should I shave?

[TotHappy]

This has been niggling at me for a while.

I'm 31. Been with dh nearly 14 years. My shaving routine used to be:
Underarms - most days, might get a bit stubbly if I left it for a few. Probably take care to shave them before baring them to swim/sunbathe.
Legs - only really bothered for a night out, so maybe shaved once a month. More in summer, but def not every day - maybe for an 'event' or a beach day. An event might include a sexy night in, but they certainly weren't smooth at all times and I didn't care.
Vag - never. Or maybe once or twice as an experiment, never liked it, hate the feeling, find it uncomfortable plus too much faff.

Then when I got pregnant (daughter is nearly 2 now), stopped shaving pretty much everything. Initially, morning sickness and generally not leaving house, later size of bump. Sexy times were non existent anyway as dh stopped sexual activity once I was pregnant - which I was very upset about.
Shaving has never resumed post partum - I will still occasionally do it for a night out/special event but not always, and of course nights out are a lot rarer now with DD. My solitary baths when I could quickly do my underarms are long gone, DD baths with me so no razors in the bath, and when I do get the odd solitary bath I cba with how long it would take as underarms now a good inch long.
I just don't care any more, even as much as I used to, about what people think. If I go swimming or to the beach, I dont feel the need to de-hair first. I think this is a lot to do with giving birth in front of five strangers - personal things somehow seem a lot less personal!

My issue is dh has brought up me not shaving a few times and I feel very uncomfortable about him doing that. After an argument once he said, as part of a rang about how I dont care, 'you dont even shave your legs anymore', quickly followed up by 'not that that's important, but it just shows that you dont care', to which I was as I was never in the permanently-hairless-legs crew, ever, and in any case the reason I had reduced the number of leg shaves was because I had reduced the numbers of nights out, end of!

The other day, he was giving me a foot massage and commented 'whoa, how hairy are your legs?!' I think I responded with a and a 'quite hairy', and he followed up with 'what about your armpits? Have you shaved those lately?' Or similar.

He has also said several times in the past that he prefers a shaven vag. I've said I dont like the feel of it so dont plan to dp that regularly, but have on the very odd occasion got a bikini wax/Californian wax. Last time he didn't even notice as he wasn't up for sex for the whole 6 weeks it was evident, so that was a waste!

I feel really quite miffed that he thinks I should shave because he prefers it. I suppose I have two questions:
A) AIBU to manage my body hair in any way I want without reference to him and
B) what do most people here do? I know most of my friends do shave with some regularity. I know my mum never did. So possibly a generational thing, but as I grew up with my mum as a role model, I feel totally comfortable either way. I feel very uncomfortable with the comments I've sometimes seen on social media about not shaving being 'dirty' or 'unhygienic'.

Thoughts??

Womaningreen, as a teen, I was horrified when my mum told me she’d been routinely shaved for the births of my brother and I in the 70s! Think she might have been given an enema too!

Most of them aren’t half as angry as you either

Without angry women, Ed women wouldn’t have the vote, or be in any position to continue the fight for equality..

Why the fuck does not shaving my legs, or not painting my nails, or not wearing high heels, make me less of a woman??

It absolutely doesn't

@edmund because it is the utter extreme but still on this spectrum of acceptable women.

In the parts of the world where FGM is carried out, it is to be an acceptable woman for your future husband, to keep a woman as society and men demand. Women have internalised that and so are the driving force behind it much of the time. A woman who doesn't have it it done won't be an acceptable wife or a proper woman.

Sound familiar? Just read all the comments above on how women are unhygienic or unsexy if they don't remove their hair. Not as completely horrendous but on the same spectrum of changing natural women's bodies to suit societal demands.

Edmund - don’t forget you were recommending a history book.

Im grateful to all the angry women who have the balls to take the stances that i dont have the courage to, because through them, my options widen

Without angry women, Ed women wouldn’t have the vote, or be in any position to continue the fight for equality..

Took the words right out of my mouth.

