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

I have read 10 pages of this not going throughthe last 9 but I am wondering. I have noticed in porn there is often a VERY hairy down there woman to that is anotehr kink that some find attractive..
Does that mean those of you whom never shaves are also influenced by Porn?

to those of you whom claims that those that are bare are trying to look prepubisient I PROMISE you there are MANY differences when you have grown up to what you looked like back then. hair isnt the only thing that changes

'discloses another disturbing trend, .... Vile little people.'

How much porn do you watch Dittany? You must watch far more than me and I watch a lot. In the porn I watch you see a variety of pubic styles.

I haven't waded through the whole thread, but I am 26 and I've never had it all off (rarely trimmed, either). Most women I know who're my age associate it with the orange face/fake nail look - until I came on MN I thought it was about as likely to cross over from porn to normality as huge fake boobs.

Libero Wed 05-Jan-11 14:10:24
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.

Well said

I really don't understand why some of you are so completely unable to take in another view point.

I like it waxed off.

I like the way it feels.

I like the fact it makes sex better.

I feel fresher without hair there in the same way I feel fresher without hair under my arms.

I I I - NOTHING to do with porn, wanting to look like a child OR needing to do things to feel more beautiful. IF that was what I was trying to achieve there are MANY other things I would need to do before waxing.

I don't need you, Dittany, or anyone else to tell me I am not making a choice of my own free will. There is so much crap on this thread it's not funny.

I'm afraid I do not think that your views are feminist ie in support of women, as you clearly do not support the right of a woman to think differently and have different opinions to you when it comes to that woman's belief about herself and her choices.

I have no problem with people pointing out that the porn industry is a big influence on the fact that women are now removing their pubic hair in massive numbers - I never said it wasn't, but rather that there are a myriad of reasons, and of course it can include porn. I do have a problem with people stating/dictating to those who do not subscribe to that view when it comes to their own personal circumstances that what the latter believe or think when it comes to themselves as individuals is not valid.

unrulysanta Yes please. Help me campaign for the right to work with a man's face velcro'd to my fanjo!

But can I specify that said face have the rest of the man attached, please?

bald fannies on grown ups = grim

(just thought I would add my pearl of wisdom at this late stage )

I think that the problem and point is not that some women choose to wax etc but that some men choose to comment so publically that they find it a turn off when women don't. Try looking behind the headlines and in detail at the whole female circumsision thing - this is driven by men (and is starting to take hold in the west under the guise of female cosmetic surgery).

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8352711.stm

You only have to look at the relationships threads to see how concerned many women are about their bodies without this added pressure.

Also arf at 'pubic styles'.

Some people don't realise they are oppressed/influenced by something which is wrong. Some people take a course of conduct not being opporessed but because they want to but being told they are oppressed.
Others don't take the course of conduct at all.

All kinds of actions could come those categories.

I've always been a pro porn feminist, although the word feminist has become so sullied I tend not to use it these days.

I really can't see that dittany has done anything other than put forward clearly expressed points of view....

soggy14 - agree with you. It's another added pressure for adolescent girls to cope with - should they, shouldn't they, everyone's doing it, it's cleaner...oh god I've got wrinkly flaps, need plastic surgery..... I'll never get a boyfriend, be attractive...

If you're older and it's your choice then fine, but I doubt the younger generation are really making an informed choice?

Which is what I have said and continue to say - you can have your opinion, I have mine. I have no problem respecting your general belief but I have a problem with you telling me what I believe, when you don't have that right. In doing so, you have commented on my personal circumstances - again, see your post at Wed 05-Jan-11 13:38:06, especially where you say " Another one of these superhuman people who are totally uninfluenced by the culture and external pressures. I don't think you're using choice in any meaningful way". You have no right to tell me if I am using choice in a meaningful way because you are not me, you do not know what goes on in my head, what reasoning I have used to reach the choices I have made and continue to make. To insist otherwise is insulting, condescending and misguided, to say the least.

I have not told you to shut up, I have not called your points of view oppressive - rather, what was oppressive was your insistence on dictating to me what I believe and, therefore, who I am. In doing so, you were not supporting me, and therefore, I have a right to state that, when it comes to your treatment of me, you are not a feminist. Nothing manipulative about it, just factual.

However, I should be thankful that in your latest post, you have finally conceded that if I am an exception, then fine. That is all I was trying to get you to see - I am a person who makes her own choices based on what I believe/feel to be right for me and you certainly do not have the right to dictate the reasoning behind my choices to me. So thank you for being a feminist in that regard

It's not just young people feeling pressured. I have a friend just divorced and back on the dating scene, 40+, and really worried about it - she is certainly experiencing a lot of pressure to look "right" down there but it not sure what "right" is at her age. Back when I was dating there was this assumption that men werent bothered about much once you got your kit off and that at least took the pressure off.

I'm under 25 (just!) and at the moment am au natural. I sometimes take it all off as my fiance does, always has since moving to a hot country, so I felt like I wanted to too. No exes have been surprised or gave a shit that I was au natural before.

