2012-03-06
Explanation
This comic shows a bedroom scene where a woman in underwear is clearly trying to initiate intimacy, but her partner -- a nerdy-looking man reading a book in bed -- has apparently just used a bizarre scientific argument to turn her down. She exclaims: "Why can'''t you just say you don'''t feel like sex tonight!?" The caption below explains his argument: "Since nearly every cell in the body is replaced within a year, every part of my body you would want to have sex with is under one year old. You creep."
The humor comes from the man weaponizing a popular science factoid -- the idea that human cells are constantly being replaced -- to create an absurd logical argument that intimacy with him would somehow be inappropriate because his cells are technically very young. Instead of simply saying he'''s not in the mood, he constructs an elaborate pseudo-scientific guilt trip, calling his partner a "creep" based on tortured logic. It'''s a classic SMBC move of taking a real scientific concept and pushing it to an absurd and socially awkward conclusion.
The votey panel has the man smugly responding: "So, you admit you'''re not interested in my long-lived neurons" -- since neurons are one of the few cell types that are not regularly replaced. He'''s twisting her frustration into further evidence for his ridiculous argument, implying she only cares about his body and not his brain.