer emotions running and that was my intention so..... thanx, and please continue to respond it makes a good 5 minutes in my day.
P.S. I'm watching you, lol
14 - Purple Tigress
I hardly felt threatened and since I type quickly enough, you're hardly taking more a 2 minutes of my day.
I'm am very sorry that your life is so impoverished that you feel the need to insult people. I'm guessing that you particularly pick on women. Very brave of you.
I'm duly underwhelmed. Obviously anyone looking for intelligent life can quickly eliminate you as a source.
15 - Duane
Obviously, you people know nothing about anthropology. The concept of Sin is a topic that's great for deep philosophical debate, but since it's based on superstition, it has little to do with reality. Here's the real story. Humans did not start wearing clothes for protection or comfort. They were fashion statements. Imagine the life of a cavedweller, say, about 25,000 BC, give or take a few years. If you're a guy like Og, then you're out chasing down Tricophodons or some other large lumbering meatbearing peabrained animal with a spear. If you're a chick like Beatrice, then you're lounging around gossiping with the gals and slapping the kids, except for when you have to do your part to protect the cavestead by chucking rocks at skinny half-crazed-with-hunger sabre-toothed cats -- not really that much different from our own century, except there aren't any more mammoths or sabre-toothed cats. The sun goes down. Beatrice lights a nice fire while Og trudges home with a baby mammoth leg slung over his shoulder. Og is in sore need of some fun. He's been eyeing that Beatrice chick for the last week, and he wants to impress her. Now, here's the thing that they don't teach you in high school science class -- cavemen were seriously hung compared to modern man, like baby Sequoia proportions. That's the real reason they were called Home erectus. Anyway, women back then didn't really go for sex like they do now because cavemen didn't know about flowers and candy and sweet talk and foreplay. Kissing wasn't even invented back then, for example. Believe me, if you got a load of the inside of the mouth of a typical caveman, kissing would be about the last thing on your mind. And don't even get me started on breath problems. But I digress. Anyway, the guys just went at it, and it could be painful for the girls, if you see what I mean. So as a way to try to divert the girl's attention away from the intimidating male appendage, smooth operators like Og would wrap a pelt made from the hide of a Dinotherium or some other fancy fur around his waste, and cover up his dong. This practice caught on and continued to the point that women would never see a guy's member, except maybe during sex, but sometimes not even then, since they were doing it Mastodon style for the most part. So discriminating girls like Beatrice started choosing their guys according to the type of wrap they wore when courting. If the wrap came from a ratty little Glyptodont or something, the chick figured the guy was a wimp. If the guy shows up in a Brontotherium hide with a clasp made from a Woolly Mammoth tusk, like Og's favorite ensemble, Beatrice figures he's a good catch, not to mention a total stud. A few thousand years later, women catch on, and they start wearing wraps too, although by then caveguys aren't even aware of the original purpose. It's just custom. Even caveboys are wearing hand-me-down pelts til they kill something on their own. By about 10,000 BC, when the average male organ has shrunk from its original Louisville 36 dimension down to somethng closer to that found on today's typical guy, men's apparel is nothing more than fashion and a demonstration of personal wealth and hunting prowess. By about 6500 BC, women (and a few sissy guys) practically took over the whole fashion industry. No doubt, women's fashion has come a long way since then, although men's fashion really hasn't changed that much. So, there you go. It was a sort of modesty that started it, which evolved into fashion -- that's Evolution.
16 - Kudd45
Nice comebacks tigress, very nice. But with the obvious conclusion that complete cynicism is the end result of any rational man after enough time studying truth and knowledge, how can one say that intelligence is in itself relevent? Speculation from incomplete knowledge and no verifiable truth is the same doctrine that religious dogma and political rhetoric is built on that is destroying the place in the world for the rational man. And do you really want to contribute to that? would THAT be intelligent? that too can only be decided in your own mind, but with any ability to conceive reason it should be very clear that you don;t want this. So before you subscribe to authoritive doctrine with no reasoning behind it and continue to live your life in delusion of intellectual superiority do not speak to me about intellect. Read a book and get back to me.
17 - Purple Tigress
Oh, my churlish boy. Suddenly, you can actually write a coherent sentence? Getting help with your writing?
You might note that these entries are under satire and humor and not "I am a desperate male who needs ego validation." Why did you decide to pick on me and not Duane or the original poster? Is it because they are men and I am a woman? Pitiful indeed. Well enough about you and your silly attempts at intimidation.
Duane, you are obviously an expert in the field of fashion anthropology, but I sadly find you adhere to the Freudian stream of thought that women fear or envy the penis.
