I am so shocked about that thread stating most women have no pubic hair

[roseability]

I don't know quite why it has disturbed me so much. Like most women I have plucked/shaved and groomed for many years of my life. However the thought of putting myself through that really upsets me for some reason. Not that I plan to. It is just that I have never, ever considered that pubic hair is undesirable. I can't help but relate it to women in porn with little or no pubic hair and it makes me sad to think girls and young women (I have a daughter) will no doubt feel insecure about their vagina and how it looks in this way.

I am by no means a good feminist. As I mentioned I do shave my legs and I wear make up. I have read Beauty and Misogyny by Sheila Jeffreys and I question why I even do this. However it makes me almost weep to think of my daughter being influenced in such a way.

I was just really upset by that thread and I m not sure why

butterbar

"In my day (70s) a boy who got his hand down your knickers was GRATEFUL, and in no position to be critical."

Well quite.

"Don't these boys have their own insecurities?Or any empathy? Perhaps I should be telling DD that if any boy criticises her appearance - in this or any other way, to tell him to take his little dick and fuck the fuck off."

An excellent turn of phrase, i shall be remembering it for the conversations i am going to have with my daughters when they are older

I also found the other thread disturbing - I had no idea.

It cannot be that in 30 years, young women have gone from choosing to keep most of their pubic hair to choosing to remove all of it, for no reason whatsoever.

It's a fashion, girls and young women are strongly compelled to follow fashion. In my day it was shaving legs/pits, now it's legs, pits, genitals. Plus the general standard of grooming expected is much higher than when I was young.

I find it sad the amount of women who genuinely believe that pubic hair on a woman is unhygienic (dirty) / disgusting. Where the hell has that come from? Were all women in the 1980s disgusting? Of course they weren't.

Without porn culture I don't think you would even be able to find a salon offering Brazilian waxing, etc. There were none around in my younger days. Now they're ubiquitous, and part of the landscape of my DDs' world.

As an interesting aside, men are not immune from the trend either - 'manscaping' atricle here- particularly gay men.

From the link - 'What once was the concern of bodybuilders, models and porn stars is now a question every man must consider. To shave or not to shave? To suffer the laughter and ridicule of a woman or the outrageous gasps of teammates in the gym showers?' Interesting to see it is promoted as something women want in men whereas it was originally a fashion in the gay community afaik (a fact that is not mentioned).

mathanxiety wrote - "now a question every man must consider" (from your linked article)

Must? That sounds like social pressure to me.

I was quite surprised when I went through a phase of going out with men who were a bit younger than me, that they regarded trimming their pubes as standard. While IME men my own age don't tend to.

I have to say I have never met a bloke who had anything to say about my downstairs grooming habits - whatever I was doing or not doing at the time.

And I have spoken to men who find the whole idea of totally hair-free genitals on a woman horrible - that includes some of the younger ones.

In fact I wonder if, like like so much fashion, it bypasses what most normal men want/think - and has taken a route from porn through the fashion industry and media to the high street, and has become established as a norm, despite the fact that many men don't even like it. Same as many men don't like orange skin / plastic breasts / inflated lips / loads of makeup / skyscraper heels.

"In many parts of the world, the removal of all body hair helps to prevent fleas and lice"

Looks like that's one for the "cleaner" brigade then. But I had no idea pubic fleas and lice were quite so widespread.

ISNT I've just had a long conversation with a young male friend of mine and he said much the same thing - that shaving mostly seemed to go with a certain demographic.

So it's all bollocks really isn't it.

People say that women do all this stuff (talking in general about high maintenance grooming) to look attractive, presumably to men.

But actually women are just adhering to the current presiding norms which come from big business.

Someone will come on and say now that women aren't stupid and can make their own choices. Well yes of course - but strangely most women decide to do the exact same things when it comes to minimum grooming standards.

I suspect the most important part of that 'article' is that Philips Norelco reference at the end, the foil body shaver for all your manscaping needs. Invent a need and then fill it...

I think the cultural thing is a bit of a red herring.

In our culture, the fashion has changed, due to the "look" being normalised through porn.

In cultures where hair is removed to stop lice or for religious reasons, presumably the men do it too.

I have never met a man who had all of his pubic hair ripped out, I have to say. Most men would blanche and quake at the thought of having their bollocks and arse waxed. And TBH I would have thought most women would blanche and quake at the thought of having their genitals waxed - they certainly used to. That has changed too, of course.

If it is the case that it's becoming more popular for men to have it all waxed off (and agree with math that is something that started in the gay community) - then that's not a good thing either.

