Bidisha article on pubic hair removal

coldtits wrote - "because women's razors are available"

Women in other cultures have been shaving for centuries, long before women's razors came along.

20 years ago, the majority of women did not shave but now, apparently, the majority of women do shave. That is a very significant change in behaviour. It could be a very dramatic example of free choice by disconnected women doing it independently. However, I think that is unlikely. I can't think of any other examples of such massive spontaneous changes in practice not linked to wider cultural pressures.

Any political philosophy, including feminism, tries to draw conclusions from society-wide trends. Governments and the law generalise all the time. It is unfair to hold feminism to a higher standard than the rest of society.

Generalisations may or may not match the experience or choice of individual women. Trying to draw generalisations and finding that they don't agree with one woman's individual circumstances is not the same as denying that individual woman did not choose of her own free will. That generalisation process isn't going to draw the right conclusions every time, but I think it is a legitimate process.

Great some other ideas. Down thread there were some other ideas suggested, one of which was about women feeling that they were able to touch parts of their body that they weren't allowed to before. I have been thinking that idea over since it was mentioned. I'm really interested in other ideas. At the moment pornification convinces me the most, but it would be great to be able to have discussion about other ideas. What do you think about that idea?

I don't believe though that asking individual people about their reasons would make for the best approach to researching this though. For a start it wouldn't be possible to ask enough people for it to start giving an indication of trend, and for a second there are so many more things to consider than individual perception. In research I do, I do ask people for their individual perception, and then look at documents that are also produced about what they are telling me, then look at the wider context of how this subject fits with others. It would not stand up as a research project if I just asked even 100 people and then said that that is just fact. Some further analysis has to be applied to make contextualised sense of things.

Just asking people places too much emphasis on agency and not enough on structure. In my field, in the 60s/70s there was a shift towards this approach in response to it being too lacking in human experience. There was then a later shift to bring more recognition of structure back in.

Great post coldtits. I'm with you.

It's of no consequence to me if you shave your minge or not. Personally I like to keep mine neat and tidy, but with hair. I have not met one man in my laugh who would refuse a woman because she had a bush down there. Do these men really exist?

And whilst we don't shave our heads we do style the hair on out heads to look better don't we?

because they can

because women's razors are available

because it's a control thing - you don't have to put up with it if you don't bloody want to.

This reminds me of the hippy movement bullying women into not accepting pain relief in labour, because labour shouldn't hurt, it's all natural etc.

Why don't you try asking each one of the individual women who shave off their pubes instead of guessing?

In my experience here, everyone who dissents will be ignored, glossed over, or told "Ahhh, well that's just you..." (with the implication that I am abnormal for dissenting)

Coldtits - it's not about why you did it. It's about why lots more women are doing it now that used to do it.

At 13, I had never been to a fashionable beach.

At 13, I knew full well that my mother did nothing with her pubic or underarm hair, as was her preference.

At 13, I had never seen a naked woman apart from my mother.

At 13, the closest to sex i had approached was kissing with tongues.

At 13 I didn't know there was such a thing as porn.

At 13, I refused to use tampons.

At 13, I refused to wear shorts or skirts.

At 13, I lived in tight jeans (which had been rather looser jeans a year earlier) which made me hot and sweaty in the summer.

At 13, I shaved off my pubic hair to see if it made me more comfortable in the heat.

It did. It also made my horribly heavy, clotridden periods easier to deal with in a house that didn't have a shower.

What the fuck has that got to do with either fashion or porn?

I am not a bubble headed imbecile, I am an independant minded woman - and yet still, the only people who tell me what I should feel, or that the reasons I do things aren't the real reasons, are the posters on the feminist board.

It is arrogant to presume to know everything a person's decisions are based on, and that they cannot possibly know themselves.

I am fed up of having my experiences as a young woman ignored, because silly girls cannot possibly know the reasons thy do things, it simply must be because of men and porn and sex.

Bollocks to it. It's a misogynistic message - that I am clearly too brainwashed and down trodden to be right about my own fucking mind.

wild guess but I reckon there's probably a bit of racism thrown in too. Anglo-Saxon whites don't tend to have back hair, or even very much chest hair whereas men from Southern Europe and the Middle East have quite a lot.

The pressure on women to get rid of their pubes is just absolutely everywhere. Every time you walk past La Senza, or watch a TV programme with bikinis clad women in it (CSI!) or walk through Boots you are absorbing the message of what an acceptable bikini line should look like. The message is: the less hair a woman has down there, the better.
And I can't think of any public places or spaces that celebrate pubic hair as being wonderful, can you? (Not that I think there needs to be, but if there were you can bet that more women would then "choose" not to get rid of it) IN fact, people think it's disgusting if a woman's pubes are sticking out of her cozzie. So it's not a "choice" if she then shaves them off is it..

A lot women will happily express the view that they find back hair on men disgusting and feel very strongly that it should be removed. This of course is another perfectly normal secondary sexual characteristic in many men, so shouldn't really provoke any strong reactions. Also, women seem to care far more about it than men.

Is this also linked to porn use? Or is society just requiring more hair to be removed by everyone (separating us from our animal ancestors perhaps!)?

"not everything done in the name of fashion is pornification and it is, in my opinion lazy and alienating to suggest otherwise."

No one has suggested that everything done in the name of fashion is pornification, where have you got that impression from?

Just that some things are: there are certain trends around now, which were not around 30 years ago, which are directly or indirectly linked to the porn industry.

They include pube topiary, very very high heels, breast and buttock surgery, mini mini mini skirts, basques, etc.

These looks all started in porn. They made their way into the mainstream along with porn, much of which has become widespread and mainstream.

Other fashions of course have nothing to do with porn, no one has suggested that all fashion comes from porn, just some of the recent ones.

