http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg163/COOLCAT74/christina_ricci.jpg

>> ^deathcow:

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg163/COOLCAT74/christina_ricci.jpg


Is that from a movie? If so, which one?

Whoa.

>> ^cybrbeast:

>> ^deathcow:
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg163/COOLCAT74/christina_ricci.jpg

Is that from a movie? If so, which one?


I would guess Bel Ami (2011).

Ricci can totally grow out her armpit hair if she wants to. That way, when I move from breast to breast, I can shove my nose into her armpit really quick and give a good bloodhound SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFFFWUBBMPH really fast.

>> ^deathcow:

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg163/COOLCAT74/christina_ricci.jpg


What are you doing? You don't waste that picture, throwing it around in comments for cheap upvotes, you save it up. Then one day when you have the time to appreciate it properly, maybe pour yourself a glass of wine, and have a good long session.

Each picture has only a certain number of ogle units, they have to be carefully rationed.

That girl's getting better with age.

> maybe pour yourself a glass of wine

did you not see the picture? Ms. Ricci brings me my wine

Tags for this video have been changed from 'victorian, film, nude scene, ricky gervais, stephen merchant, graham norton, show' to 'victorian, film, nude scene, ricky gervais, stephen merchant, graham norton, show, ivy' - edited by calvados

>> ^rougy:

That girl's getting better with age.


I initially read that as, "That girl's getting older with age", and I had a good laugh.

I agree with your comment as stated but I find it funnier the other way, no offense.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I've never understood the shaved under-arm fetish. It's just more cultural body modification akin to lip plates, ear rings or teeth blackening. It's totally wrong and crazy that people see the natural state of the human body as "gross".

TLDR: You can see what color the carpet is from viewing the drapes.

I don't see anything wrong or crazy about it. Is a man shaving his face or cutting his hair or trimming his nails an abomination?>> ^dag:

I've never understood the shaved under-arm fetish. It's just more cultural body modification akin to lip plates, ear rings or teeth blackening. It's totally wrong and crazy that people see the natural state of the human body as "gross".

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Not an abomination, no. But why is there so much squeemishness and stigma against women who don't shave their undarms? I tell you it's the natural state of a human being, and I much, much prefer it in a lady.>> ^Xax:

I don't see anything wrong or crazy about it. Is a man shaving his face or cutting his hair or trimming his nails an abomination?>> ^dag:
I've never understood the shaved under-arm fetish. It's just more cultural body modification akin to lip plates, ear rings or teeth blackening. It's totally wrong and crazy that people see the natural state of the human body as "gross".

This is also the natural state of a human being. Natural ≠ better (not always, at least).

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

That's ridiculously NOT the natural state of a human..>> ^Sarzy:

This is also the natural state of a human being. Natural ≠ better (not always, at least).

Dag I think you are in the minority position on this one.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I'm happy to be in the minority on this one. Might be interesting to look into the psychology of why we prefer our females shaved. It's a good way to mask secondary sexual characteristcs and roll back the clock on puberty.>> ^deathcow:

Dag I think you are in the minority position on this one.

I'm with Dag on this one. While I have nothing against shaved armpits, and quite like them, and shaving in general for that matter. This DISGUST and AGHASTNESS that... dear god, she must not shave her underarms for whole weeks, nay months... is just ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with it at all.

There is nothing wrong with either way of being.

Having said that... I can't quite come at hairy legs on a woman. Sorry, that's just as bad really, but I've known a couple of 'feminist' types who let their leg hair grow, and I'm afraid I can't stomach it.

I blame society for that.

I like my women to shave their lips. Both sets. Thanks.

>> ^dag:

I've never understood the shaved under-arm fetish. It's just more cultural body modification akin to lip plates, ear rings or teeth blackening. It's totally wrong and crazy that people see the natural state of the human body as "gross".


People dislike body hair, in part, for the same reason that people have so little body hair compared to other animals--evolution has equipped us with a predisposition to be against it. Natural selection would disfavor body hair because it can harbor parasites. Sexual selection would disfavor body hair because physical fitness of a mate is inversely correlated with age which in turn is correlated with body hair; the less body hair you have, the more fit you are likely to be. Remember, for most of evolution, an age of 30 was over the hill. Sexual selection would also disfavor body hair because it could conceal wounds or disease. Also, the sex hormone testosterone promotes body hair growth. The more body hair you have, the more likely you are to be male. Evolution directing people's sexual tastes to generally favor the characteristics of the opposite sex would then cause men to prefer mates with less body hair than found on other men.

