> I shower daily at a local woman's college (after my swim), and I mourn the 
> bush! Truly I do. J

Featherstone was writing an article on this topic, she emailed SZ to see if 
he had any thoughts. He said, "No, and I hate myself for it!" He still 
hasn't had any thoughts, as far as I know. This is a guy who's written on 
different national styles of toilet.

Doug

--------------

A couple of years ago sitting on church steps for a smoke me and a much 
younger tech buddy were discussing the virtues of waxing. I had my 
suspicions...

But Calvin swore by it as increasing the stimulation.

Here is Zizek on toilets and ideology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=FJ73hLQ64Ng

It's an interesting take. In brief, during Hegel's time the european world 
was composed of three ideological traditions, the French, German, and 
English. These corresponded to three distinct styles of toilets. The french 
style shit drops in a hole in back and disappears in a radical plunge. The 
german style the hole is in front and shit drops on a little platform where 
one can inspect it, shiff to determine one's state of health and then give 
the flush. In the english version shit falls into water, where it can float 
around before it disappears, a sort of liberal interpretation with economic 
overtones. These correspond to conservative german tradition, the radical 
french, and the pragmatic-liberal english.

If I was going to apply Z's ideological principles to disappearing body 
hair, I would say, some complex over endless youth and eternal health with 
darker tones of Dorian Grey when a body can no longer sustain these 
illusions. Michael Smith sums it up in one word, Paedomorphism?

But these cultural problems with the body go far deeper into the collective 
psyche. Consider what to do about a dead body. Then we are immediately 
thrown into metaphysics.

Here is an interesting article on Roman burial practices and various 
changing belief systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_funerals_and_burial

Evidently there was a Welsh tradition to send the cloths of the dead off as 
gifts to the living relatives. I still have several pairs of heavy socks my 
ex-wife's grandfather wore. They were given to me by my mother-in-law. They 
lasted for years because I never wore them until recently.

CG


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