“There can’t be a teenager in the land who hasn’t glared into the mirror one evening and groaned. ‘Why tonight? Why a mega red and yellow spot on my hottest date ever? It’s like there’s a cosmic plot against me.’ Well, according to a radical new theory, that may be exactly what is happening. That jeering pustule may be a big red stop light specifically designed to say: ‘You are not ready for nookie…’ ‘Everyone is so familiar with adolescent acne that they don’t realise just how mysterious it is,’ Dr Kealey says. ‘It affects about 85 per cent of people between 14 and 18. This suggests that it’s normal. I think it’s very likely that we are meant to develop it…’ ‘It’s still a theory,’ Dr Kealey says. ‘But another distinctive human trait is that we have a much longer period of childhood than any other animal because we have to learn a whole range of social and language skills to fit into the group. Having babies before you’ve got those under your belt could make it less likely your children would survive.’ So spots are a cunning way of putting off potential lovers and, therefore, avoiding having children at too young an age. This is because we are hard-wired to fancy only healthy people and spots give people the appearance of illness despite there being none. If the Government really wants to cut teenage pregnancies, perhaps it should abandon contraceptive-advice programmes and ban all acne treatments instead.” —The Times (UK)

This is a pretty fascinating theory. The basic idea is that, if zits are ubiquitous among teenagers, they must serve some evolutionary purpose. (Then again, that remains an open assumption. Everyone has an appendix, but that doesn’t serve much purpose anymore. Maybe zits are like that, some kind of weird vestige that serves no current purpose?) Anyway, since zits are repugnant and teenagers are lusty, Dr Kealey puts two and two together to suggest that maybe zits are meant to dampen teen ardor. Then again, it’s hard to see why the opposite might not also be true. Maybe evolution endowed teenagers with such randy libidos in order to make them overlook the glaring pustules on each others’ faces?

In any event, that’s a pretty sadistic suggestion to replace birth-control programs with a ban on acme treatments. In fact, it’s a sort of double whammy. It implies not only that teens should suffer the shame and humiliation of having acne-ridden faces, but that they should also suffer the repression of their natural urges. Isn’t that pure cruelty? Let them be beautiful and let them have their fun too.

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