If I may add my two cents on a less clear-cut issue than legs: most men don’t shave their chests, and actually many don’t have to. I have a very hairy chest, and never shave it (I did it once and it was too itchy and never did it again).
Following the last couple of posts by Simone and elijah, this is actually a good example: sometime between my teens and my thirties the trend around me changed. I remember when Agassi first shaved his chest and was actually ridiculed, whereas now most of my friends shave theirs. Within a decade or two, men around me have been transforming, and so has the taste of females. Like elijah said, I refused to comform, and do not shave. But at the same time, I realise that this is actually reducing my chances of finding a girlfriend. If half the women in my area think a hairy chest is ugly (and as discussed on another thread here on fluther most women find hairy chests almost as gross as men find hairy legs), then that limits my choices. So perhaps one day I’ll have to comform. And similarly, if I were a woman, I might decide not to shave and take my chances, or shave in order to get laid.
So of course it’s your choice, it always is. It’s your choice what clothes to wear, whether to go on a diet, how to speak to people, and even whether you wash or brush your teeth, and apart from some extreme cases of hygiene (hairy legs are not unhealthy btw), most of it has to do with social norms and our effort to impress others, especially those of the opposite sex. And let’s face it, for whatever socio-aesthetic reasons, women base their chances of success on looks a lot more than men do.
btw I also don’t eat garlic just before a date, and I always have a shower when I sweat, even though both garlic and sweating are quite healthy.