I don't like how prescriptive it seems to be of what attractive equals and the media and celebrity does dictate a certain look (white, young, blonde (or megan foxalike) loads of make up, fake tan, fake nails, eyelashes etc ad infinitum), having a shaven is another hurdle to jump through - jesus christ, how long would it take to get ready everyday if we actually did all of these things?

I hope there will be a backlash. Plastic ain't so fantastic.

"I have a right to state that, when it comes to your treatment of me, you are not a feminist. Nothing manipulative about it, just factual."
i.e. you are not a feminist unless feminism is what I say it is.
"I have a problem with you telling me what I believe, when you don't have that right."
News: anyone has the right to interpret what you say your beliefs are - rather as you are interpreting Dittany's now.
Breathtakingly condescending last sentence, btw.

ChippingIn you got there before me...I'm 24, and hair free everywhere barring my head, eyebrows and eyelashes.

I do it for hygiene, I think it's cleaner especially when it's menstruation time. I think it makes sex feel nicer, especially oral sex. My husband is also hair free...he only grown chest and pubic hair (no back or stomach) and he has that removed, he think it feels better in his clothes.

I do not wish to look like a child, and as it's only me and my husband looking at it and neither of us are paedophiles, I think that's safe to say.

I do not watch porn, my friend in uni once showed me a horrific clip of porn involving a black man and I have never ever watched it, and that clip didn't influence me to grow a penis let alone remove my pubic hair.

The whole feminism movement on this thread is quite amusing. Isn't the point that women get to choose? Well a choice I've made :o

*grows not grown.

At 26 I couldn't give a monkey what anyone thinks! I don't do all i have some. As for swim cozys with BL on show etc eww no thanks

Each to their own but i feel dirty with hairy legs and BL and not comfortable. I enjoy sex better with less

As for the people saying its porn and wanting to look like a child... yeah ok...

autumnberry Wed 05-Jan-11 16:11:25
I am finding this thread depressing. Since when is it unclean, disgusting or unsexy to have pubic hair? Why the shame?

Not many have said that it is unclean, disgusting or unsexy. Many have said that they themselves feel this way if they have long thick pubic hair. I find that my nails get dirtier when they are longer, even though constantly growing is their natural state. That's why I keep them short. I find that a shaggy carpet is harder to clean than a short pile. This is why I, well, actually I mostly have floorboards More accurate metaphor than I was going for but hey ho.

FWIW, I am early ahem thirties and range between neatly trimmed to brazillian. No man has ever expressed surprise, disgust or I expect even registered the state of it at all. Then again I am bloody ancient apparently out of the age bracket you refer to.

If you don't shave/wax/whatever, I would like to make it clear that I don't find you unclean, disgusting or unsexy. I appreciate that you like it how it is. (Or maybe I am jealous that left to its own devices it wouldn't reach your knees). In fact I find you very sexy

I am not reversing reality - I am stating that each person's reality is different and to continually state or dictate that it is not, when you have been clearly told by people that that they have made their own personal choices independent of the reality you describe, is you reversing their own reality. I do not think you or anyone else has the right to do that.

The beauty industry for women in most societies states that I should have long[er] head hair. I don't. I make that choice for my own personal independent reasons. It is a massive amount of me,me,me-ism. The porn industry according to you (as I at least know that there is a vast amount of porn out there that features hirsute women which people view and enjoy) puts enormous pressure on women to be hairless. I choose to depilate my pubic hair, but it had and continues to have nothing to do with the porn industry or what I see in magazines or what I have been told by men - it is something I tried at a very young age (without having viewed any porn or an adult woman's depilated pubic area before and certainly not being told to do it by a man) and have continued with as I like it, much in the way of my shaved head. That is my reality. Others' reality may be different, but it does not change mine. You have no right to then dictate my reality to be different, when I have expressly explained that that is not the case.

I totally understand that a choice made within restrictive or imposed boundaries is not a choice. I accept that I am affected by the hegemony. I agree that the desire for hairfree women comes (in the main) from a male dominated sex industry. That those of us that do remove body hair are doing so to conform to ancient stereoptypes.

I agree with you on most of your points Dittany but - and I mean this in all seriousness - is it not possible for someone to see that they are / could be being dictated to (not by you, but by those cultural norms above) and ... I dunno... pick and choose?

I have been on anti anti (indended repeat) abortion marches / reclaimed the night / read Fat is a Feminist Issue / understand the Beauty Myth and get that the personal is political but (and the 'but' is ironic) still I decided to see if removing my pubic hair had any affect on my sex life and enjoyment thereof.

I did. I decided to keep myself hairfree. WHy does that offend feminism so much? Does one have to accept all tennets of an ideology to be part of it or can one not disent on occassion?

Oh and ps. I don't feel dirty with pubic hair, nor do I think those who keep it are. Same as I don't think those without it are pre-pubescent wannabe's.

I like the way my fango feels without hair. The skin feels very very silky.