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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that Brazilian waxes are NOT the norm. Or am I deluded?

314 replies

GetOrfMoiLand · 31/10/2009 16:02

Article in the Times basically saying that it is an expectation nowadays that women will have Brazillians.

women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article6893826.ece

Is this the case nowadays? I have never had a wax job down below and have no intention of. Sod that!

Particularly at this quote: "There is something hugely irritating about being forced to conform to an aesthetic ideal instigated and perpetuated by the porn industry, but...it is now expected. If your boyfriend has been conditioned to expect a tidy Brazilian, he may genuinely find anything else very off-putting".

Really? Or in actually still having pubic hair am I the modern equivalent of the wild woman of Borneo?

OP posts:
MuGGGhoulWump · 31/10/2009 17:58

Well I eplilate the whole lot off and since I am single, I am doing it very much for myself.

I don't look pre-pubescent, how on earth could I?
I'm a 31 year old woman with a body and vagina to match. the vag just happens to have no hair.

No one thinks you are trying to be a little girl if you remove your pit or leg hair, so why fanjo?

I believe women should have it however they damn well please, just as I do.

alwayslookingforanswers · 31/10/2009 18:11

I never shave my fanjo, I never shave my legs, and I only do my pits if it's a really hot summer.

Miggsie · 31/10/2009 18:12

Japan used to make the prostitutes shave their pubes...then they could be distinguished from "nice" girls they would actually consider marrying.
Don't know if they still do this in Japan but wouldn't fall over with shock if they did.

Very male domination and oppression of women stuff.

I also find the idea that men want women to look like 12 year old girls very disturbing...

bellissima · 31/10/2009 18:18

But if you wax it all off do you do it (winces!!) yourself??? (If so you have my undying admiration ladies!
Or do you go to the beauticians on a (very) regular basis?

bellissima · 31/10/2009 18:20

Oh and (okay I'm getting obsessed here - well DH has taken em trick or treating phew) - if you use cream does it really all come off in the time they warn you not to leave the cream on longer for?? Cos (when I couldn't get a bikini waxing apptmt once) it certainly didn't for me.

Prunerz · 31/10/2009 18:23

I don't agree that it is to do with men wanting women to look pre-pubescent: don't they simply prefer the hairlessness? More to see, more to feel, easier for oral sex...and we do mess with their heads by shaving elsewhere and it being totally socially acceptable.

Nobody says "oh look, she shaves her armpits, he must like her looking like a little girl" yet the principle is the same. More to the point, we don't feel it is degrading to be expected by society to be as hairless in other areas as a girl, we don't even make the connection.

lovechoc · 31/10/2009 18:25

I don't have one! DH would like it all shaved off but I've told him it would be too much maintenance - the bushier the better! haha

Morloth · 31/10/2009 18:26

Prunerz "we don't even make the connection."

Some people do, I did.

Adult human females have body hair, it is weird that our society prefers for women to remove it. The individual women who do it are not weird, but it is a bit of a strange thing from a societal point of view.

MaggieOicheSamhain · 31/10/2009 18:28

I'm not planning it, and anybody who EXPECTED it, I'd be + [seeya]

Scorps · 31/10/2009 18:30

Just having a landing strip actually feels far better for me, and that's why I like it. DH appreciates it, it's neat looking and feels fantastic during sex. At times when I am a bit more lazy with it (pregnancy really) he doesn't comment - I don't think he wants me to look like a 12 yr old at all!

TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied · 31/10/2009 18:31

I always shave the lot off, or immac or wax or whatever takes my fancy. I wouldn't want DH down there seeing hair! We have a good giggle together when it grows a little too long

Plus I'm ginger.

MaggieOicheSamhain · 31/10/2009 18:37

that's really sad that you do this when "it gets too long".

like that is shameful

turtle23 · 31/10/2009 18:39

I had all mine lasered off. It hurt A LOT and after a year I didn't go back for the upkeep as I was pg and it has all grown back (though much sparser.)
Now I'm about to pop again I have no idea what it looks like as cant see it. Will be sorting it out in next week or so, though...out of kindness for the midwives.

Heated · 31/10/2009 18:43

Lying face down on a coach and pulling my butt cheeks apart holds little appeal.

Heated · 31/10/2009 18:44

Or even a couch!

Heated · 31/10/2009 18:45

I thought lasering was permanent?

pinkteddy · 31/10/2009 18:45

why kindness to the midwives?? I'm sure they've seen a lot worse and its probably not the first thing on their minds!!

Prunerz · 31/10/2009 18:47

Morloth I agree that (when you analyse it) it is weird. Freaky.

But you don't hear people railing against men for being disgusting enough to prefer a smooth armpit, or against us for pandering to it. That is my point. We have accepted (as a society, not perhaps as individuals ) that hairlessness in certain areas is the norm.

Frankly I think it is harsh to imagine my dh likes smooth calves because he can then imagine me better as a ten-year-old.

MaggieOicheSamhain · 31/10/2009 18:49

agree with you there heated.

even a normal wax hurts. when the waxer is doing my legs they always try to give me a bikini wax as well, I always say, eh,,, not going to be on a beach thanks... I mean, I don't want anything sticking out of my knickers but they roll back your knickers for you and start waxing bits that don't show.

MaggieOicheSamhain · 31/10/2009 18:52

Well prunerz, you may have the time and the pain threshhold to wax the lot off, but I don't want other people to 'normalise' this, so that have some hair around your fanny is on a parr with going out with a thick mousstache.

FlyMeToDunoon · 31/10/2009 18:57

I figure that armpits and legs are on show in the summer and so I shave them then. I sometimes shave my armpits at other times of the year because I think antiperspirent works more effectively on no or short hair.
Otherwise DP is the only one who gets a view of my fanjo and he is happy with it the way it is.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 31/10/2009 18:59

It's the age old question though - do we prefer ourselves smooth because we actually prefer it, or because we are conditioned by the patriarchy to prefer it? Personally, I never adjusted my pubes until about 5 years ago, when I tried it on the recommendation of a friend who said it felt grwat. I was single at the time and...it did feel great! Likewise my legs look yuk with long black hairs growing out of them. I am a staunch feminist but I remove some of my body hair occasionally because I prefer it. DH has never, not once, so much as commented on my pubes, be they freshly shaven or hairy as a baboon's bum, so I'm not doing it for him.

OmicronPersei8yourbrain · 31/10/2009 19:00

Didn't waxing for porn start because pubic hair was seen as a sign of sexual woman, removing it to make the women look less sexual made it easier to get things past censors? It's ironic that it is now seen as somehow more sexy. Personally I wouldn't do it and find the whole thing rather bizarre.

BiteOfFun · 31/10/2009 19:05

I'm working the retro seventies full bush- it will come back one day...

Prunerz · 31/10/2009 19:07

Good grief I don't DO it! It's mental!

I just get a bit when men are called paedophiles for liking it, when we happily depilate a third of our bodies without giving it much, if any, thought.

I have done it (not waxing though, I am not brave) when I was younger, just to see what it was like. DH and I both preferred it - why not? It makes things a lot easier, ahem, ykwim. Nothing to do with porn or children.