Quote - Call me pure.

Call me realistic.

Call me whatever you want, but I never understood why we need specular maps on the skin of a figure.

Skin and light "diffuse and/or shine" depends on the skin and the position of the light.

Skin is skin.
Be it on the arms, or on the belly or on the legs.

And Light is light.

Bump, displacement and normal maps OK.

Specular maps on the skin of a figure however????

 

I don't agree.  Some parts of skin are more oily and thus more shiney than other parts of skin.  Some parts of skin have larger, more stretched cell grains, like the top of the forearm as opposed to the under side of the forearm, etc.  Top fo the forearm tends to be more shiny as a result of having more flat, reflective surface area.