Feminist fashion cultural anthropologists theorize that the need for the few "sissy guys" in the fashion industry and the preponderance of women being more fashion-wise than your lumbering heterosexual macho male is due to the recessive trait of the fashion gene. They also believe that, in fact, it was not the large size of the penis that needed to be hidden but the need to hide the penis size from the envy of other men and to make it a surprise (and often a disappointment) to the women.
This way, women cannot comparison shop and men cannot decide to kill other men who were too large out of envy.
The true reason for the evolution from the large size to the current size was that men, seeing that women were too impressed by size, quickly dispatched the men with the large sized penis. This the basis for most wars and this is why most wars are fought by men. Even the Trojan war. The Greeks were afraid that Helen would let all those Trojans know why she thought Paris was a better male specimen and, well, the rest is history.
Most cultures deserted the short skirts for men as there was too much occasion for a revealing draft.
The species name, homo erectus, was thought up by a man, of course. Women, hearing this, thought that was more hopeful and than based on the actual truth. According to feminist sexual physical anthropology theory, the men were displaying vagina envy since they have never quite gotten over the fact that they have a refractory period and are seldom multi-orgasmic.
18 - Eric Olsen
All very interesting but shockingly speculative: the reality as I make it up is that people got cold. Humankind emerged in Africa where it is hotter than a whore's hoohoo and as it migrated it inevitably encountered colder climes that made the extremities in particular shrivel with chilly discomfort, so they covered the damn things up, which was a lot more comfortable. It's that simple. "Primitives" in hot climes still let it all hang out. Coincidental? I think not.
19 - boomcrashbaby
I think homo erectus came from 'homo' meaning man, and 'erectus' means upright. WALKING upright. Nothing to do with the genitals.
20 - Eric Olsen
yes, but that's much less fun
21 - boomcrashbaby
you're preaching to the choir, Eric!
22 - in10sity
It must have been real fun going clothes shopping back then.
"Honey, does this leaf make me look fat?"
"Does this leaf go with these shoes?"
"Does this leaf go with these leaves?"
23 - Eric Olsen
10, you're a funny guy.
24 - duane
Boomcrashbaby, the name Homo erectus was, in fact, kind of an inside joke among paleoanthropologists of the late 19th Century. It started as a bet, but then the name stuck. When Dubois reported his discovery to the Royal Society, he mentioned the prodigious sexual apparatus that he and his assistants inferred from the pelvic and spinal structure, then announced that he was proposing the name Pithecanthropus erectus for the specimen, which evoked barely suppressed giggles among those in attendance. He went on, without cracking a smile, to claim that the name signified the erect posture attributed to this specimen. He won 50 pounds from his assistant. The designation was changed to Homo erectus in the 1930s.
This kind of thing happens all the time in science. For example, the names quark and Big Bang started off as jokes, which, again, caught on. But one of the most famous joke names was given to the planet Uranus. Discovered in 1781 by the British astronomer William Herschel, purportedly named after the sky god of Greek mythology, the name was actually conceived during a family spat between Herschel and his wife Deirdre. Apparently, Deirdre wanted William to take her and the kids to the circus, but he was busy hunched over his desk, writing up his report, again, for the British Royal Society, regarding the discovery of the 7th planet. Deirdre snapped at him, to which he snapped back, "Can't you get it through your thick skull that I have to properly name my planet? Now, run along, you old crow!" Deirdre, flushed with anger, shouted, "Blow it out your anus you doddering old fool! Why don't you name it after yourself? How about Planet Asshole?!" William started to shout back, but then realizing that the name Uranus would be perfect, just started laughing, hugged Deirdre, and they all went and had a merry ole time at the circus.
25 - boomcrashbaby
Duane, where do you come up with this stuff? Is it really true? do you have legitimate sources? It would be interesting if it was true.
The discovery of uranus sounds painfully stretched but I guess we should be thankful they didn't name it planet bigtop.
I said I thought that erectus was a reference to walking upright, it still sounds more plausible than a reference to penis size. Although if that is the case, I wouldn't be totally surprised, I know in the past, man gave a lot more attention to that which is sorely shamed and looked down on today. In the past, there were monuments like the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument that were created as symbolic representations of which country had 'more' masculinity, and even back in the medieval days, a knight kneeling down and kissing the tip of a kings sword was symbolic.
Now we are so ashamed and intimidated by sexuality and what God gave us, that we have to wear baggy pants to hide ANY reference to it. Sigh.....sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. (Me and Janet Jackson's booby.)