I really don't get the 'but it's a choice and it's wrong to suggest that intelligent women are not making a free choice if they say it is' argument.

Every human being makes every choice in relation to culture. This applies to every choice. And I can't see hair removal as the exception to this.

We can have more or less choice/agency in a situation and more or less culture/structure is a situation. But to think that any decision by any human being is made entirely devoid of external influences makes no sense.

It's nothing to do with intelligence. Or suggesting that people are mindless pawns.

It's not dangerous at all to say that fashion, especially the shaving of pubes, has been heavily influenced by porn.
WHat is dangerous is to claim there is no link, as you have done, or to say that women are the active agents of free choice when they get rid of their pubes. They're not, they've been influenced by an array of clever marketing tactics.

I also think it's very disingenuous of you to imply that feminists are saying women's genitals= pornography , when we're actually saying the opposite . We live in a culture where it's legal to advertise labioplasty to "tidy up" women's genitals, the way that they're tidied up in porn- either by labioplasty or through photoshopping . But if you're worried about women's genitals being linked to pornography then become an anti-porn activist because as long as porn is around women's genitals will be linked to it.

sakura I accept they are linked. But is dangerous to treat them as one and the same because they are not and it over simplifies the issue.

Porn influences some fashion.

Fashion influences some porn.

But not everything done in the name of fashion is pornification and it is, in my opinion lazy and alienating to suggest otherwise.

For example we appear to accept that leg depilation is done for fashion. But we don't claim "pornification". Yet pubic depilation, despite the fact that it has several additional and perhaps more significant benefits than fashion alone is written off as "pornification".

Why? Sometimes it appears that the primary reason is simply womans genitals = pornography and that association without question troubles me far more greatly than whether the genitals in question are hair covered or hairless....

Anyway it is an interesting debate but I think I am done with being a lone flag flyer for pubic depilation on the feminist boards so off to bed. Night

There is "real" conclusive undeniable evidence that the porn and fashion industry are inextricably linked

Nancy, the fashion industry is heavily influenced by the porn industry. Designers like Alexander Mcqueen made no secret of the fact that porn underlied his fashion. Porn clips would play in the background during his shows.

Jess all the points you make are valid and interesting.

I don't seek to argue that the desire to remove, for example leg hair, is anything other than one that society imposes for somewhat trivial reasons. I would accept the suggestion that I go along with it because I have been conditioned by society to believe this is attractive (to both men and other woman) in much the same way that I now wear my hair straight yet 15+ years ago had a perm.

The only issue that I object to is the lack of distinction between the beauty, fashion and porn industries. Just because something is done in the name of fashion, doesn't mean it has it's roots in pornography, or can be construed as "pornification" even if it's roots could be argued to be misogynisitic.

I'm not really conviced I am properly articulating my thoughts on the subject but the sweeping generalisations re "pornification" is something that troubles me in the light of real evidence that the practise exists for reasons wholly unconnected with porn.

Unless you are sitting in a swimming costume on the beach - in which depending on how hirsute one is they might be viewed by the friend sitting next to you or the lifeguard on the other side of the pool - which was the point I was trying to make re fashion.

And I can offer no rational explanation but the idea of a mooncup just makes me shudder! I don't even like the idea of non applicator tampons...

Nancy I think the difference with all other body hair, is that you see it. Only your sexual partner sees your pubes.

As an aside, have you considered a mooncup? I fucking hate tampons, can't wear them, but mooncup is fine.

Ok I am going to try and explain this as best I can

I get very heavy periods. For the first couple of days it is uncomfortable to use tampons. So bleeding onto sanitary towels means blood in your pubic hair which I find unpleasant. It is messy and TBH I find menstrual blood can be a bit smelly.

It's not that pubic hair is dirty per se, it is that pubic hair can and does get dirty and there is nothing wrong with disliking that.

I did not say that you (or anyone else) is unfashionable for choosing not to depilate. But it is a fashion issue for some. I spend a lot of time by the pool I don't want my pubic hair hanging out my bikini bottoms, anymore than I want to walk about with hairy legs.

I can appreciate the argument that all grooming is misogynistic (I don't however agree) but why do we differentiate between the removal of different sorts of body hair. Can deplitating pubic hair not just be misognisitc in the same way shaving under your arms is rather than due to "pornification".

Yes Nancy on other sites and in RL some women feel the same as shaving legs or armpits...facts are hair grows there!..it does not make you an unhygienic person to have body hair..look at the press..an actress had hairy pits and all hell broke loose!!you think this does not have an impact?

But why does it 'feel cleaner and fresher'? I honestly don't understand. It seems tied up with that deep-down feeling that women aren't clean and fresh 'down there'. Pubic hair isn't dirty.

Fashion thing - So now I'm unfashionable if I don't want to remove my pubic hair? I think that's misogynistic in the extreme, I'm afraid. Pubic hair shouldn't be a fashion issue! But it is. That alone says it all

The better sex thing I'll accept. I don't personally agree, but I accept that others feel this way.

mumcentre in whose eyes? I don't think I have come across that view on MN.

Have you come across that view in real life?

Tical of course I understand that our choices are affected by societal pressures but why this rigid refusal amongst many feminists to accept that perhaps those societal pressures include:

1. Fashion - desire to look good on the beach.

1. A desire to be clean and fresh as distinct from actually being hygenic (see below)

1. An increased personal enjoyment of sex.

I understand the arguments that pubic hair serves the purpose of keeping bacteria out but the fact remains that for many woman it feels far cleaner and fresher to have little or no pubic hair.

I agree you can shave off your minge hair at will your choice..but god forbid you let it sprout and curl...obviously you don't take care of yourself in some eyes..