There are conscious reasons to disfavor body hair. For example, most body odor comes from bacteria that feed on sweat, not directly from the sweat itself. A tuft of armpit hair is essentially a city of multi-story apartment buildings for bacteria. With shaved armpits, you need less deodorant. With showering daily, I find that I rarely need to use deodorant.

For the record, I'm male, and I prefer as little body hair as possible on females and on myself.

sineral, say hello to our friend confirmatory bias.

took 2 seconds to find this and this. don't ignore evidence that isn't what you want to hear.

it's probably just my internal resentment of having 50% gorilla DNA and having wolverines sideburns growing down the sides of my back

my golly she is soooo much more sexy then I remember. GO HER GO !

ENTHUSIASM !

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Yes, this. @sineral- it's an interesting idea- but I call BS that no hair is an indicator for biological fitness.>> ^berticus:

sineral, say hello to our friend confirmatory bias.
took 2 seconds to find this and this. don't ignore evidence that isn't what you want to hear.

Sorry berticus, and dag, but based on the abstracts of those two studies, neither of them refute the points I was making. The second study does not discuss body hair. The first study discusses women's views of male body hair; but this thread was focused on men's views of female body hair, so that is what I addressed.

In my earlier post, I specifically said that evolution would drive people to favor the characteristics generally displayed by the opposite sex. Men generally have more body hair than women, women should therefore generally find attractiveness in levels of body hair higher than what women have. This idea is not in disagreement with the idea that human evolution in general disfavors body hair. "Disfavors" is relative, and feelings about body hair are not binary propositions.

If you have a species with a full coat of hair, like a gorilla, and a full coat has evolutionary advantage, then you would expect evolution to predispose the individuals to preferring the full coat. If circumstances then changed such that, for example a coat only 50% as thick provided the same benefits, and there was some disadvantage to the hair in general, then the net result is that evolution would favor the 50% coat over the full thickness coat. Given enough time, it would be natural for evolution to then predispose the individuals to prefer the 50% coat also. How this preference would manifest itself psychologically is another issue; It could be that individuals would find a 100% coat attractive but a 50% coat more attractive, or they could find the 100% coat unattractive. Repeat this process for a change to 25% coat, 10%, 5%, etc. Evolution would clearly be disfavoring body hair, even though at any point in time the individuals may prefer some amount of it.

Regardless of the specifics of how it happened, it is a fact that humans have significantly less hair than their ancestors. You must agree this is a result of evolution; the alternative is to claim it's magic. This change occurred early in human evolution, long before magazines or fashion or cosmetics industries. For our comparative hairlessness to be so universal, it had to have been a widespread issue in sexual and/or natural selection. For it to have been widespread, there would almost certainly had to have been a strong benefit.

With regards to the second study, just because one feature(body size) is influenced by culture does not mean others must be also. And even if a particular trait is influenced by culture, it does not mean that evolution's influence is smaller. You can't even use that study to say that those who prefer the thinner body type are shallow or vain or whatever. What would such a claim even mean? The only way to meaningfully argue against the preference for the thinner body type would be to show that that body type is unhealthy. You can argue that only in the most extreme cases, i.e. anorexia, but the study was not addressing extreme thinness. Nor can you make much of an argument that those who prefer thinness are being abnormally picky; a preference for larger bodies is every bit as much a preference as one for thin bodies. Due to the wording of the abstract, the best you could say is that those who prefer thin bodies are slightly more picky than those who prefer larger ones. Also, the fact that these two different cultures have different preferences could easily have a reasonable explanation behind it. Such as, it's an unfortunate fact that African Americans in general have had a lower socio-economic status than Anglo Americans throughout American history, with this problem having been much worse even in the relatively recent past. Peoples with poor access to resources tend to more favorably view displays of wealth, and a large body size is a sign of ready access to food. This dynamic can be seen in other cultures throughout history.

You accused me of confirmation bias, berticus. I could easily say the same of you. You were already in disagreement with my position, you found these two studies, at a quick glance they seemed to be ammunition against me, so you referenced them without bothering to spend time thinking about what the claims in the abstracts might mean. Indeed, you point out that it only took "2 seconds" to find them; taking two seconds to find them would be moot if it took 10 minutes figuring out what they meant. I could argue that your statement of a two second search time therefore indicates you did not take the time to carefully read or think about what you found. I don't know if this is the case or not, I'm merely pointing out that your claim of confirmation bias is unfounded and works both ways.