I'm not angry all the time, thanks.

I have spent a lovely relaxing day chilling in the garden.

But calling women "gross" and policing their bodies, and the frankly disgusting comments on here, have, imo, got to be answered

I have this amazing superpower ya see, where I can simultaneously be pissed off about one thing, yet completely chilled IRL.

Otherwise the mere presence of many politicians, people on the internet, and general unfairness in life for some people would have me spending my entire life stomping around growling at people.

I am not angry all the time, not even most of the time, but I have my pet peeves (don't we all??) and this is one.

“PP mentions women being shaved for childbirth in the 70s? I didn't know.”

Yes, routinely. It took a determined campaign to end the practice. And now those women’s daughters worry about the midwife seeing them with hair.

Of course you don't have to shave anywhere you don't want to. That's a given.

But if your husband finds it off putting he can't help that either.

for stevie

Love shaving my head....you haven't felt rain until it's fallen on your actual head.

And yeah men hate..'.but, in a rare move for me I'm gonna state the terrible phrase....not all men!

Well, Smi, again it’s just a matter of opinion. I’m well aware that women still do not have the equality they should even in these times. However, the idea of ‘cutting your nose to spite your face’ has never sat well. Being aggressive or angry to get a point across, whether through words or actions generally doesn’t get taken as well than through other methods.

Being hairy is not unhygienic! I shower every freaking day, and my body hair is far shorter than the hair on my head, ergo, easier to look after. Why isn't having long hair seen as unhygienic? It's also not 'unfeminine', I'm female, shall we go and shave the lioness?

Lana I feel as if I should give you a standing ovation, that was brilliantly put!

Are you going to do whataboutery also, Lana?

Edmund.......that book?

Your husband isn't happy. He is telling you this, how you respond is up to you but if you choose to ignore him he'll find someone who wont

Somebody please explain to me what the difference is between men's underarm hair and women's?
Why is only one of them 'disgusting', 'unhygienic' and 'smelly'?

The point is...

I don't police, or judge, other women's bodily choices.

Shave/not shave
Wear what you want

All power to your elbow.

But strangely, a lot of the "not shaving is gross" crowd don't afford me, or other non conformers, the same basic courtesy.

I have never sat in a pool with my friend whispering about how "gross" another woman is for shaving her legs, or wearing loads of make up.

But yet that has happened to me many, many times.

Smile

Somebody please explain to me what the difference is between men's underarm hair and women's?
Why is only one of them 'disgusting', 'unhygienic' and 'smelly'?

Cos it's unfeminine dontcha know???

Cos the natural state of women's bodies (all those icky periods, hair, and occasional pg) are just disgusting and must be changed.

(can I start on how many billions of pounds are made from convincing women that natural parts of their body are too disgusting yet? Or is that too commie??)

Love shaving my head....you haven't felt rain until it's fallen on your actual head. And yeah men hate..'.but, in a rare move for me I'm gonna state the terrible phrase....not all men!

Thanks @LKTV. No, there are doubtless some fabulous men out there who love it. Should one come my way, carrying a glass slipper in my size, then If not, then too. Life's perfect, either way. And the shaved head is here to stay; it's a stunning look for a woman in my opinion ....

MillicentF learn to use google, a library or a bookshop, like other people do. If you don’t have the intelligence to educate yourself, don’t ask other people to do it for you.

Lana, I like you muchly

Me too

Perfectly, yes, exactly. The majority of men must be really unhygienic by this logic.

Also, is it unhygienic to have eyebrows? If the main purpose of removing hair is for hygiene, then we’d better all start doing our eyebrows, no? And eyelashes too, I guess (pluck rather than shave though).

There is no logical reason why we ‘should’ remove our leg hair, but not our eyebrows.

But Lana, being a ladywoman is all about preforming feminine. The ladybrain makes us want to make ourselves ickle, pretty and quiet. Also shaven, painted and in a dress.

It’s all in the ladybrain.

That’s the difference between menz and wimmz.