The first thing that forms in utero is a digestive tract and an asshole

Hey asshole! Yes, I’m talking to you. And to myself — to all of us, in fact. Because it’s recently come to our attention that there’s but one uniform concept that defines us as human beings: We’re all assholes.

Now, sure, some assholes are bigger and hairier than others, but if you were conceived by a human mother, then you, my puckered-up friend, began your existence as an asshole, nothing more than a group of cells making up a digestive tract that began with your browneye.

In a year full of shitty asshole behavior, has anything ever sounded so true?

Unfortunately, we were unable to track down an expert to back us up on this: Six different fetal development doctors offered a variation of the response, “Sorry, but I’m not interested in contributing to your article, good luck.” Which is exactly the sort of response we expect, being assholes.

Instead, we did what any asshole writer on the internet would do when looking for facts: We Googled it.

Let’s start with a bit of background on how we all start out life in the womb. In the first few weeks after fertilization, you’re nothing more than a small group of cells, called a blastula — this blastula bursts open from the inside out, making a little bitty opening. This opening is called a blastopore, and it’s the first of your proto-organs to begin forming.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting: There are two different clades of animals that begin with a blastula. The first of these is the protostomes group, which is made up of arthropods, mollusks and insects. The second group — of which human beings are a part — is the deuterostomes group. The distinction between them is based entirely on the direction in which the mouth develops in relation to the blastopore.

What does this have to do with all of us being assholes?

Relax, asshole, I’m getting to that part.

Protostome derives from the Greek word protostoma, meaning “first mouth,” whereas deuterostome means — you guessed it! — “second mouth.” In protostome development, the blastopore becomes the animal’s mouth. But in deuterostome development — that’s us! — the blastopore becomes the animal’s “second mouth,” more commonly (and much less disturbingly) referred to as the anus (aka the asshole).

That’s right: Your asshole was the first part of you to exist. You formed around it. You are, quite literally, an asshole to your very core. You live in a society of assholes begetting other assholes, each of us in deep denial that, when you take everything else away from what makes us human, what you’re left with is, in a very real and legally binding sense, nothing more than an asshole.