I don’t know about you, but every morning I see my boy friend shave. It’s a ritual — shower, comb hair, shav­e, brush teeth, dress. For some unknown reason I once asked him why does he shave? “Why? I don’t know, Youthfulness, shaving presents a clean face to the onlooker, conversant.”

Showering is easy to understand. If you don’t shower, you start to stink. Combing the hair is easy to understand too, because it would be a mess if you didn’t comb it. If you don’t brush your teeth, they rot and fall out. And dressing, obviously, is a necessity.

Shaving is the removal of body hair, using a sharp blade known as a razor or with any other kind of bladed implement, to slice it down to the level of the skin. Shaving is most commonly used by men to remove their facial hair, and a man is called clean shaven if he has had his removed totally.

Men have been shaving forever. Cavemen probably shaved with stone knives, and there’s some suggestion that they may even have trimmed their hair with fire. Beards can be uncomfortable, and they easily get nasty because they trap food.

But why is it that, for a majority of men, all facial hair must be removed? There certainly isn’t any health reason to shave it off. Why would we spend the time and money to go through this hair loss ritual each and every day?

Among the many reasons I found while doing some research men began shaving in Stone Age times were:

- To reduce the breeding grounds for lice, fleas and small rodents.
- To eliminate the beard as a place for an enemy to hang on during combat.
- To make it easier to eat.
- Superstition associated a heavily bearded man with old age and death, in addition to the superstitious belief of spirits which entered the body through hairs on the head.

“The word “barber” comes from the Latin word “barba,” meaning beard. It may surprise you to know that the earliest records of barbers show that they were the foremost men of their tribe. Medicine men and the priests. But primitive man was very superstitious and the early tribes believed that both good and bad spirits, which entered the body through the hairs on the head, inhabited every individual.

Alexander the Great never lost a battle, not to the Persians or to anyone else. But he did order his men shaved so that their beards could not be grabbed in battle. Same for the Romans.

Yet you find many men who support a beard and I am sure there are a variety of reasons for that too, but I am not getting into that right now. I must admit though that a beard or a moustache alone on some men look very graceful.

Now its your turn to talk, why do you shave guys?

雖然我不是很了解你的情況，但是每天早上我都看到我的男朋友刮胡子。這就是一件例行的公事——洗澡，梳頭，掛胡子，刷牙，然后穿衣服。曾經有一次，我問他為什么你要刮胡子呢？他回答說“為什么呢？我也不知道呢！看上去年輕些，有活力些。刮了胡子會呈現給其他人（陌生人和熟人）一張干凈的臉。”

洗澡，很容易理解。如果不洗澡，你就會開始發臭。梳頭發也很容易理解。如果不梳頭，就會看上去亂糟糟的。如果不刷牙，牙齒就會蛀掉，脫落。還有，很顯然地，穿衣服那也是件必要的事情。

剃毛是利用被稱為剃刀的鋒利刀片，或者其他任何種類的刀片狀工具將體毛割掉，直到皮膚表面。男人們通常就通過剃毛去除他們面部的毛發。

男人刮胡子自古有之。石器時代的人很有可能用石頭刀來刮胡子。還有跡象顯示他們甚至可能用火來剪頭發。胡子讓他們很不舒服，吃東西的時候總是會把他們弄臟。

但是為什么，對大多數的男人們來說，必須要把臉上的毛發都刮干凈呢？很顯然刮不刮胡子和健康什么的都沒有關系。為什么我們要把時間和金錢花在每天刮胡子上面呢？

我做了一些調查研究，發現了很多原因：

人類自石器時代就開始刮胡子了：

—為了去掉虱子，跳蚤和小蟲子的繁殖環境

—為了防止在搏斗的時候被敵人握住胡子不放

—為了吃東西的時候方便

—和迷信聯系起來，衰老和死亡之神總是長著大大的絡腮胡。還有迷信說法說，靈魂是通過長在頭上的毛發進入人的體內的。

理發師“Barber”這個單詞，來源于拉丁文中的“barba”一詞，是胡子的意思。可能你會覺得很驚訝，關于理發師的最早的記錄上說，他們是部落中最重要的人之一，還有藥劑師和祭司。原始人很迷信。原始部落中的人他們相信每個人體內都有靈魂寄居，它們無論好壞都是通過頭上的毛發進入人的身體的。

亞歷山大大帝，從來沒有在任何戰爭中被打敗過，從來沒有輸給過波斯人，或者其他的任何人。但是他一直命令它的士兵要刮胡子，以免在戰爭中被抓住胡子。羅馬人也是這樣的。

你可以看到很多男人留有胡子，我確定留胡子肯定也有很多各種各樣的理由。但是我現在可不想談為什么要留胡子。我必須承認有些男人留著胡須或者八字胡確實蠻優雅的。

好了，現在該輪到你來談談了。先生，為什么你要刮胡子呢？