2 January—Why did Eeyore, A.A. Milne’s onomapoetically named stuffed donkey, visit the outhouse? It’s obvious. He was looking for Pooh. Why else would he? Fictional animals never have to go, after all. And if they do, where would they go?

So a year ago copyright expired on “Winnie-the-Pooh,” A.A. Milne’s first book about—one guess—Winnie-the-Pooh, thus putting the original naked anthropomorphic stuffed teddy bear and his comparably naked anthropomorphic and equally stuffed buddies and their comparably naked anthropomorphic and equally stuffed adventures in the public domain. But Disney’s more recent iteration of Pooh, with a red cutoff T-shirt but no pants, is still protected by copyright.

Don’t worry, there’ll be no disquisition on the intricacies of U.S. and foreign copyright law, beyond quoting the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, which gives Congress the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

More to the point, then, have you ever wondered why anthropomorphic cartoon animals, stuffed and otherwise, tend to be half-dressed, with the half that’s naked invariably the bottom? When we see people half-dressed, after all, it’s normally the top part that’s naked. Always with male people, usually with female people.

Then again, anthropomorphic cartoon animals aren’t blessed (or burdened, as the case may be) with nasty orifices and appendages decorating their bottom halves. Makes life easier for the artists and forecloses sexual as well as excretory urges. That’s why Eeyore never has to go and also why he’ll never find Pooh in the outhouse. (Don’t even go near propagation, procreation, and reproduction.)

Why, in our society, are male nipples allowed to be displayed for all the world to see while female nipples must be hidden even when the breasts they’re attached to are displayed prominently? Women’s nipples weren’t supposed to be exposed even where nudity was fundamental in ancient Greece.

On the other hand, consider that the male penis-enhanced hypogastrium is less likely to be displayed in public than the female hypogastrium which normally lacks that appendage. On the third hand, competitors in the original Olympic games in old Greece—all men, of course—did it stark naked. That’s thought to be for two reasons: to show off their great physiques and because only barbarians at the time were afraid to show their bodies.

Then there’s art. But that’s a whole nother topic.

I’ll forgo pubic-public puns. But think about it. The pun and the display. And I won’t go near the pubic domain . . .