Beach-ready 'down there'

[mumoseven]

Did I really just see an advert for some razor, where a woman was coyly telling a story about getting naked at a BBQ and was worried about being BEACH READY DOWN THERE?
WTF?

Joining in!

Vote seems to be stuck on 75% now though..

Just voted about 10 times & still on 75%

Back up to 76%.

Fairly sure most girls don't 'automatically' shave their legs either. Adults who do it routinely, sure, but the idea has to come from somewhere. I found out about leg-shaving from TV adverts and the fact that my mother did it. It would never even have occurred to me that anyone shaved their pubic hair. There definitely weren't adverts about it (and I was born in the late 80s).

What's really stupid is that I bet the Bevvy of Bald Beach-ready Beauties (in a nod to dreadful sexist headlines) mostly don't go nude on the beach, so all they're really showing off is their swimsuit in any case

I'm happy to prance about on the beach within reason in the nude, pubes & all

The one benefit of a full bush I can see is that you don't get the dreaded camel toe. I would also like a bush on a nudist beach just to cover my intimate parts 🌝🌝🌝

Some of us me look better with a bit of coverage fluffiness covers the lopsidedness

76 still

Do someone upthread really say their midwife commented on their pubic hair? How on earth have we got to the stage where people whose job involves looking at women's genitals all the time are surprised or moved to remark when they see hair there?

Petal, the influence of porn isn't just direct eg you see a porn film and immediately get a Hollywood wax. It's that the culture of porn is ubiquitous and insidious and it filters into the mainstream views and expectations of women. So people who have never watched it at all still come under pressure to conform, even if this pressure remains unspoken. It filters into women's consciousness so that they do it just because they think it's normal, expected, just 'what everyone does'. I'm not saying that no one should shave or wax or whatever but I'd like it to be an actual choice - if it's internalised as an expectation that it's something necessary, that pubic hair is disgusting or unsightly or unclean then it isn't a free choice.

The only midwife I've known socially once told me she notices general trends (more hair removal now than 10y ago) but actually only really noticed two specific fanjo topiaries. One was plucked and died into a George cross (World Cup), the other was natural but she clearly hasn't washed for a very long time. Totally matted across the vagina, impeding birth. Had to trim it for her.

That's it, in 10 years. Very reassuring!

The nurse commented on my pubic hair situation while I was in labour. I didn't have any time for that nonsense!

How did that conversation go fink?

Trouble is that most of us dp's shave our armpits and legs without thinking. It's so normalised. That's where it is leading with pubes. Soon we'll be in our nursing homes and it will all be accepted without question, and youngsters will be horrified at us and our hairy history.

You see all different options for pubes in porn nowadays, it's a myth that they are all shaven.

I was brought up to always have clean underwear and well groomed in the event of an accident! I keep up my beauty routine through winter and even when I'm not in a relationship.

Maybe it's old fashioned but being beach ready every day is essential to me.

Clean underwear everyday is good hygiene (although whether it would still be clean after an accident is another matter), that is not the same as pubic hair removal, which is a cosmetic choice.

And I doubt my ancestors in an age when you got sewn into your underwear for months at a time gave my thought to being beach ready, too busy being oppressed - I don't see how pubic topiary corresponds to being 'old fashioned'.

"I was brought up to always have clean underwear and well groomed in the event of an accident! "

But what makes having your pubes waxed "well groomed"? I think I'm reasonably well groomed and am currently what that stupid site referred to as O Naturel. Obviously do what you want to your body hair (I've done a variety of things to my own) but there's something odd about not feeling "groomed" if a bit of your body that NOBODY ELSE CAN SEE is hairy.

Also, in fairness, who is going to care about your knicker topiary if you have an accident?

(the last time I was rushed urgently to hospital the state of my pants/pubes were the least of my worries, as I hope they were for the medical staff who were trying to make me not die: "sorry, I was going to put this drip in for you but I'm too busy marvelling at your unstyled fanny")

Yes, I shower every morning and put on clean underwear. If I were to have an accident I would not be ashamed of my pants. But why would any hair removal be necessary? Blokes don't habitually shave off their leg/armpit/pubic hair, do they? And presumably medical staff cope with that when treating male patients. Why would a woman's body hair be dirtier or less presentable?

I went into labour both times very clean (I like a bath in the early stages!) but I didn't remove any pubic hair because I never do it anyway and I most certainly couldn't have figured out the logistics over a full term baby bump even if I'd wanted to! I knew midwives would be looking at the area but I didn't care about the hair because it's normal and clean. I don't see the need to groom it!

I was worried about midwives commenting on the state of my pubic hair but fortunately they were too busy bitching about their working conditions to bother

Interesting how the woman in that ad not only had shaved her pubes, but she apparently had swimwear with her. Who takes swimwear to a bbq? Unless she was planning to be spontaneous...

She probably went skinny dipping

Not the first time ive heard about midwives passing comments. I saw posts about this on the Feminism board a few years back.

A few tweets naming the hospital concerned about how their department has embraced porn culture might make them think twice before passing comment to someone else.

Well, I see women's fannys more often than your average person and I can honestly say, I don't give a stuff about whether/how/how much you style your lady garden. I do regularly see women who require antibiotics for the infections they have due to ripping hair out by the root aka waxing, or taking the top layer of skin off which is inevitable when shaving, or needing their contact dermatitis to be treated in response to epilation cream. So, do what you want, but don't tell me it does not harm or 'I do it because I like it' unless maintaining lovely comfortable levels of denial about societal pressures about how we perceive our own bodies is what you'd like to maintain just now.

Otoh, as mentioned above, the woman who had gone to the trouble of making an appointment specifically for her smear test and then was SO unwashed and matted down there that I had to trim first was rather memorable….. But a good wash would have done it, no WS products required.

Clicking some more

Flaming, wrong fred?

But I agree with you fwiw.

Shaving her fanjo obviously proved financially prudent for that London resident!