People love to claim that God has a sense of humor. We also hear a lot about his “mysterious ways”. Something happened to me the other day that got me to thinking about that. I was outside working, clearing some brush. It was hot, and I was sweating like a preacher on Judgement Day. I had put my cigarettes in the pocket of my T-shirt, and after a couple of hours, my left nipple was killing me. I mean it really hurt. Apparently those cellophane wrappers are a lot more abrasive than you’d think. I was miserable, and it reminded me of a time when I was working at a sporting goods store. We had those stupid name tags that we had to  wear. I was trying to lower a treestand down from a shelf, and it knocked the pin loose. That sucker dug in, and I thought I’d torn my nipple off. I was more than a little put out, and needless to say, I never put that name tag on again. Thinking back about that, really got me to thinking (that’s me, I’m a thinker) about creation (ok, maybe not a very good thinker), and I thought, “Why do men even have these damned things?”

Think about it. If you believe the Bible (and I do) God created Man first, then Women. So why did he give us nipples? We certainly don’t need them. They serve absolutely no purpose on a man. Can you think of any other part of the body that serves absolutely no purpose? Granted, there’s the appendix, but I don’t think they’re quite sure about that one. Now, believe me, I’m the first to admit that my knowledge of sciencey stuff is not great, so I Googled it. I quickly discovered that I needed to refine my search to “why do men have nipples”, because just Googling “Nipples” led me to a number of websites that, while interesting, were not really answering my question, although I did learn that people can be quite ingenious and startling when they set out to find a use for something.

Once I refined my search, I did find some useful websites. They weren’t nearly as interesting, but certainly of more use on a philosophical, theological, and scientific level. What I discovered was that no one really knows why men have nipples. No one really even had any good theories. Not the evolution guys, not the religious guys, not even the regular sciencey guys. The closest any of them came was, oddly enough, the religious guys, who seemed to think they were designed by God as a spare erogenous zone, or maybe just decoration.

I’m not so sure about that. I mean, for one thing, there are a lot of parts of my body that would benefit from a little sprucing up or decorating, but if God was so concerned with our appearance and/or attractiveness, He’d have made broccoli a source of fat and cheeseburgers a fat-burning food (c’mon, you know he had to know what we’d like). As far as erogenous zones go, pretty much all the others have other purposes (at least all the ones I can think of, although I don’t get out much. I may have to do some more research on Google). All the other bits that men and women share (hands, feet, brains, etc., and yes ladies, we men do have brains, we just save them for important things like sports stats and Clint Eastwood quotes) have a purpose that both sexes need, and the bits we don’t share aren’t needed by both.

Which brings me back to the original question, “Why do men have nipples?” Was God just thinking ahead, and, knowing that women were going to need them, think, “It would look weird if men don’t have ’em too.” Was he thinking, “You know, men don’t have enough erogenous zones with just the necessary equipment. I’d hate for them to not enjoy sex.” You know he knows us better than that.

I’m left with two different conclusions, and can’t decide between them: Conclusion #1. God knew how much women were going to suffer with that whole childbirth thing, and putting up with men (most of us mean well, but let’s face it, we’ve gotta be a pain in the ass), and deciding to even the score, went with nipples because he knew that if he stuck us with anything as painful as childbirth, most of us would just die. or Conclusion #2. He was just messing with us, and thought, “Let’s see what they think about this. hahahahahahahahahaha.”

Now I know that I’m pretty theologically wonky, so if any of you lovely readers out there ever run into one of those guys who know what God thinks about everything (and we all know there are plenty of them out there), be sure to ask them about this. It should be easy to answer for someone who knows what God thinks about really complex stuff like homosexuality, war, poverty, capitalism, politics, and that kind of stuff. The only thing I’m really sure about is that He loves us, and wants us to love him and each other (if you want to see what God thinks about loving each other, either check the Bible, or be very careful in forming your Google query).

Let me know what they say.