Need moral support

I have decided to forego shaving my legs, and that is in keeping with Sikhism, so I ask you to help me feel better about my decision.

Who decided that women are supposed to shave our legs anyway? What purpose was it supposed to serve? Men were not goaded into shaving their legs. Men are not ridiculed for sporting a beard, so long as it is kept neat and clean.

In America when I was growing up, it was in middle school that girls started teasing me about the hair on my legs. My mother was opposed to me ever shaving my legs. My mother said that she did not want me to shave my legs because once I started, I could never stop. That did not seem logical to me, so I saved up my lunch money to buy shavers to shave my legs so I wouldn't be teased anymore. That's all I really wanted, to not be teased. I was teased for many things, but I will stick with this topic for this thread.

I am an adult now, and adults tend not to tease each other - but I'm sure the thoughts still go through people's heads and I suspect there is talking behind a person's back because I heard it as a child, about how ugly, nasty, gross, insert degrading comment here -- regarding either hair on the legs or the person whose legs were unshaven.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network - Think Discuss Share Learn Evolve http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/business-and-lifestyle/19201-need-moral-support.html

Pragmatically, shaving one's legs is a silly thing to do - but American society shames its little girls into consumerism (buying shavers, which end up as waste products after being used a few times). As adults, we continue to carry this shame that there is hair on our legs.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network - Think Discuss Share Learn Evolve http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=19201

If guys were not also brainwashed, they might find it more erotic to have sex with a woman with hair on her legs, as opposed to the inevitable stubble that occurs with shaving.

Guys like hair, to the point that some of them do some pretty funky things to cover up if they go bald - but somehow hair on the legs is undesirable? It is true that female swim fashion does not look good unless you shave, but why isn't that the fault of the fashion industry? I have a skirted suit to cover up the most obvious of hair, but guy's suits have always covered the pubic hairy region which yes, does extend onto the legs. That area is also sexually sensual, so there is good reason for it to be covered with hair. Nevertheless, due to mass brainwashing, hair there has been determined to be a major turn-off. Yet guys complain that there are not landmarks to show exactly where what touch produces what effect. Why not? Because mainstream guys think that they want us to shave off the landmarks.

Please, help me not feel so ashamed of having hair on my legs. God put it there, and I didn't take it away. What is so wrong with that? Nothing, logically, but society causes me to feel bad about it.

 
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Pragmatically, no social action or act of ornamentation seems necessary. But in reality it is. We have a choice...we can fit in...or stand out...or try to create our own norms (very difficult).

tomorrow i might try to go to work naked... i mean im going as myself aren't I?... why should I be ashamed of my body...why do I need clothes on those muggy cloudy summer days? I can picture myself now...in all my glory...opening my boss's office door to say ..."HIYYAAAA PETE".

Pragmatically we are animals who are always ashamed of what we do when it doesnt fit the norm of our immediate cultural society.

These are all SOCIAL COSTS that have existed in society since man first organized into groups...it also visible in many social animals. many animals in the animal kingdom look for conformity...because conformity entails survival (which is the reason you cannot tell the difference between two Zebra's in a police line-up)

I was reading in a scientific journal once (i am unable to locate it)... that humans shave themselves because of evolution...because of divergeant evolution we wish to distance ourselves from primates (i know it is a wild theory)

but consider this:
Homosapiens have lost much of the hair on their body over the course of 3 million years because of the changes in our habitats and the invention of clothes.

Another physical cost is that of sexual selection
be prepared to be rejected and take it in stride.

whether you shave or not is a personal choice, and i am against the teasing...just tease back or ignore it...again your choice.

cheers

Because even with the best of wiping skills, there will still be some e. coli that migrates out of your **** continually, as well as the leaking of various other bodily fluids that are far more easily washed off of clothes than furniture. Actually, if you think about it, wearing shorts indoors is kind of gross - shedding all those skin cells all over the place. Outside is a different matter, because nature cleans and disinfects the outside world easily, but inside human-made structures, humans must put forth extra effort to clean and disinfect or pay the consequences of living in our own filth.

edit to add: I wanted to comment that the automatic editor makes it look like I said something worse than what I actually said. That was medically correct terminology for the hole that e. coli comes from.

Who says all guys do not like hair on the legs?

Maybe it is the exact same media that tricks you into buying shavers is the one that says guys won't like you?

You missed my point and you took my comical example too seriously.

