In being surprised that apparently 98% of UK women under 25 have no pubic hair at all?

[Longstocking2]

Is that true?

A friend who is a practice nurse says she presumes it's just a fashion. None of her women under 25 who come for smear tests have any pubic hair.. all shaved, shorn, waxed to nada.

Obviously that's fine but it seems a little universal to me. Aren't there any rebels out there?
Is it just for the boys they do it?

Does the image not come from porn originally?

{shock]

would love to be enlightened!
Clearly I'm over 25

No smallwhitecat, I have never said that all women freely make their own choices, but I believe those who have claimed to on this board have done so. I take them at their word and respect their own views. What I am not doing is stating that my experiences are all others' experiences which is what a number of people on this thread appear to be doing/trying to do.

I still feel 20, just because my birth age is 45, you never actually get holder in your head. I don't look 45 more like 33, but hey, if you wan't to think some people are weird, neat.

Expat I agree 100% about the sweat story!
My own mother is 64 and she always used to trim her hairs, so it's certainly not a "new" or "fashionable" trend

dittany i'd differ from you in believing that by that definition, there are no free choices. i don't think any choice is made totally without social pressures existing.

Hear Hear Dittany, from what I can see you have only spoken sense.

I'm a bit slower in typing out my opinions but to get back to the OP, if the vast majority of women under 25 are bare down there, I find it frankly a shame. If a bloke had ever told me that he preferred me shaven as that's all he was used to I'd have told him to get stick his razor up his jacksy and get lost.

Using wild guess-timates here to illustrate a point rather than be statistically correct...

Say 1 in 10 women in the 70s came to the individal, uninfluenced decision that they liked to be hairless.
That figure might be more like 1 in 3 women today. All deciding on an individual and uninfluenced basis that they just like it better that way.

It would be rare to have a massive change in accepted behaviour (e.g. a 300% increase in the number of hairless women) with there being some external factor being at work, it is useful to try and understand what that external factor might be and to understand the other ways in may also be shaping behaviour.

Trying to identify that external factor, is not trying to negate or oppress anyone's individual choice.

I can't find it in me to get agitated about hair fashion on pudendas, really, though I find this talk of oppression a bit irritating. I'm reading "Nothing To Envy" - first hand accounts from North Korean defectors - at the moment; that's oppression. Shaving yr fanjo because you think it improves sex or even because your partner likes it better - that's not.

The whole point about hegemony is that it is invisible and feels "normal". It feels as if you are expressing a part of your own personality - but these things are not arrived at without cultural influence.

without there .

Perhaps I ought to rephrase it as an opinion expressed in a way I find to be oppressive. By denigrating or denying me my personal beliefs which harm no one and affect just me and by trying to reinterpret or label them in a way which I find offensive, to me, that is just as bad as a man or woman trying to force me to think or do something which I have actively chosen not to want/do.

I do not wish to shut you up. What I wish to do is have you acknowledge that you have denied me and others) their own personal truths.

Trying to identify an external factor is all well and good. But dictating to people who state their own personal factors that that cannot or is not the case (despite them repeatedly telling you otherwise) is not.

But Libero, there's nothing wrong with saying you find something weird. And it's way too PC for my liking to take issue with that. I think your ex's predilection for BO is weird, and that's fine.

I do agree with you that there are different reasons why women shave themselves, but if this convo is anything to go by, in the main, in this country, it's ultimately down to the influence of porn.

I do find what you said about your childhood interesting. I don't recall ever having thoughts like that about my growth of pubic hair. On the contrary, I also started puberty early but was excited about becoming a woman - I'm one of those weirdos that always wanted to be older than I was. But to dig deeper into that would be to enter the realms of analytical claims that, by contrast, you didn't want to grow up - which, clearly, I have no idea about! So I'll just avoid psycho-analysing us both, shall I?

Re your head hair, well clearly there's an Oedipal conflict surrounding your closeness to your parents and feelings of incongruity with your countries of origin/ upbringing! I do wish I'd shaved my head as a student. In fact, being 'blessed' with a high-maintenance afro (I'd give you a run for your money, Custy ! though being slimmer than me you'd probably win the race!) I recently debated whether to shave or grow locs instead, and opted for the latter.

Here endeth the wafle.

That post about douches being the norm in USA - I remember being surprised too when I was in the States back in the 80s at all the ads for vag. douches. 'But mom I just don't feel clean after my shower' and mom produced just the product to teenage daughter.

Well there you are all those who feel 'cleaner' without hair - get yourself a douche / vinegar and sloosh it up there while you're at it. You'll feel squeaky clean after that.

I feel sad that so many women feel unclean in their natural state.

I think bald fannies, as well as those with topiared strips, look horrible and am really struggling to understand why anyone would choose to put themselves through this sort of weird grooming ritual when they don't absolutely have to.

By the way hair falls out during and after the menopause too so be patient and wait if that's the look you're going for.

Why waste the money on buying a douche when I can just shave off my hair when showering? Same razor used for my legs and underarms

Er think you missed the irony SardineJam...

so if all these women are shaving their pubes because of pressure from men and the porn industry..........does that mean that all these men are shaving their pubes (and increasingly trend especially in recent years) are doing it because of porn and women??

EmmaBemma

Shaving your genitals is not, in itself, oppressive, but is an indicator of an oppressive culture.

Re. the sliding scale of oppression; atrocities in N.Korea do not negate our own cultural iniquities.

I am actually intrigued (being of later years myself), as to where the fashion comes from? Can someone tell me - is it in their magazines? Do they all talk about it? What other practices are now 'the norm'?

Perhaps they do it because they've been told it makes them look bigger - and when they look at well-endowed porn stars, feel that they must make the effort themselves.

Do the under 25's look at much porn? I suppose as it's so available on web etc? But girls too? Or do teenage boys talk about porn with teenage girls? Oh boy I'm so old.