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 agree that people seem to be unecessarily singling out dittany to have a go. It's because you express yourself so well dittany that you embody that 'side'. Don't let it get to you.

It's a very interesting debate and need not become personal whether you are on the plucked chicken or natural goddess side.

As you'll see I am sitting on the fence.

Twopeople I don't think many people actively want to look like a child.
It's just the fashion, but the effect is childlike. The mainstream fashion has come from porn.

Hmm well I was taught in Biology that pubic hair was there to trap pheremones to attract the opposite sex. And that this would have worked very well until we started wearing clothes. Before we wore clothes the sweat would have evaporated off our skin and hair making BO less likely. Now we wear clothes, the sweat and associated bacteria are trapped causing body odour.

Which would mean, if true, that shaving is more hygenic.

I shave. I shave underarms, legs and ladygarden. I have done since I was a teenager as we lived abroad and it was v hot and I was acutely aware of BO. It was also far, far nicer shaven whilst having a period. I guess that just stuck. We are talking well before any boyfriends appeared on the scene and I had certainly never seen porn.

I also find it extremely hard to reconcile being told what to think with the alleged sisterhood of feminism. To be criticised by a man is bad enough. To be criticised by women because you disagree with them is really, quite frankly, intolerable.

I am quite capable of making my own mind up. As is everyone else on this thread who has argued for shaving.

No, I haven't Dittany. You may consider a cultural phenomenon like porn sexist, not every woman does. Like I said initially and like I'll keep saying, live and let live. If you feel strongly that something ought to be changed, then by all means do your best to effect change. However, brushing aside people's alternative but independent choices which lead to a result that affects no one but themselves isn't really fair - I am fully of the view that the majority of independent adult women are fully capable of making their own choices and their own decisions and are entitled to their reasons behind those decisions.

X-post SarahStrattonsBaubles

Who on earth is telling you what to think Sarah?
Are internet sprites that powerful that you are compelled to do as they say?

Feminists are quite likely to put forward a feminist analysis of a cultural practice.
Women are not all the same - some of disagree. I'm sorry you find that intolerable.

That's interesting libero. So we are all agreed that the general trend towards complete pubic hair removal is indeed porn- related? But that each of us individually are exempt from these influences? It doesn't quite add up somehow.

I'm not singling Dittany out in particular. I do find it incredibly irritating that we seem to be supposed to all think the same way otherwise we are a 'let down' to feminism. It's bullying, just dressed up as being part of some faux sisterhood.

Dare I mention Vajazzling?

Cos I quite fancy it :o

I agree there are all kinds of reasons someone may choose to shave/wax, and it's a personal decision. But if it's really true that almost 100% of young women are doing so I find that quite surprising and would question what changed in the last 10 years or so to cause that trend.

Obviously there won't be many accurate statistics on such a personal issue! But I'm 29, have never shaved 'down there' except to tidy up a bit around the edges (for wearing swimming costume etc), and while I'm a bit older than the under-25 group in question, I have to say I've had sexual partners since I was 18 and no one has ever expressed disgust, or suggested I shave, or reacted as though it was at all unusual that I didn't. Two of my partners have been women, and neither was shaved/waxed in that area. Also never heard any female friend refer to doing this, though I appreciate it's maybe not something you talk about in RL...

I never said that Zephirine. I said that though there may well be people that attribute a general trend to porn, it does not mean that every single woman falls under that branch when it comes to the decision she makes to depilate. My post gave a myriad of possible reasons, some related, some not and I am sure there are plenty other reasons out there that I have yet to encounter or even consider.

Obvious to you dittany - it is your right to hold that view. Just don't impose it on me or anyone else when they clearly state that it is not their experience as individuals.

And by live and let live, I mean what does it matter what a woman chooses to do with her pubic area so long as it is her personal choice not subject to duress?

It's not bullying Sarah.
It's just a well thought out opinion, which you can disagree with if you like. But you can't expect to join in a debate and then get narked because the other debaters think they are the ones in the right, not you!

Nobody walkinga. But there are an awful lot of posts on here that seem to be trying to tell others what they should be thinking.

I don't find the disagreement intolerable. I find the constant 'no you are wrong it's X' intolerable. I am willing to read and listen and digest others points of view. It doesn't always feel like that is reciprocated.

Shaving is NOT about porn. The world does NOT revolve around men and their alleged repression of women. It is insulting to women to suggest that they are so incapable of looking out for themselves, even more so when that comes from another woman.

Twopeople, I disagree with you there, a hairless pudenda, looked at in isolation, is childlike. Or as someone else said above, like a very old woman, but I suppose most of us are less familiar with that.

I don't really think it has much to do with porn. I think it's more to do with women becoming more sexually liberated, being proud of their bodies and realising that they can enjoy sex more without hair getting in the way.

About 20 million posts ago, I said that the porn influence on shaving is indirect. Porn became mainstream and began influencing fashion, from there the practice spread. Although mot shavers aren't 'channelling' porn in particular, that's the root.

'Channelling' - get me with the fashion speak