I don't think being pubic hairless smacks of paedophilia or wanting to be childlike, a paedophile will be attracted to a vulnerable child who doesn't have an adult body and is smaller, so more easily dominated (IMO). I'm not into it personally, although I have completely de-fuzzed once or twice, it just doesn't feel right to have nothing there.

I hope that most teenage boys are grateful when a girl allows them to touch their body, that's exactly how it should be, it's a privilege to be allowed to be intimate with another person, not a right. That's not to say they should have to give give give to the girl, but sex should be treated with the utmost respect. I'd certainly tell any man where to go if he started expecting me to change my body for him!

'So it's all bollocks really isn't it.

People say that women do all this stuff (talking in general about high maintenance grooming) to look attractive, presumably to men.

But actually women are just adhering to the current presiding norms which come from big business'

Of course this is true. I really despair for people who dont realise this. Speaking to men then you will know it isnt many men that expect this. I am yet to meet one actually and I am young and have had my fair share of men lol. Most men dont care and the kind of women that think they care are just the type that are easily swayed by advertising.

I agree with Camaleon about the yuck factor here. I think the 'easily dominated' aspect of it is significant here, especially given that the trend arose in the world of porn.

I think it takes a remarkably confident girl to turn her back on what is considered to be the norm amongst her peers. I don;t think the argument that women have their own brains and can choose so therefore, no problem, really holds water when all of this stuff sets in around puberty.

So when I was 11/12 the grooming that all girls did was shaving legs + armpits. It would have taken a remarkably strongminded girl to ignore that. Girls who didn't conform got a really rough time.

Now at 11/12 (younger?) I guess the pressure is on to remove hair on legs + pits + genitals. The argument that adults can do what they want - most of these habits are formed when we are children, and they are formed because of pressure. Then we just carry on with it because it's what we do.

I don't buy the argument that in the last 30 or 40 years, most young women have independently decided that they are more comfortable with no pubes, when they were previously completely comfortable. It is definitely something else, then rationalisations are invented afterwards that become "the way it is".

"However it makes me almost weep to think of my daughter being influenced in such a way."

rose - i totally agree. There are enough worries with being a teenager growing up without fretting about this

Isnt - when I was first not shaving I went in the carnival and someone did say to me your legs are very hairy. I just used to say my mum says if you shave your legs it will grow back more hairy so I dont want to start. I said that a few times growing up. What can anyone say to that really?

I went to an extremely rough school but I only ever got the odd comment like that and no one ever fell out with me/avoided me over it. I think if you have a mum that you love and respect then you know that she wants the best for you and I just followed her example.

Right... Inspired by this thread I have just spent the last two hours (yes - two hours!) holed up in my bathroom removing my pubes. It's taken nail scissors, venus razor, electric razor and, finally, my epilator.

I have a crick in my neck a bad back and a throbbing head.

How you 'all off' people reach properly beats me. You must be all yoga experts. First I reduced length using the nail scissors... this took a long time and I nicked myself a bit doing it blind (cannot see own arsehole)

Then I got the electric razor out to reduce length down to stubble. This didnt work too well so had to combine with venus razor. Again caught myself here and there due to wrinkly skin around groin area.

Finally, thought I'd bite the bullet and apply the epilator. Now I regularly do legs and armpits with virtually no pain at all. Takes me 5 mins tops.

Fanjo... whole different story... ouch ouch ouch... it was like trying to uproot trees. I have had to give up and am now sporting a half epilated fanjo covered in bleeding spots where the hairs ripped out. How anyone can go through this every two weeks is beyond me.

I have reached my late 40s without ever removing pubes and I will never do it again.

That's a bit harsh snowflake.
Most of us had great mums and most of us are great mums - doesn't mean the pressure isn't there. Maybe you never got comments or maybe you are just very independent minded. That's not the norm for most people I know.

Oh... and to add insult to injury.... it is now quite clear that I have one flap that hangs way lower than the other and looks just bloody fugly - a defect I was completely unaware of when it was all nicely covered

I didnt mean it like that wutker. I meant for the people bringing up their girls and are worried if you show these things arent important then they wont be for your teen girls.

I have never seen my mum diet, fret about what she looks like or shave her legs. In turn I dont I think it is important and childern/teens learn through role modelling and pick up on things.

snowflake at our school you would have been considered weird, deeply unfashionable and childish.

I don't think that in any of this, the children who are following fashion should be held up as examples of people making well considered choices TBH. Boys are just as bad as girls in this respect BTW, it's a child thing, not a gender thing.

As for the mums point - my mum told me the same and I did it anyway. As did everyone I knew. No-one had mums that facilitated their shaving IIRC - although by about 14 I think some had mums who took them to get their legs waxed. It was a mark of coolness that you didn't do what your parents said, TBH.