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Notes -
Sometimes societies just do crazy things. Consider foot-binding in China. Enormous amounts of pain and life-long infirmity inflicted on young girls for basically no reason other than it being high-status to have these small feet. The origin was in some dancer who the emperor praised, nobody is quite sure. It makes zero sense. The process is actually sickening to read about, wikipedia casually adds that the death rate from gangrene could be as high as 10%. There were full-scale wars less deadly than this 'cosmetic procedure'.
But it took on a life of its own. Foot-binding became a kind of resistance movement to the Qing dynasty (who tried to ban it several times but failed). We can only assume it was ferociously popular, a way of marrying up in society, conforming to norms. There must've been very deep and powerful emotions behind it, if it subverts a basic parental conception of 'not torturing your child'. But today it just sounds completely retarded to us and to everyone, especially the Chinese.
I agree it would be kind of hot to be a very attractive girl. But that's not something that's realistically possible. I have heard horror stories no less disturbing than foot-binding about those who try and fail. We should strive to think reasonably and logically before falling into either a collective or individual social phenomenon like this.
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