Judging from the wet puddles that appear around our house, our cats are constantly ingesting (and eliminating) their fur. Cleaning themselves, they get great mouthfuls of their hair and it doesn’t seem to bother them. But I get one of what I know to be my own hair in my mouth and I immediately have to get it out. The idea of simply swallowing it triggers my gag reflex. Let’s not even talk about getting someone else’s hair in my mouth. Gross.
Is this something that all humans experience, an aversion to swallowing hair? Is it biological or psychological? And if it is widespread, what’s the evolutionary purpose? It’s not like we self-groom.*
My hair is long, and it’s definitely no fun getting some mixed with whatever I’m swallowing and the next thing you know, some of it is halfway down my throat and the rest is wrapped around my tongue. Could definitely do without that. Hence I try to avoid getting it into my food.
But no overall revulsion about “eww there’s hair in my mouth” or anything. I’ve done fine sewing using my own hair in a small sewing needle, and I draw the hair through my mouth to wet it and get the two ends to stick together to better tie a knot in the end.
Pubic hair doesn’t gross me out. When I’m with a partner, I sometimes make like a cat doing the grooming thing and lick it into place.
Cat tongues and their hair-removal design:
From the 1st link
“structures on the cat tongue, hollow spines that we call cavo papillae, shared across six species of cats. The papillae wick saliva deep into recesses of the fur, and the flexible base of the papilla permits hairs to be easily removed from the tongue.” https://www.pnas.org/content/115/49/12377
In the 2nd article, a scientist “printed out a scanned a specimen of a cat tongue and 3D printed out the structure at 400 percent scale.
She sent the artificial cat’s tongue through its paces inside an a machine that drags the model across a patch of fake fur.
To clean a traditional hair brush, you need to pluck the hairs out from between the bristles. Noel’s cat tongue model was much easier to clean: She simply ran her finger across the surface in the same direction as the spines.”
I think there’s a difference between chewing on a hank of hair - especially when it’s still attached to your head - and just feeling a loose one cuddling your molars.
Once at work at lunchtime I was lamenting that I did not have a plastic fork. A co-worker offered me one of hers. As she held it out I could clearly see a very long hair hanging from it. I pointed the hair out and said, “thanks, but no”.
She then pulled the hair off of the fork and immediately tried to again hand it (the fork) to me, as if all was now right with the world.
Now I was double-grossed out. Unbelievably, she could not understand what my problem was.
This was 2 or 3 years ago and she still brings it up now and then, pointing out what a wussy I was.
All my previous ex’s have had long hair. And they all shed. It gets everywhere. The car, my pillow, my clothes…
Sometimes it can be nice. You’re at work, having a stressful day, then you notice a strand of hair stuck in your collar. You pull it out and think "Aww…’
I have a tolerance for it I guess. But that’s just for one specific person and my pets.
I don’t think evolution has anything to do with it. I think it just has to do with, what you’re used to.
