More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Dimples

Idly watching an episode of "Law & Order" last night, I noticed that one of the main characters had a skull-like head - the facial bones.  And his scrawniness pointed up his dimples.  I began to study the rest of the cast to see if anyone else had dimples.  Nope.

So then I mentally leafed through an album of friends and family, looking for dimples.  Huh.  Couldn't "see" anyone.  And yet, most of us had dimples as babies.  A study posited that dimples make the owner look sweet, childlike (bingo! babies!) and give the wearer an air of innocence.  To which I would point out Clark Gable in "Gone With the Wind."  If they made him look  "innocent" instead of wolf-like, hah!

Speaking of old times and movies, the adorable Shirley Temple, the Dimpled Darling (and later California State Senator,) starred in a movie called "Dimples" in 1936 and created a rage among the populace for dimples.    Listening to the uproar, some woman, lost to history,  invented a machine to give the buyer dimples.  It was head gear that pushed in the cheeks where they were desired.  It didn't work which should come as no surprise.

Nor does puckering up your mouth like you just bit into a lemon and sucking in your cheeks tightly against your teeth 10 times.

Cleft chins (also considered a dimple) are caused by a muscle called the zygomaticus which creates the cleft when this muscle is shorter than God designed it to be.  Cheek dimples are the result of a shortened bifid zygomaticus muscle.  Today's plastic surgeons can go in and with some clever cutting and pasting put in dimples.  The average age for Dimple Desire is 31 based on some study or other.   

Dimples are believed to be genetically inherited.  If your parents have them, you will, too. 

Facial dimples are not the only ones in our bodies.  Reach around behind you and feel the bilateral dimples just above the flat part of your back, above the gluteus Maximus. .  Those are called the Dimples of Venus.   Please restrict display of them to bathing suits and the beach.  Young ganstas, hike up your pants.  We have our own Dimples of Venus and no interest in yours. 

Some day, you, too, will be old (if you don't get shot) and the skin and muscles will sag and remove them for you. It will happen to us all.