Why do we have ass?

[Caserias]

I dont get why do we have a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back, in evoliton we adapt and make our lifes easier but did our asses evolved to sit and produce better things while resting or we have asses in first place and learned to use them?

I mean if we evolve things that conforts us while sitting, why dont we have i dont know double explosive shotgun in our ankles or car tires in our back, i want to learn what is the limit.

[Function]

We're not made to stand upright for the whole of our time. So we need to rest and sit every now and then. First of all, the curvy fulled shape is primarily made up of muscles, the "glutes". Yes, it's also got some fat layer.

 

But the fat and muscles are not for comfort, imo. The muscles, first of all, serve their proper function (primarily abduction and extension of the hip joint and its femur).

 

Now imagine you have no muscles, nor fat in your ass. What will happen? Yes. You would press skin against the ischiadic tuber (the bony part of your hip that touches the surface you sit on, yet protected by fat and muscle).

 

Imagine repetitively sitting and putting friction on the skin against that tuber. Bye bye skin. Hello bare periost (some sort of extremely well innervated layer around bones). Titillation of the periost = a damn lot of pain.

[DrP]

540 my ago there was a world with no assholes in it! http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/30/humans-oldest-known-ancestor-is-a-bag-like-sea-creature-with-no-anus-6416360/

[SamCogar]

@ Caserias

 

Me thinks you have it “arse backward”, ……. us humans do NOT have “a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back” so that we can comfortably sit down and make our lifes easier, ……. the fact is, ….. most of us humans DO HAVE “a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back” because we spend far too much time comfortably sitting down on our arses taking life easier.

 

[Lord Antares]

@ Caserias

 

Me thinks you have it “arse backward”, ……. us humans do NOT have “a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back” so that we can comfortably sit down and make our lifes easier, ……. the fact is, ….. most of us humans DO HAVE “a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back” because we spend far too much time comfortably sitting down on our arses taking life easier.

 

 

I don't think that's how it works. Yes, it works both ways, but humans only ''spend too much time comfortably sitting on our asses'' because it's neccessary. The human body isn't build to stand upright all the time, as Function said, and we do not have nearly enough energy to be moving around and running all the time.

Sitting down is completely neccessary and the fact that it's comfortable and easy makes us do many, many tasks better while sitting down. I mean A LOT of them.

 

You seem to be implying that we're too lazy and that's why we sit down a lot, which is why we were evolved to have asses. Yes, technically, we wouldn't have an ass if the human race didn't have the need to sit down, but we do it only because it is neccessary. It does make our lives a lot easier, but is that a bad thing?

If we had only one leg in the centre, our lives would be much harder. Is it a bad thing that we have 2 and so our lives are easier?

[Caserias]

 

I don't think that's how it works. Yes, it works both ways, but humans only ''spend too much time comfortably sitting on our asses'' because it's neccessary. The human body isn't build to stand upright all the time, as Function said, and we do not have nearly enough energy to be moving around and running all the time.

Sitting down is completely neccessary and the fact that it's comfortable and easy makes us do many, many tasks better while sitting down. I mean A LOT of them.

 

You seem to be implying that we're too lazy and that's why we sit down a lot, which is why we were evolved to have asses. Yes, technically, we wouldn't have an ass if the human race didn't have the need to sit down, but we do it only because it is neccessary. It does make our lives a lot easier, but is that a bad thing?

If we had only one leg in the centre, our lives would be much harder. Is it a bad thing that we have 2 and so our lives are easier?

I get having an ass and not having has a lot of differences, i want to learn when we are evolving, does our body or genes know we could use that part of our body more properly, i mean does they know what we want? I have an ass and i can fully use it and im happy with it but why dont i have something like third hand as a knife made of dead cells, i can use it very well and i dont regret it. Or why do we have ugly people, they are lowering our reproduction rate? I wanna learn what is our body aims when evolving in millions of years and what is the limit of it, how bizzare things we could have?

[Strange]

I get having an ass and not having has a lot of differences, i want to learn when we are evolving, does our body or genes know we could use that part of our body more properly, i mean does they know what we want?

 

No.

[SamCogar]

The inherited genes that one receives from their biological parents …… “don’t have a clue” ….. what the environment is going to be that the fetus will be birthed into.

