When Do Fish Sleep? (32 page)

In Chaucer’s day (the fourteenth century), the mere sight of any hair was considered erotic. Women were required to wear head coverings; caps were worn indoors and out by women of all ages.

These ancient antecedents predict our current duality about body hair on women. On the one hand, underarm hair is considered unsightly and unhygienic, and yet on the other, sexy and natural.

None of the many razor companies or cosmetic historians we contacted could pinpoint when women first started shaving their armpits. The earliest reports concerned prostitutes during the gold rush days in California. Terri Tongco, among other readers, posited the theory that prostitutes shaved their underarms to prove they had no body lice, which were rampant in the old West.

Many older readers were able to pinpoint when their mothers and grandmothers started shaving their armpits. Not-so-old historian C.F. “Charley” Eckhardt of Seguin, Texas, is the only person we have found who has actually studied this Frustable:

My paternal grandmother, born in 1873, and my maternal grandmother, born in 1882, did not shave their armpits. My wife’s maternal grandmother (1898), my mother (1914), and my mother-in-law (1921) all did or do.

Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic studies of the nude human figure in motion and Hillaire Belloc’s photographs of New Orleans prostitutes, all taken before or immediately after the turn of the century, show hairy armpits, as do nude photos of prostitutes known to have been taken in El Paso, Texas, prior to 1915. In addition, still photographs taken from pornographic motion pictures known to have been made prior to 1915 show the women with unshaven armpits, as do surviving pornographic photographs of the “French postcard” variety which are documented as having been made in the United States prior to 1915.

Theatrical motion pictures released about and after 1915, including
Cleopatra
(starring Theda Bara), the biblical sequences from D.W. Griffith’s
Intolerance
, and several others, show shaven armpits. Something, then, happened about 1915 that would cause not merely stars but impressionable teenagers (as my wife’s grandmother was) but not necessarily older family women (like my grandmothers) to start shaving their armpits.

So what caused these women to start shaving their armpits around 1915? Many readers, including Charley Eckhardt, give the “credit” to Mack Sennett:

The first moviemaker to show the feminine armpit extensively in non-pornographic films was Mack Sennett, in his Bathing Beauty shorts…Sennett’s Bathing Beauties had shaven armpits, and they are the first direct evidence we have of the armpit-shaving phenomenon. Whether or not Mack actually said ‘That looks like hell-have ’em shave’ is a moot point, though the statement is completely in character with what we know about Sennett.

We do know that flappers of the Roaring Twenties adopted the sleeveless clothing that seemed so daring in the Sennett shorts.

We heard from several women who were more concerned about why the custom persists rather than how and when it started. Typical was this letter from Kathy Johnson of Madison, Wisconsin:

I am one of the apparently few U.S. women who has never shaved her armpits or legs. It never made logical sense to me, so why do it? I’ve heard the argument that shaving those regions is more sanitary. Then why, I volley back, don’t men shave their armpits? Why, in fact, doesn’t everyone shave their heads if lack of hair is so sanitary? Stunned silence…

Several psychologists and feminists have speculated that men like the shaven look because it makes women look prepubescent—young, innocent, and unthreatening. Diana Grunig Catalan of Rangely, Colorado, who subscribes to the prepubescent theory, speculates that “American women, unlike their European counterparts, were not supposed to do anything with all those men they attracted with their revealing clothing. A childlike, helpless look can be a protection as well as an attractant.”

In defense of men, it has been our experience that many women have visceral reactions to the presence or lack of body hair in men. Why does the same woman who likes hair on the front of the torso (the chest) not like it on the back? Why is hair on the arms compulsory but excess hair on the hands considered repugnant? Are women, as well as men, afraid to face the animal part of our nature? Hairy questions, indeed.

Submitted by Venia Stanley of Albuquerque, New Mexico
.

A free book goes to C.F. “Charley” Eckhardt of Seguin, Texas
.

FRUSTABLE 9:
Why Don’t You Ever See Really Tall Old People?

This Imponderable-turned-Frustable was submitted by Tom Rugg, who stands six foot six inches and understandably has a vested interest in the answer.

Many readers sent us lists of reasons why people get shorter as they get older. Some of the reasons include gravity; the degeneration, rigidification, and compression of the vertebral column as we get older; osteoporosis; curvature of the spine. All of these phenomena explain why we might lose two or three inches over a life-span, but don’t explain why we haven’t seen the six-foot-nine person who has “shrunk” to six foot six.

Several people wrote to say that improved nutrition has made our population taller than it used to be. Presumably, our generation will grow old and “really tall” with a lifetime of Twinkies and Diet Coke in our systems. Yes, we have grown taller but on average little more than a half inch in the last twenty-five years and fewer than two inches since the beginning of the century.

Dr. Alice M. Mascette of Tacoma, Washington, and Cindy West of Towson, Maryland, mentioned that a portion of our really tall population is afflicted with Marfan’s syndrome, a genetic affliction of the connective tissue of the body. Sufferers of Marfan’s syndrome have abnormally large hands and feet and a subpar heart. Many die of a ruptured aorta after an aneurism.

So far, these Marfan’s syndrome sufferers—only a small fraction of all very tall people—are the only identifiable group of tall people who have been proven to have a short life-span. But it is not at all clear that the tallness per se is what causes their deaths.

