Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

exercise

2015-12-07 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
exercise
Votey panel for exercise
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

A man asks a woman to show him her boobs. When she asks why, he explains an elaborate chain of logic: exercising with a chart of boobs will give him a brief testosterone boost. This hormonal boost will let him exercise more effectively, making him more attractive. His increased attractiveness will make her want to show him her boobs more often, creating better exercise. He claims this will create a feedback loop of "ever greater boob-showing and ever more and more amazing squishy feelings" until his musculature envelops the Earth, gravitating all its life within his "colossal hugness." He asks: "In that moment, will we not know what it is to love?" She replies: "I was going to do it, but now I will never do it again. I can also go for more of a swimmer's physique."

The Humor

The comic satirizes pseudoscientific "bro science" reasoning about testosterone and exercise, taken to an absurd extreme. The man constructs an elaborate, seemingly logical chain of cause-and-effect that escalates from a simple request to see breasts all the way to his muscles enveloping the entire planet. Each step sounds superficially plausible but the chain rapidly becomes ridiculous. The punchline works on two levels: first, the woman was apparently willing to comply with the simple request but is now repulsed by the overwrought philosophical justification; second, her offhand comment about preferring a "swimmer's physique" deflates his grandiose vision of planet-encompassing muscles. The joke captures how over-explaining a simple desire can backfire spectacularly.

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