 

Just because there is an ever increasing number of people in our present day society that have chosen to blame their faults, life style choices, dastardly deeds, etc., etc. on their inherited genes …… is silly and asinine, to say the least.

[Lord Antares]

A knife as a hand is much less useful than an ass. We are no longer primarily survivors in the environment. We have evolved out of that.

 

 

Or why do we have ugly people, they are lowering our reproduction rate?

 

That's not a completely stupid question, so I don't think it should be discredited.

Alright, first of all, there is no objective and quantifiable way to tell what exactly makes a person ugly. If they have one ugly feature (for example, a crooked nose), that doesn't neccessarily mean they won't get to reproduce if they have other pretty features.

 

Let's say, hypotethetically, that there were people who had a large lump covering their faces. These people were in a minority and we found them really ugly. We wouldn't reproduce with them and after some time, they would be extinct and thus, removed from further evolution of humans. So they WOULD get extinct for being ugly. In the future, you wouldn't even know that these people existed.

 

Uglier people already to get to procreate less than attractive people, so there is no contradiction here.

If your question was why they were born ugly in the first place, it's because nature had no way of knowing they were ugly beforehand. The only way to know is if they get weeded out over a large period of time.

[Bender]

Since ugliness is a relative property, the less attractive half of the population is always going to be "ugly". Not too long ago, everybody had crooked teeth, so it wasn't a big deal, but now we all wear braces, so suddenly somebody with crooked teeth stands out as deviating from the norm.

 

Also now we can get an ugly lump surgically removed from our face and pass on potentially flawed genes anyway. Cosmetic surgery is making humanity more ugly, the same way that opticians make our eyes worse. Genetic drift in action.

[J.C.MacSwell]

It makes sense to store fat near your centre of gravity, where it requires the least effort for mobility (compare with fat ankles).

 

Other than (perhaps? I really don't know) an instinct to prefer intelligence, symmetry or ease of motion, I doubt we know what ugly or beauty is without learning it. I would bet if everyone you knew that was successful had crooked teeth, and everyone with straight teeth was a dullard with no athletic ability, you would find straight teeth ugly (not withstanding the fact that straight teeth might work better)

[MigL]

Interesting DrP, assholes have certainly proliferated in the last 540 mil yrs.

And, they seem to be getting bigger...

[SamCogar]

Like they say, ......... "Beauty is only skin deep".

 

When the hormones kick in, ...... and the urge to procreate is "triggered", .......... then "no holds barred".

[mistermack]

The question really is, "why is our ass different to a chimp's, or gorilla's?" since seven or eight million years ago, our ancestors asses were similar to those.

 

Well, it's not for sitting on. You only have to look at people like bushmen, who don't use chairs, to see that. They squat on their haunches with the ass off the ground. You will hardly ever see them sitting, like we all do. So I'm sure it didn't evolve as something to sit on.

When you walk on two legs, you need a bit of ass muscle to move along. It could be the mechanics of upright motion that demands a bigger ass.

Then you have the fact that we have more fat on our bodies than other apes. Presumably, if you spend a lot of time in trees, the extra weight of storing fat is a liability when you fall, or when you support your weight with thin branches.

And your strength to weight ratio is poorer, if you have a store of fat. So fat is not good in the trees. But not so bad on the ground. It can tide you over hard times, and help mothers produce milk. And the ass is a good place to put some of it.

[Raider5678]

The question really is, "why is our ass different to a chimp's, or gorilla's?" since seven or eight million years ago, our ancestors asses were similar to those.

 

Well, it's not for sitting on. You only have to look at people like bushmen, who don't use chairs, to see that. They squat on their haunches with the ass off the ground. You will hardly ever see them sitting, like we all do. So I'm sure it didn't evolve as something to sit on.

When you walk on two legs, you need a bit of ass muscle to move along. It could be the mechanics of upright motion that demands a bigger ass.

Then you have the fact that we have more fat on our bodies than other apes. Presumably, if you spend a lot of time in trees, the extra weight of storing fat is a liability when you fall, or when you support your weight with thin branches.

And your strength to weight ratio is poorer, if you have a store of fat. So fat is not good in the trees. But not so bad on the ground. It can tide you over hard times, and help mothers produce milk. And the ass is a good place to put some of it.

Except, just because some bushmen don't sit down much doesn't mean all of evolution in that area is a sham and actually came from something else.

