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Originally Posted by tore
The idea that sex is only ever used for reproduction is what has given rise to the idea of homosexual "activity" as unnatural, but that idea was debunked a long time ago.
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Very true. Humans don't have sex just for reproduction and often don't want to reproduce when they have sex. Sex is often just for pleasure, for love, for company, or just to satisfy a partner...and you can have that with someone whether that person is male or female. Homosexuality is completely natural and healthy.
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Originally Posted by tore
As for shaving the hair, it might not be such an unnatural thing to do either. I wrote earlier that body hair on women can be indicative of relatively high testosterone levels which may well lower a woman's chance of getting pregnant and having a child. So, it makes sense that the preference for less hair is to some extent rooted in biology even if the actual action of shaving isn't.
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A preference for less hair in women may be rooted in biology, and yet, Tore, if it really were the case that an anti-hair feeling were strong due to instinctive reasons, then we would no longer expect to see the very common trait that girls going through puberty start to grow darker, more visible hair, since this trait appears to be easily eradicted biologically. For example, people (women AND men) of Asian ancestry often have very little visible body hair.
Most ethnic groups of humans, however, DO have women who develop very visible body hair. I suspect that this trait, if it were selected against through natural selection, would be an easy one to negate (we'd all have Asian body hair, for example). The fact that many men in many cultures don't appear to mind women's body hair suggests that the dislike of women's body hair by some men (mostly in the U.S.?) is mostly cultural.
Also, Tore, the recent emergence of the shaving fad for women's body hair began only in 1915 in the U.S. So, I would argue that this distaste toward women's very natural body hair is mostly a result of cultural influences, not deep biological drives. Men in the 1800s didn't appear to be complaining about their women's body hair...at least, I don't think so!
If environmental influences can turn a baby into a vicious killer (such as a Nazi concentration camp worker who used Jewish babies for target practice...a common occurrence), then it can also turn him into someone who feels repulsed by leg hair. Take the same baby, put him in a friendly environment, and he'll probably end up being caring toward all religious groups and accepting of, even affectionate toward, women's leg hair.
German women, for example, didn't shave their leg hair very often for much of the last century. When I visited Germany in the 80s, a lot of high school girls had their leg hair, and it was a non-issue for the boys in their lives. I think the "hair-is-bad-on-women" commercials have made shaving more common in Germany since that time, though. Sigh.
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Originally Posted by tore
We can't say for sure that there were no cultures where women had methods for getting rid of body hair many thousands of years ago  |
Actually, Tore, shaving in one form or the other apparently HAS gone on for several thousands of years in some pockets of humanity:
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The Shaving Historical Timeline
4000 - 3000 B.C. -
Women are removing body hair by making their own depilatory creams that contain bizarre combinations of scary ingredients, such as arsenic, quicklime and starch.
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But before ascribing strong biological reasons for the above hair removal, consider that you will also then have to claim strong biological reasons for THIS hair removal:
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MID to LATE 1700s -
Both men and women remove all hair from the forehead to wear artificial press-on mouseskin eyebrows.
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Mouseskin eyebrows, anyone? Hey! Maybe that's what Freebase has!!!