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So I was reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baratron's journal -- most specifically the most recent two entries (which would be this one and that one), which wound up dropping me off at this link to . . . I guess commentary on one of PETA's more entertaining ad campaigns. (Presuming, that is, that like me you can be easily amused by public displays of rampaging moronity.)
Anyway. I started one of our trademark Weird, Rambling Conversations, this one starting off with my bafflement at the idea of a cultural default of shaving the pelvic region. Hell, most people I know deal with the leg-shaving meme as, "Yes, I know it's expected that I shave my thights, but I'm not gonna bother."
It occurred to me that the removing of body hair strikes me as a process of desexualisation. Given that body hair is a secondary sexual characteristic and all, and also that mannequins and other forms of fake human don't have any. ;) Kevin finds this a little weird, though after I explained it to him he figured he could see where I got there and such.
I'm deeply disturbed by the aspects of culture I see that seem to indicate that the ideal sex partner is a just post-pubescent girl (especially if she has Gigantic Breasts, but that's just one of those delightful inconsistencies I know and love); the lack of strongly visible secondary sexual characteristics is part of that. Especially as it comes coupled with the notion that actual just-barely-post-pubescents should under no circumstances be actually tolerated to be having sex, wherever could they get the idea from? (See also: delightful inconsistencies.)
It seems to be tied into the madonna/whore thing. Hairless = pure = virginal = good = clean. Something like. Weirds me out no end. (I'd add "= artificial" because of the mannequins, but that may be a personal quirk.)
There was more of this, but we finished that aspect of the conversation about two hours ago and went on to marked and unmarked behaviour patterns, discrimination, social awareness, and activism, and I didn't actually finish writing. Oh well. :}
baratron's journal -- most specifically the most recent two entries (which would be this one and that one), which wound up dropping me off at this link to . . . I guess commentary on one of PETA's more entertaining ad campaigns. (Presuming, that is, that like me you can be easily amused by public displays of rampaging moronity.)Anyway. I started one of our trademark Weird, Rambling Conversations, this one starting off with my bafflement at the idea of a cultural default of shaving the pelvic region. Hell, most people I know deal with the leg-shaving meme as, "Yes, I know it's expected that I shave my thights, but I'm not gonna bother."
It occurred to me that the removing of body hair strikes me as a process of desexualisation. Given that body hair is a secondary sexual characteristic and all, and also that mannequins and other forms of fake human don't have any. ;) Kevin finds this a little weird, though after I explained it to him he figured he could see where I got there and such.
I'm deeply disturbed by the aspects of culture I see that seem to indicate that the ideal sex partner is a just post-pubescent girl (especially if she has Gigantic Breasts, but that's just one of those delightful inconsistencies I know and love); the lack of strongly visible secondary sexual characteristics is part of that. Especially as it comes coupled with the notion that actual just-barely-post-pubescents should under no circumstances be actually tolerated to be having sex, wherever could they get the idea from? (See also: delightful inconsistencies.)
It seems to be tied into the madonna/whore thing. Hairless = pure = virginal = good = clean. Something like. Weirds me out no end. (I'd add "= artificial" because of the mannequins, but that may be a personal quirk.)
There was more of this, but we finished that aspect of the conversation about two hours ago and went on to marked and unmarked behaviour patterns, discrimination, social awareness, and activism, and I didn't actually finish writing. Oh well. :}
From:
no subject
I don't know it's an argument so much as . . . I suddenly realized that that's how it strikes me when I was talking about it. (I can't see it as an argument beause I'm not actually arguing for anything. For once. ;) ) I find the cultural expectation of same really, deeply weird.
The deeply wacky part about it for me is that this thing that hits me as being desexualising is justified as part and parcel of sexual attractiveness; it seems like one of those strange dualities that's bound up in a lot of approaches to sexuality.