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?

虽然我不是很了解你的情况，但是每天早上我都看到我的男朋友刮胡子。这就是一件例行的公事——洗澡，梳头，挂胡子，刷牙，然后穿衣服。曾经有一次，我问他为什么你要刮胡子呢？他回答说“为什么呢？我也不知道呢！看上去年轻些，有活力些。刮了胡子会呈现给其他人（陌生人和熟人）一张干净的脸。”

洗澡，很容易理解。如果不洗澡，你就会开始发臭。梳头发也很容易理解。如果不梳头，就会看上去乱糟糟的。如果不刷牙，牙齿就会蛀掉，脱落。还有，很显然地，穿衣服那也是件必要的事情。

剃毛是利用被称为剃刀的锋利刀片，或者其他任何种类的刀片状工具将体毛割掉，直到皮肤表面。男人们通常就通过剃毛去除他们面部的毛发。

男人刮胡子自古有之。石器时代的人很有可能用石头刀来刮胡子。还有迹象显示他们甚至可能用火来剪头发。胡子让他们很不舒服，吃东西的时候总是会把他们弄脏。

但是为什么，对大多数的男人们来说，必须要把脸上的毛发都刮干净呢？很显然刮不刮胡子和健康什么的都没有关系。为什么我们要把时间和金钱花在每天刮胡子上面呢？

我做了一些调查研究，发现了很多原因：

人类自石器时代就开始刮胡子了：

—为了去掉虱子，跳蚤和小虫子的繁殖环境

—为了防止在搏斗的时候被敌人握住胡子不放

—为了吃东西的时候方便

—和迷信联系起来，衰老和死亡之神总是长着大大的络腮胡。还有迷信说法说，灵魂是通过长在头上的毛发进入人的体内的。

理发师“Barber”这个单词，来源于拉丁文中的“barba”一词，是胡子的意思。可能你会觉得很惊讶，关于理发师的最早的记录上说，他们是部落中最重要的人之一，还有药剂师和祭司。原始人很迷信。原始部落中的人他们相信每个人体内都有灵魂寄居，它们无论好坏都是通过头上的毛发进入人的身体的。

亚历山大大帝，从来没有在任何战争中被打败过，从来没有输给过波斯人，或者其他的任何人。但是他一直命令它的士兵要刮胡子，以免在战争中被抓住胡子。罗马人也是这样的。

你可以看到很多男人留有胡子，我确定留胡子肯定也有很多各种各样的理由。但是我现在可不想谈为什么要留胡子。我必须承认有些男人留着胡须或者八字胡确实蛮优雅的。

好了，现在该轮到你来谈谈了。先生，为什么你要刮胡子呢？