Bidisha article on pubic hair removal

Btw, I don't know if this has already been noted, but there was also an article in Vogue about public hair removal.

The writer concluded that for her, and her husband, it was all a little weird and didn't do anything for them (though she did, after some maternal horror, uphold her 15-year-old's right to have it all off). Given this is Vogue, which increasingly writes pieces that are clearly just puff for the beauty/cosmetic surgery industries, I thought it was noteworthy that they'd run a piece like this.

I think you make a reasonable point King but I disagree that the pressure comes from other women, ISTM that it comes from the beauty and fashion mags.

There seems to be an opinion that shaved pubes is something that is demanded by men. I think that if you asked, most men would tell you that they don't really care. As with many things that are considered to denote female submission, the pressure actually comes from other women.

The trend is catching on with men (particularly gay men)and I think will become more common in the near future.

You're right it is.

A lot of young men now get their chests waxed because they believe that women don't like chest hair.

If anyone thinks pubic shaving is just for women, look up "manscaping" on Google.

manscaping
About 131,000 results (0.10 seconds)

One of the first results begins:

A Beginner's Guide to Manscaping : COED Magazine
Mar 31, 2010 ... Gone are the days where unsightly face and body hair was attractive to women ( circa the caveman era). Nowadays, women expect their guys to ...

Note that it was "unsightly" hair even if it was "attractive to women". The world is truly in a sad state.

But what about hair on testicles coldtits?

fashion for pubes = porn-influenced by definition, surely though?
because otherwise, where do we SEE the things to be influenced by them.
the PERM analogy is a little specious.... you don't get to look at other women's minges on the bus etc

My boyfriend is actually slightly titilated when I don't shave for a week or so

but I prefer it off, so off it goes!

herbex - speak for yourself. My clitoris is well hidden if there are pubes in the way, as I found to my disgruntlement (conincidentally - just before I shaved them all off)

Not every vulva looks the same.

My last 4 sexual partners all were shaved, I think it is becoming more popular for single men.

I started taking mine off as a late teenager (20+ years ago), first time was for a holiday and didn't want pubes hanging out the sides and over the top of my bikini. No man involved

I go through phases of letting it grow to about an inch and nowadays I tend to trim it to a 'no1' with clippers. Partners have never commented on bald/half/full ever

Whilst I think porn may have some influence, I think it is more a fashion thing why more women are removing their pubic hair - no different to perms going in and out of fashion

At the risk of sounding my (advanced) age - the personal IS political. Our choices are (often? usually?) not 'free' at all but are influenced by all sorts of cultural and social pressures.
IMO

Feeling the need to share something initmate with a group of men in a titilating manner is not comparable to simply doing that same initmate thing.

I get a brazillian. I have never felt the need to share that with a man who hasn't already seen for himself.

'A man who likes a woman without pubic hair despises adult women so much that he wants us to resemble children. He should stay at home instead in front of a computer, masturbating alone to the hair-free images he reveres.'
heh heh heh
love it.

I am always slightly mystified and suspicious about this argument that it's about men being incompetent at cunnilingus.

Sorry in advance if my discussion is a little graphic, but firstly, in many women the clitoris isn't actually near tht many pubes by the time the man's tongue has got to it, as sexual arousal has opened the labia up and the clitoris is pretty available without loads of hair there. Secondly, lots of blow jobs don't just involve the penis, they also involve testicles which often have hair on them.

So that argument won't wash.

If only there had been a couple there who'd both say, "How ridiculous. In our house, natural is sexy."

I think that says more about your friends than anything else!

Men aren't doing it to the extent that woman are because of the quite obvious anatomical differences

• I can give a BJ relatively easily without a mouthful of pubes

• he can piss without getting his pubes wet

• he is unlikely to get them matted with blood, unless he has far bigger worries than a period

"Yes, don't listen when women talk about choice. There's always someone who knows better."

But choices aren't made in a vacuum. I would challenge anyone talking about anything where they thought it was purely down to choice/agency rather than structure.

Anything we choose to do is in a society that makes some things normal. That's the interesting thing, not the individual rationale.

I mean the individual rationale has its place, but cultural trends are more revealing for something like this.

Why shave?

I don't know why other people shave, I shave because I don't like the sweaty feeling i get when pubes are there.

I have an aversion to my own sweat.

Um - ok, maybe a bit tmi, but , um

You can access a penis with your mouth without having to fish through pubes to get to it.

The same is, um, not true of the clitoris, in many cases

It'#s a pubes in the throat issue

That was to coldtits Fri 11-Feb-11 18:14:00 btw. Such slow typing!