Yes, but if I was a chick I'd be a slut.

How do you know? Same sex sexual intercourse is very common among social mammals and is believed to strengthen social bonds and lubricate the social machinery. It's likely that human males are adapted so that they are sexually compatible with eachother biologically. As adidasss points out, we do have a G-spot up there. If you imagine a society (or lack of one) where we didn't label ourselves as "hetero" or "***" and tried to live accordingly, but instead were more open minded and free in regards to our sexuality. Then I'm sure many heterosexual men would have sex with other heterosexual men. 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.

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.

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 ;)

really?

Appearantly.

I'm not digging on homosexuals at all, I just gave reasons for why I think a heterosexual lifestyle is aight, sheesh.

I'm not really opposed to sex acts even if I deem them as not being compatable with what was biologically intended because we do so many unnatural things anyway and I don't consider these things morally wrong by any means. We have free will now, we're not cavemen anymore having to do things purely out of instinct.

Sex's primary biological function IS reproduction, but do I believe that's all sex should be used for? F*ck no. It has many other benefits and that includes for homosexual relationships, I think it's perfectly healthy. Sorry if I came off sounding like Ted Haggard.

Well I do think the ancient Egyptians (women included) shaved their heads because of the excruciating heat.

Anyway all I ever meant was that homosexual intercourse isn't what was originally intended biologically but I'm not saying that makes it unhealthy or unnatural. In the same way I don't think my fetish is unhealthy or unnatural. I know what it's like to be different and how people can be d*cks about that so I have great respect for homosexuals who aren't ashamed of their sexuality.

I'm also aware that homosexuality is present in other animals.

Still I think an assh*le is a poor substitute for a vag. Anal sex doesn't seem very appealing to me no matter which role I'd be filling. That's just personal preference (and assumption) though and if you love the butt sex more power to ya.

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.

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.

Actually, Tore, shaving in one form or the other apparently HAS gone on for several thousands of years in some pockets of humanity:

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:

Mouseskin eyebrows, anyone? Hey! Maybe that's what Freebase has!!! ;)

I think what Tore means is that the desire for hairless women is influenced by the basic biological desire to have an attractive mate, this is common animal behavior, not just human behavior. Shucks some birds actually remove feathers they deem undesirable to make themselves more attractive to mates, sound familiar eh? ;)

While it's true that the preference is influenced by our culture. So are many things that we still have the right to prefer and often do prefer. Even if there was no longer social stigma against people like you who prefer not to shave, people will always have their own preferences meaning that many people like me will still prefer women with smooth legs, the same way many women still prefer men without beards even though beards are acceptable as a symbol of masculinity.

I think everybody has the right to choose what to do with their bodies, and in fact they already do have that choice. Sure they will be mocked but people who get mocked for being weird are by no means a minority and they still have made their choice, because that makes them feel better and that's more important than what complete strangers think about you.

And vice versa people have a right to "conform" if that makes them feel better. A lot of women still choose to have long hair which is what is culturally desirable but I don't consider them weak or slaves for doing so nor do I have a problem with it because I still like women with hair and besides as long as there's a few gals who will challenge the norm by going dome I'm satisfied.

In that case nothing would be different. :wave:

I don't think Tore was talking generically about sexual selection, which is an accepted reason for the selection of certain sexual traits over evolutionary time, such as women tending to have larger breasts than men.

I think Tore is arguing that women having less body hair, and men desiring women with less body hair, resulted from evolutionary processes hardwiring this preference into people's psyches.

Yet we really don't know if early female hominids developed less apparent body hair than males due to sexual selection for less body hair (which would mean that men picked as their mates the women who had less body hair), or due to natural selection favoring other female attributes, such as hormone levels that increase fertility, with less body hair simply being a byproduct of the traits that actually were the focus of the selection pressure.
Perhaps men, raised without a culture that condemns women's body hair, actually would have no preference for shaved women over women who have their body hair. I argue that the evidence suggests that men are just fine with women who have their body hair, except when the culture has taught men and women that hairless women are more desirable and sexier than women who have their natural body hair.

Humans are *very* susceptible to environmental influence. In fact, that plasticity in our feelings and reactions is one of the defining traits of humans, I'd say. All humans probably feel a sensation of "disgust," but WHAT we feel disgusted by is partly and sometimes largely or solely a product of culture. I argue that culture (not innate biology) has caused people to feel disgusted by women's body hair.

Culture has an influence over all of our lives weither we like it or not including yours.

The fact is female bodyshaving beaome a social norm because somebody, a lot of people actually, felt that this was desirable. So it's silly to say that anyone who prefers the shaved look only prefers it because we have been told to.

The fact is for most people, what we end up finding sexually attractive is very often influenced by what we were expiencing growing up and during puberty, because that's the stage where we are coming to terms with our sexuality and what we are attracted to.

And because women exposing their hairless legs is more common it's natural to be more attracted to them because of how that has influenced us when coming to terms with our sexuality, we now associate it with being a feminine trait. For one nobody EVER had to tell me that women were supposed to shave their legs, I just always felt that way out of preference. In fact it took me a while to realise they could even grow hair there.

I associate hair on the body with masculinity, and lets be honest that isn't too irrational a belief at all, because hair on the body is a byproduct of testosterone, naturally hairy men have higher testosterone levels than less hairy guys and vice versa if a women is naturally more hairy than others that's a sign of low estrogen levels and not balancing out the testosterone causing more hair to grow.

It's a fact that women do have less hair than men because we have more testosterone. And it's not irrational to associate testosterone with masculinity and estrogen with femininity because there is some truth to that. And because we've gotten used to seeing women with less hair it became a sexual preference over time because that's biologically natural to happen.

We find boobs attractive because women have them and we don't and it's easier to be attracted to something you don't have. If most women were flat chested we'd probably find boobs grotestque. Because women shave their legs and we don't that becomes something we desire too, naturally, not because we're told to find it attractive. It's natural for people's ideals and perception of beauty to change over time because the environment changes and when the environment changes so do people's tastes, that has always been the case and it's basic human nature, it's not some conspiracy.

I agree sexual preferences are shaped a lot by experiences we have while growing up. I also agree that nature (inborn desire) plays a role, too.

No, it isn't a conspiracy, but I also don't like how shaving was pressed on women to a large extent by "the environment."

Shaving large areas of women's bodies became common in the West in the 1900s due to companies wanting to sell their shaving products and using advertising to get women to think they should buy them. Though not conspiracy, it was marketing that exploited women's insecurities at a time when women NEEDED men for financial security and survival (in the early 1900s). If women were told they needed to do XY&Z to be attractive, they probably would, and companies knew this.

Back in the early 1900s, when women responded to advertisements that told them their hair was superfluous and unattractive, women's job opportunities and legal rights were not good in the Western world. If women didn't marry, they often faced a pretty bleak future. Shaving companies preyed on women's fears of economic insecurity. In fact, they advertised shaving for women by telling women that it would bring them economic security. So, this is how shaving became a norm. I feel that is sad.