Why hermaphrodites?

A pretty young lassie, that I thought liked me, contacted me on Facebook for everybody to see. “Wild Coot” she said, “My mother always told me to show respect to old people, and I used to read all that you say with interest. How could you say that we all come from snails? You mean you, not me. Those nasty smelly snails that permeate the garden with their odour and litter up the place with shells. You mean we humans came from the same place that ‘santapee’ and snakes come from? You got to be joking.”
I took time to let her know that we did not come straight from sea snails, but went through the process of reptiles and birds and dinosaurs and primates. (Some of us unfortunately got stuck along the way). I explained to her that humans, chickens, pigs, monkeys and so forth go through a similar development process.  
For example the capuchin monkey has 84.2 per cent DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid) of a human being, while the chimpanzee has 97.6 per cent of the human DNA. Today we may question if the DNA distribution runs the other way, but that is the subject of another article.
On hearing this, the lass exclaimed, “You mean that some humans have a 100 per cent DNA of the chimp? I hope that you are not referring to any particular body.”
I see somebody referring recently to our young children as sex demons. Well, it’s the development process in the human race. Perhaps we shall sex ourselves into a super race as we continue our journey from cave man. See how our children are brighter than us in deviant matters.
According to certain sources which shall be nameless, “The DNA which directs the construction of molecules for cellular function, code for genetic information and is identical in all living organisms, indicates a common origin for all life on earth.” (Perhaps that is the rationale behind the idea of “dust thou art and to dust thou shall return” – everything devolves into dust).
“So Wild Coot, the main thing that separates some of us from the trees, is that we shed our ‘leaves’, our ideas, in different ways. When we do not bear fruit, it is because of a drought (substitute tax deficit), but we exhibit new leaves and fruitless blossoms (substitute largesse).”
One Professor McLysagh said, “Humans were once considered exempt from the rigours of natural selection, somehow separate and above mere animals, but today, thanks to James Watson and Francis Crick it is common knowledge that our DNA is almost identical to that of a chimp”.
Ms Munro Knight you may be close to discovering something. Genes may be throwing us back to Sodom and Gomorrah in our youths. Perhaps a study of the Double Helix as it relates to some of our leaders, may find an affinity to Nero’s and such ancient people’s behaviour.
And so the Wild Coot proposes to continue his study of hermaphrodites and the human DNA and examine how it relates to the strident cry abroad, (and a few here) for things like same sex marriage, repealing of laws confronting homosexuals and lesbians.
Such a study will not only enlighten us as to whether or not we are out of step with civilization just as we seem to be out of step with economic progress and prognosis. We may be out of step by foregoing the rope.
In the cross-fertilization of millions of cells making up the human DNA, it is reasonable to see where such things like a mixing up of genes that control outlook, our sexual orientation, our propensity for silence or our proclivity to be untruthful may have received deviance.
Recently we have seen a hounding of a few people said to be involved in human trafficking. Was this in response to accusations from abroad? Don’t we know where it has been happening all over Barbados since Adam was a lad? Maybe it is in our DNA. This hounding has now gravitated to poor Sir Roy. You believe Sir Bobby is sorry?
• Harry Russell is a retired banker; Email quijote70@gmail.com