Maybe this belongs in the "stupid questions" thread.

[Sextus]

As you know, the hair on your head continuously grows.

If you don't cut it, it will eventually reach your waist.

Or - if you happen to be an Indian shaman – soon enough it'll reach down to your ankles.

But the hair under your arms or in your crutch reaches a certain length and it stays at that length.

So if you trim it to say, half or a quarter of an inch, as it doesn’t continuously grow, it should therefore stay at that length. The same with a girl’s pussy hair. It also doesn’t continuously grow, so once she trims the length back, that should be it, for life. Done. Finished. Complete. It should stay at that length forever.

But oh no! Instead, the hair immediately starts to grow until it has reached its former length. And then it stops growing again!

So my question is, how the fuck does a hair know how long it is?

How can a fucking hair be intelligent enough to know this?

Or intelligent at all?! :grimace: :grimace:

[wilisno]

Interesting question, a bit weird, but not stupid ! :miao: Good observation anyway !

[uber]

Hair follicles in different parts of the body have different growth and rest periods. The maximum length of hair is determined by the duration of the anagen (growth) phase. During the catagen (transitional) and telogen (resting) phases, the hair stops growing as blood supply and cells that produce new hair are cut off, and the hair begins to fall out.

Scalp hair tends to have a growth period of 2-3 years, and takes 3-4 months to go through transitional and resting periods. Hair on other parts of the body tends to have a growth period of 4-7 months, transition of about one month, then a resting period of about nine months.

[Sextus]

Uber i'm amazed you have such detailed info like that. But the hair, resting or active, I was wondering how it knows how long it is??

[uber]

It doesn't. Maximum length is determined by how long the growth period is, because after that, the hair stops growing and subsequently falls out.

[Sextus]

Well, suppose 95% of the girl's pussy hair is at or near the maximum length it can achieve. She then gets some scissors and trims it all back to half or quarter of an inch. The hair - despite having reached its maximum length already - then says:

"Hang on sister - not so fast!"

And the whole lot of it subsequently grows back to its original length, putting on an extra inch or more from its cut length.

But if she hadn't trimmed it, the hair wouldn't have grown that extra inch longer! It would have stayed its original length!

Ergo, the hair somehow knows how the fuck long it is, and it acts accordingly to grow back to its maximum length, despite, as I said, it having already achieved that before she trimmed it. And that, my friend, is a paradox.

And it grows back against the express wishes and desires of its owner, as evidenced by her diligent trimming.

Uber, I appreciate your heroic efforts to explain this, but I'm afraid you haven't yet. And I that see none of the other perplexed people reading this thread have anything to offer either.

[uber]

It's understandable that this could cause confusion, but one has to remember that, given no intervention, the hair on a given part of the body will not be of uniform length. This is because the cycle is not synchronous among every individual follicle. If it were, humans would go through periods of baldness as all their hair falls out at the same time to make room for new hair.

What happens when hair is trimmed is:
Some or most of the trimmed hair is still in its growth phase, and thus will continue to grow.
Some of the trimmed hair was already in its rest phase, and falls out to make room for new follicles.
Follicles which were already growing were missed during the trimming process due to being shorter than other hairs.
This means that many of the hairs that "return" to the original length are, in fact, new hairs, or already existing ones which hadn't been trimmed to begin with.

[Sextus]

I'll think about that and get back to you.

I think this would qualify as a cannabis conversation. :D :D :D

[Sextus]

Excellent and scientifically reasoned info Uber.

And me? Forget SETI. I was searching for intelligent life in a hair! he he..

But I still might be!

I suspect I may be the first person to ever raise this question and its apparent paradox, and you, as a consequence, the first person to ever attempt to answer it. So on that basis alone there must be more to learn.

So I'll take a leaf from your scientific book.

I am going to grab a broad lock of never trimmed underarm hair (that must have representatives of all the hair states you quote above) and cut it all back to half an inch. I am then going die the tips of it bright red.

If all the red tips grow back (again) to their maximum length, it means that something really weird and unexpected, ie, intelligent life on Earth, is going on. :D :D :D

[uber]

Make sure that you record the number of hairs affected, and bear in mind that this little experiment could take months to carry out in full.

[Sextus]

Well, I ain't going anywhere that my underarms aren't going too. It will only take me a few minutes to do and then I don't have to do anything else but live my life. Don't worry, I'll count every bugger before I trim and dye them.

I think, uber, you are going to be very surprised and amazed at the results. Next thing, I'll be approaching unexplained mysteries I'm sure.

And for the rest of you reading this, this isn't irrelevant. Take my balls for example (but not literally please!) I've been shaving them for months so that I am assured that my girls are licking and mouthing them in extreme comfort.

The hairs on my balls (were they present) also don't continue to grow down to my knees. That is, they have a finite pre-determined length. Yet somehow all the buggers, in resting or active phase know that they have been shaved, and they suddenly realise how long they are and all of them strive to grow back an inch or more to their previous length.

How can I be so sure? Well, having to shave my balls all over again is part of my pre-punt grooming routine.

Maybe I don't need to do the underarm test. Maybe this ball conundrum is proof enough of the Curse of the Intelligent Hair.