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Need Moral Support

Satjot Kaur

SPNer
Jan 6, 2008
45
1
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.

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.

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.
 
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.

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". :up:

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
 

Satjot Kaur

SPNer
Jan 6, 2008
45
1
why do I need clothes on those muggy cloudy summer days?

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.
 
Last edited:

Sherab

SPNer
Mar 26, 2007
441
20
USA
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?
 
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.

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:eek:

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? (lol)

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.
 

Dan Rowden

SPNer
Jan 12, 2008
5
0
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.
 

Satjot Kaur

SPNer
Jan 6, 2008
45
1
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.

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.
 

Dan Rowden

SPNer
Jan 12, 2008
5
0
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.
 

Satjot Kaur

SPNer
Jan 6, 2008
45
1
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.
 

Dan Rowden

SPNer
Jan 12, 2008
5
0
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 :{;o: /joke
 
Oct 14, 2007
3,369
54
Sachkhand
Does that make you feel good.?Why are you guided by some sign posts made by your society.?You have to convince yourself. Who is bothered whether you keep hair on legs or hands?.Believe me not even a single person.Only you would know. People do not have time to see and then analyse and then laugh or grin.Keep the hair if it is ok with you throw them apart if it is not. Where is the problem.? These are manufactured by yourself.
 

Dan Rowden

SPNer
Jan 12, 2008
5
0
Firstly, who cares? How about everyone who thinks this is an "appropriate" thing for women to do, and that not doing it is socially "inappropriate". This can be a powerful psychological and even practical force against which women who don't follow such trends must endure. I'm not sure you realise how much a woman who is different in such ways can be ostracized from female "community" and acceptance. Certainly the degree to which things effect you is created to some extent by the significance you grant the opinions of others, but one ought not underestimate the effects one can suffer by choosing to not follow such social memes. Ask any American atheist, for example, if it's easy being that different in many American communities.
 
Oct 14, 2007
3,369
54
Sachkhand
If today it is hair, tomorrow it may be the color of my hair and day after it shall be the color of my dress..and so on so forth..there is no end to the list. American Society is an amprphous term. What is soicety.I am society in myself. It is a subterfuge.
Yes kaur ji, you have not thought of what you want.It is that matters. Rest is all paraphrenalia.
 
Apr 4, 2007
934
29
this issue is one that drives me nuts. i've never really felt the need to shave my legs, even before becoming sikh. it just seemed like a silly waste of time to me. maybe i'm lucky in that i'm not terribly hairy, but overall, these stupid media driven ideas of beauty have never really dragged me in.

here's my suggestion. just throw out the razor, throw out the shaving cream, and let it grow. once it gets past the stubble stage it's actually soft.

i think the idea that men want hairless women is created by the media. i've never met a man who actually cared that much about whether a woman shaved their legs or not (and i'm talking about american guys here).

just do it. who cares what everyone else thinks. :)

from wikipedia:

For women, the practice of shaving the legs derives from a current cultural standard in the West that deems leg hair on women unattractive. This standard emerged during the early twentieth century, as women's legs became more visible owing to shorter hemlines, and when the safety razor made the practice of leg shaving practical. The reasons for this cultural standard are debated, but it is sometimes seen as an example of a cultural mechanism for increasing sexual dimorphism. Others have suggested that it was promoted as a means of selling razors to a broader segment of the populace.

Leg shaving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

see... it's all a plot to sell razors. :)
 
Oct 14, 2007
3,369
54
Sachkhand
here's my suggestion. just throw out the razor, throw out the shaving cream, and let it grow. once it gets past the stubble stage it's actually soft.
just do it. who cares what everyone else thinks. :)
:)

A good one! and that is what is needed. Let them bother.Why bother for them who bother not.

Bon Voy......

edited
 
Last edited by a moderator:

kds1980

SPNer
Apr 3, 2005
4,502
2,743
43
INDIA
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.

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.

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.

I support your decision to not to shave legs.Be strong. keep it up
 

Astroboy

ਨਾਮ ਤੇਰੇ ਕੀ ਜੋਤਿ ਲਗਾਈ (Previously namjap)
Writer
SPNer
Jul 14, 2007
4,576
1,609
Reactance is an emotional reaction in direct contradiction to rules and/or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms; it can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended and also increases resistance to persuasion. A mild example could be a boy being all the more interested in a girl playing "hard to get", or teenagers drinking to excess in an environment of prohibition when they would not do so in a less restrictive culture. People using "reverse psychology" are playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance, attempting to influence someone to choose the opposite of what they request. This is a frequent method used in fraudulent or unethical sales pitches, manipulating a consumer into choosing an option they would not necessarily have chosen logically.
 

spnadmin

1947-2014 (Archived)
SPNer
Jun 17, 2004
14,500
19,219
Wow!!!

Dan ji, You are pulling our leg (s) as we talk about shaving our legs.

Very droll indeed.

Jasleen however makes several points that hold up under analysis. Shaving one's legs is a problem that can solve itself without a lot of fuss and bother. Hair grows back soft. Many groups (e.g., African-American women) tend not to shave and no one cares one way or the other. If you wear slacks or stockings or gams no one will know if you shave. You won't cut yourself and bleed all over the nice clean bathroom floor ever again. And that is one less thing you have to do in the morning.
 
Jan 15, 2008
282
5
Kansas & Haiti
Who says men like shaved legs? I used to wax myself until I married this awesome husband of mine who begged me not to shave a single part of me ever again.

So I didn't.

Some men like real women. Maybe that's because they're real men?

:)
 

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