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Originally Posted by kayleigh.
Its not a european thing. Its just different peoples preferences.
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I feel the hairlessness norm for women isn't just a personal preference but a cultural phenomenon. Apparently, women in the U.S. started shaving their underarms around 1915 in response to an ad, and the practice spread to some but not all countries.
The hairlessness norm for underarms and legs jumped to the U.K. around 1920, also, but it didn't get a hold of Continental Europe until after WWII, or so I've read. I observed that German girls in the 1980s often didn't shave their bodies, and no one found it gross there. Any Germans out there who can corroborate this?
If you find yourself disgusted by women's body hair, but not men's, then you are probably just a victim of cultural programming, mediated in large part by advertising companies and peer pressure that have been at work on you for your whole life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanilla
And hair under the arms carries B.O to a more significant level. Ewww...
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Does that mean you dislike both women's and men's underarm hair? This is interesting, since one hypothesis for why women and men retained underarm hair over evolutionary time is that underarm hair helps spread scents that were arousing to people.
I'd be curious what someone from a country where bathing isn't a common practice feels about the smell of underarms and underarm hair. My guess is they like it or at least don't feel any adversion to the scent.