[Bender]

Part of the explanation could simply be that humans found asses attractive for a sufficiently long period in our history.

[SamCogar]

 

When you walk on two legs, you need a bit of ass muscle to move along. It could be the mechanics of upright motion that demands a bigger ass.

 

Then you have the fact that we have more fat on our bodies than other apes. Presumably, if you spend a lot of time in trees, the extra weight of storing fat is a liability when you fall, or when you support your weight with thin branches.

 

Both of the above are well stated logical facts.

 

Not only the “2-leg” bipedal walkers/runners (man, birds, kangaroos, dinosaurs, etc.) ….. but also the “4-leg” quadrupedal walkers/runners (horses, cows, pigs, etc.) all have need of a muscular posterior.

 

And yup, we sure do have more fat on our bodies than other apes, to wit:

 

Human beings are the fattest apes and most of our fat (adipose tissue) forms a continuous layer under the skin (subcutaneous). Read more @ http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/fat.html

 

 

And fat or fatty members of the family of Great Apes do not make for good “tree climbers” or “tree canopy living”, …… but do make for good “ground dwellers” ……. and our early human ancestors with their evolved subcutaneous fat layer made for really good “water wading/swimming” hunter-gathers.

 

And the bipedal walking, running, wading, swimming Aquatic Ape evolved to be the dominant species of vertebrates on planet earth.

[DrP]

Maybe thousands of years of spanking has developed us a bit of padding. ;-)

[mistermack]

We also have other reasons why our pelvis is different to that of other apes.

Walking upright, our organs are stacked in a column, and need support from below. You can see in the fossils of our ancestors how the pelvis gradually changed with upright walking to something wider and flatter.

Then, when our brains got bigger and bigger, that also had an effect on the pelvis, as the baby's heads got bigger, requiring a bigger birth canal.

If you combine all that with our extra fat and two-legged locomotion, it all explains the bigger ass.

[GATECH1997]

It could have been a part of non-random mating (a mode of evolution). Maybe males prefer women with bigger butts. Plus a bigger butt means more muscle and stronger but here i am not talking about girls born with fatty butts but more muscle.

[Bender]

Apparently, males don't like fatty or muscular butts, but a 45 degree angle of the lower spine.

[DrP]

I think that angle thing is right.

 

It used to be thought that in more affluent societies men found skinnier women (and presumable butts) more attractive and in places where food was scarce it was the fatter body type that people craved. This however, could just be another one of those many myths I learnt at school which turns out to be bolax. I'll do some research into women's butts later when I get home from work to check it out... in the interest of science of course!

[KipIngram]

A book I read recently made a pretty solid case that men are drawn to females based on biological cues that imply lots of baby-making potential (combination of age, generally vibrant health, and other such things), whereas women are drawn to men based on biological cues that imply fitness as a provider and protector. I would guess that there's a background of pure biology stuff in both cases, combined with a "cultural overlay." For instance, in the world we live in right now women find a man's financial success very attractive. I even read an article recently that cited a study claiming that there is a correlation between women's reported orgasm frequency and the wealth of their partner.

 

So evidently money even makes a man better in bed. :-|

 

One of the cues I remember for men (rating women) was eye and iris size. The studies showed men pictures that contained female faces that were exactly the same except for those attributes. The men chose as more attractive the women with larger eyes / irises. Apparently it's indicative of youth. The bottom line was that men considered 20 year old women the most attractive overall. Female fertility peaks at 25, but factoring time into the equation 20 year old women can be shown to have the highest "reproduction potential" factor.

 

I saw that same fact "reported on" on a feminist website, and you can imagine the editorial reaction.

[mistermack]

I think it's possible, but unlikely, that womens asses are the way they are because of sexual selection by males.

And the same goes for the asses of men.

 

While sexual selection CAN play a big role in shaping the bodies of animals, it usually works the other way.

The best bodies shape our sexual preferences. A nice pair of breasts might look that way because they are in perfect working condition for feeding a baby. And the male brains evolved to automatically recognise that shape and be attracted by it.

 

It can work both ways, but usually, it's brains evolving rather than bodies.

There's very little cost to evolving circuits in the brain, but to change bodies to match brains risks a downside in performance.

 

But it still does happen sometimes. As in the Peacock. A big awkward tail is tolerated by evolution, because of it's attractiveness to females.