TESTOSTERONE IS DESTINY:

Bring out the beast: body hair in China: On the margins of civilisation and in the mists of evolution lurk hairy barbarians, furry primates and wild men. But why the fascination? Is it about getting back to our roots, or a fear of the beast within? (FRANK DIKOTTER, 12/04/02, OpenDemocracy)

Interest in body hair as a marker of civilisation was reinforced by the use of evolutionary theories from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Anthropologists and sociologists in China started to divide humanity into different stages of “racial development”.

The “raw” barbarian (shengfan), coated with thick hair, and an inhabitant of the dark forests of the mountains, became a symbol for the lowest stage of evolution. A development away from the lower furry species, “half-civilised races” (ban kaiming minzu) were thought to have attained the second level of evolution.

An entirely disinterested observation--it's difficult to escape the fact that Man's greatest cultural achievement--which is to say Western Civilization--is a product of the hairiest of the world's peoples. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 5, 2002 12:29 PM