So,
You wear clothes because you don’t want to spread your ‘excrements’ everywhere or do you wear clothes to ‘fit-in’? be honest now

Why don’t woman and men just wear see through T-shirts and other fabric to work if we are worried about spreading excrement? Why are we so biased and particular to the type of clothing that is “appropriate” and “normal”? what do you wear to work or school and who defines that as normal or acceptable? Why don’t you wear a Burka? (it will further protect you against dangerous strains of E. Coli? ()

Everyone conforms somewhere, at sometime in their life to ‘fit-in’. Everyone yields to authority and human consensus to some degree….It’s called the “lab-coat” effect.

You just asked for moral support…I happen to believe laughter is the best moral support a person can receive. Hopefully everyone looks at my post and just laughs it off…and this doesn’t become one of those HUMUNGO serious debates.

Plus this topic of “moral support” over the internet is a little lame
-I have heard of people asking for moral support if they desperately want to quite drinking, smoking or some sort of drug addiction
-or if they have been seriously injured or inflicted with a serious illness or disability.
-if they are depressed
-or if they are encountering abuse/harassment
-or if they have lost a loved one due to an untimely event.

I have never, honestly, been asked to give someone ‘moral support’ for shaving the hair off THEIR skin? So I found this post a little humorous.

There are only a couple of reasons I can think of for a woman to shave her legs: 1) some medical issue; 2) to fit in to social memes. The problem with fitting in with social memes is that they exist more or less in a moral and consciousness vacuum. To "fit in" without abandoning personal judgement and reason is all but impossible, frankly, unless society just happens to be functioning in a manner which meets your ethical and rational approval. Frankly, society telling women that to meet its aesthetic standards - unconscious and stupid as they may be - they must remove bodily hair is something that does not even remotely meet my personal ethical standards - so I reject it. For each individual person it's really a matter of doing what your reason and conscience dictates. Of course, the sad thing is that for the vast majority, neither thing enters the picture. As I implied earlier, if people actually thought about how and why and when they wish to "fit in", they wouldn't really be doing it.

Sinister, I did not miss your point. I did, however, find it hilarious that you thought that I did.

As for asking for moral support from a religious website - well, perhaps you missed my pun. Who wouldn't expect to find lots of morals on a religious website?

There is a serious side to this, as all 3 of us pointed out. The seriousness is in the herd mentality using emotions (including as you pointed out, withholding of romantic love) to promote behavior that is actually unhealthy. That's a lot of surface area to try to not cut while shaving, and there are a number of deadly infections that are resurfacing that get into the body through a cut or scrape (MRSA, VRE...).

True, that's only one reason, just like it was only one reason that I mentioned that we wear clothes. I only listed one good reason, but I could have listed many more. As for the social constructs regarding clothing, to a certain extent, there isn't anything wrong with dual purposes for clothing. The dual purpose for clothing is a communication device to other people, stating what our overall intentions for the general time period are.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network - Think Discuss Share Learn Evolve http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=19201
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network - Think Discuss Share Learn Evolve http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=19201

As philosophers, we should question the memes to find out if there is a sound reason for them, an unsound reason, or even a detrimental reason - then eliminate the detrimental actions. This is a function of wisdom.

I don't personally think there's much of an analogy to be offered between body hair removal and clothing. There are numerous practical reasons for wearing clothing up to and including legal prohibitions against not wearing such. Hair removal is a purely aesthetic concern, a fashion trend. Given that women are more profoundly connected in terms of their overall social identity to such fashions it follows that when they happen they tend to be regarded with considerable seriousness. i.e. where some social memes are concerned, a particular behavior may be seen as necessary for a female to be perceived as behaving in a womanly fashion (rather than just being fashionable, if you get the difference). These particular trends, whist in reality having no more intellectual or ethical substance than any other trivial aspect of fashion, are powerful social forces, and ones that I find deeply disturbing. I believe women in those western nations (or elsewhere) that still cling to this especially banal meme ought openly defy it, if only to express the fact they are a conscious, rational beings who won't be told by thoughtless herd animals what it means to be a woman.

Dan, I agree that there isn't much of an analogy between the womens practice of shaving leg hair and that omnigenderal practice of wearing clothes; but all things should be looked at judiciously. And frankly, I find your reasoning that we wear clothes because of legal prohibitions a rather weak argument for clothes. Laws made by humans should be based on rational thought, but this is not always the case.

My point about legal prohibitions doesn't imply such laws themselves are reasonable. I simply mean that it's reasonable to wear clothes rather than be fined, imprisoned or whatever. I'd make the same argument with respect to hair removal if it were legally mandated. I believe you can fight against bad laws whilst obeying them for practical reasons. Some of our laws regarding clothing clearly exist for specious reasons.
For attractive nubile females, clothing should always be optional /joke