The way to unlock this Frustable is by asking: Do very tall people have shorter life-spans than other people? Surprisingly, there is no scientific data to support the proposition. We heard from more than fifteen doctors, health agencies, and insurance companies, and none of them study mortality based on height alone. Metropolitan Life conducts countless studies on the relationship between height-weight ratios and longevity, but doesn’t feel that there is any reason to believe that tall people have a higher morbidity rate than the population as a whole.

In fact, the only quasi-scientific study we’ve seen (sent to us by reader David Jordan) that claims that very tall people live shorter lives was conducted by an aerospace engineer, Thomas T. Samaras. He tracked the life-spans of three thousand professional baseball players and found that the tallest players (six foot six or taller) lived, on average, to only the age of fifty-two. On the other hand, the shortest group (under five foot four) lived more than sixty-six years on average.

All of the medical and insurance experts we spoke to doubted the validity of Samaras’ results, as well as his reasoning. Samaras speculated that the heart of a tall person must work overtime to pump blood a longer distance than a short person. Johns Hopkins University heart specialist Dr. Solbert Perlmutt disagreed with this argument and added, “Besides, you don’t see mice living long. But you see elephants doing quite well.”

And evidently some old people only slightly shorter than elephants are doing pretty well, too, though the scarcity of the really tall old person is evidenced by the fact that of the hundreds of thousands of people who read
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
only one person stepped up to the plate and offered himself as a specimen. Robert Purdin of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, is sixty-five (is that old?) and six foot five (is that really tall these days?).

Dr. Emil S. Dickstein of Youngstown, Ohio, says that he sees many tall old people, as does Gwen Sells, a member of Tall Clubs International. Reader George Flower, who once encountered a six foot seven man in his seventies, reminds us that Jimmy Stewart, if not “really” tall, is pretty tall.

But our favorite sighting was sent in by Andy Stone of Denver, Colorado, who told us about Randy “Sully” Sullivan, who weighs trucks at the Port of Entry in Cortez, Colorado:

Sully is six foot ten inches. I’ve never asked his age but his hair is white, his posture stooped (that’s right, stooped), and I estimate he’s about seventy.

So, Tom Rugg, there’s hope for you yet.

Submitted by Tom Rugg of Sherman Oaks, California. Thanks also to Joanna Parker of Miami, Florida
.

A free book goes to David Jordan of Greenville, Mississippi
.

FRUSTABLE 10:
Why Do Only Older Men Seem to Have Hairy Ears?

How appropriate that we saved the most frustrating Frustable for last. In
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
, we mentioned that we consulted endocrinologists who professed ignorance on the subject. “If this condition is only found in males, why don’t you speak to geneticists,” they chimed in unison.

So we talked to geneticists. Guess what they said.

“Why don’t you talk to endocrinologists? They’d know about this stuff.”

So we put this in as our last Frustable and waited for the mail to roll in. It did.

Most of the mail had much the same answer as this one, from Bryan, Texas:

I am Stacey Lero, a seventh grader at Anson Jones School…. We are studying genetics in science. On the Y chromosome there is a gene for hairy ears. It matures throughout your lifetime and as men reach the late forties or early fifties (sometimes earlier or later), it has matured enough to be expressed and the hair begins to grow. I hope I’ve answered your question.

What??? Heads of genetic departments at prestigious universities can’t answer this Imponderable and Stacey Lero is studying it in a seventh grade science class? What’s going on here?

Then several other readers, including Richard Landesman, associate professor of zoology at the University of Vermont, and R. Alan Mounier of Vineland, New Jersey, sent me clips from genetics textbooks that confirmed Stacey Lero’s letter. One text said that hypertrichosis (excessive hair) of the ear is passed directly from father to son.

Feeling humbled by the knowledge of our readers, we consulted some more geneticists. They replied that the Y-chromosome theory had been largely discounted—no hard research supports this belief. “Why don’t you talk to an endocrinologist,” said one soothingly.

Are we the only ones who feel a little queasy about medical textbooks printing untrue facts? Or are scientists and doctors not believing what is in medical textbooks?

Peter H. Lewis, a reporter at the
New York Times
—the paper of record, for darn’s sake—called us excitedly to say that they had run an article in 1985 about hairy ears being signs of susceptibility to heart attacks. In 1984, two doctors in Mineola, Long Island, reported to the
New England Journal of Medicine
that there was a “significant statistical link” between men (but not women) who had hair in their ear canal and people they had treated for coronary artery disease. The doctors did not overplay the significance of this finding. In fact, the hubbub their findings released prompted Dr. Richard F. Wagner and Dr. Karen Dineen to issue a poetic disclaimer:

If on the ear there is a crease

Do not assume that life will cease.

If hair is noted in the ear,

Do not assume that death is near.

So, if when walking down the street

An ear with hair and crease you meet,

Don’t give the gent a dreadful fright—

Don’t hint infarction is in sight.

Needless to say, the medical authorities we consulted would neither affirm nor deny the viability of the androgen theory.

We give up. Some Frustables are too frustrating even for us, and we’re masochists.

We figure that Stacey Lero will be going to high school soon. She’s obviously very bright and will probably become a science major in high school. She will then enter college, where she will become a double endocrinology/genetics major. She’ll choose between MIT and Cal Tech for her graduate work. In the year 2011, Stacey will win the Nobel Prize for answering this Frustable. The world will be a better place. And it will all be due to that seventh-grade science teacher in Bryan, Texas. Well, and maybe a little to the inspiration provided by that free copy of
When Do Fish Sleep?

A free book goes to Stacey Lero of Bryan, Texas
.