And in general, even if something is predominantly determined by culture, that does not mean there is something wrong with the preference. Nor does something being "natural" or set by evolution mean it must be right. Evolution could favor something that is 99% bad if what it is replacing is bad 99.9% of the time. This is the issue that started this conversation. Dag's comment stated that people who prefer hairlessness are in the wrong since having hair is "natural". But this is meaningless, because not only is it "natural" that our species is losing its hair, but "natural" has no bearing on whether something is good or bad. Our constantly increasing ability to do the unnatural is what, in part, sets us apart from the rest of the animals. Vaccines, antibiotics, computers, fortified foods, and space exploration are all examples of things that are both unnatural and good for society.

If a person wants to modify their body in an "unnatural" way, more power to them. As long as they are not harming others, you have no place to claim any moral objection. And if they are not even harming themselves, you have no means to mount any kind of meaningful objection whatsoever. In the case of piercings, you could, for example, argue that there is a possibility of infection or inadvertently being snagged and ripped out; but with modern clothing and shelter for temperature control and protection from the sun, no such argument can be made against body hair removal.

>> ^dag:

Yes, this. @sineral- it's an interesting idea- but I call BS that no hair is an indicator for biological fitness.>> ^berticus:
sineral, say hello to our friend confirmatory bias.
took 2 seconds to find this and this. don't ignore evidence that isn't what you want to hear.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

OK, I actually read that whole thing, and you make some good points- but it's a big assumption to state that humans are "losing their hair". First off, let's call hair what it is- fur. The human species has varying amounts of fur tufts all over the body. I would argue that evolution is not leading us to a species completely lacking in fur- but has decided that the tufts that we have are the advantageous amounts.

Here's why I think we have those tufts:

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Since we're on the subject of armpit hair in general (and who the hell knows when the conversation will swing back in this direction...), I have to share a little story.

Years ago, I used to subscribe to Rolling Stone. Right after Steve Clark had died, the magazine caught up with the remaining members of Def Leppard and did an interview with them. I flipped to the article and began reading; the article starting off with a nice page-sized picture of the remaining members, minus drummer Rick Allen. I noticed it, but didn't think anything of it at that moment, so I keep reading. I turn the page, and stare at another page-sized picture, and there's Rick, shirtless. Missing his arm. With armpit hair.

You know, I knew he only had one arm, and naturally, he didn't shave. But I never put the two together until it was abruptly put in front of me like that. Man....(shakes head, dazed) It was like moss growing on the side of a tree, you know? Just kind of took me by surprise.

Anyway...

> ENTHUSIASM !

I read that as

EUTHANASIA!

Thats not combing, Dag. Thats delousing.

> ^sineral:

Sorry berticus, and dag, but based on the abstracts of those two studies, neither of them refute the points I was making. The second study does not discuss body hair. The first study discusses women's views of male body hair; but this thread was focused on men's views of female body hair, so that is what I addressed.



Well, to be fair, the majority of your post was gender non-specific. It was only the last part of the first paragraph where you suggested something about males explicitly. Still, your clarified claim then is that there are evolutionary reasons for hair preference, and a preference dissociation between the genders. The reason I coughed up those two quick studies was to illustrate that there CAN BE a) evidence to the contrary, and b) evidence that is counterintuitive. I am not claiming that an evolutionary argument is wrong, only that there are alternative explanations and data which you don't seem to even be considering.

In my earlier post, I specifically said that evolution would drive people to favor the characteristics generally displayed by the opposite sex. Men generally have more body hair than women, women should therefore generally find attractiveness in levels of body hair higher than what women have.



There's a problem here. The corollary would be: [women generally have less body hair than men, men should therefore generally find attractiveness in levels of body hair lower than what men have]. That's fine, but the study I cited found that women generally preferred some hair on men, not "more is always better". If you flip the genders, men would generally prefer some hair on women, but not "less is always better". So why would it be that men prefer women with less hair than they naturally have but women do not prefer men with more hair than they naturally have? Why a gender dissociation?



With regards to the second study, just because one feature(body size) is influenced by culture does not mean others must be also. And even if a particular trait is influenced by culture, it does not mean that evolution's influence is smaller.



Sure, but the point was just to illustrate that there are alternative explanations. Evolution undoubtedly is involved in almost anything, to some degree, but data from studies like these point to a large contribution from culture.


You accused me of confirmation bias, berticus. I could easily say the same of you.



It would be confirmation bias if I completely ignored your evidence (actually, you haven't presented any, so let's just say your argument instead) and only looked at evidence that agreed with what I believe. I read your argument, and then pointed to some evidence that offers alternative explanations (admittedly, clarification of your argument has slightly changed things). The reason I said you had the bias is that you don't appear to have considered alternative explanations.

For everything else, I think I agree with you. Also, for what it's worth, I think human sexuality has so much variation it's almost ridiculous to talk about preferences.