Shaving and all of that - new lows

[rosabud]

I know we debate this a lot and, like a lot of women, I really hate shaving and the concept behind it but do give in to fashion and shave various bits when I feel it matters............so at what point does it REALLY matter because, very depressingly, there is a thread over in the childbirth section from a woman who feels she needs to shave around her vagina before giving birth as it may look horrible for the midwife! Is that equally as depressing as me giving into fashion when I am on the beach / preparing for an intimate evening with partner - or is it a depressing new low?

Don't know where you live, greenhill, but I don't tend to get sweaty genitals as it's just not that bloody hot here. And mostly washing does just fine for armpits. As most men do.

Yes, people are always very quick to comment on women's appearance.

My DF always used to make comments on things that were none of his business and I used to reply "what's it to you?" and gradually having to justify silly comments made him stop.

It is like an extreme version of bad manners in which people don't seem to be corrected for pointing / staring / blurting out silly things.

I think it is a very gendered issue. Its not like men agonise over whether to shave their balls before going for a testicular health examination or whether to have the 'back,crack & sack wax' before their prostate check.... because they might ... you know, be......judged by the medical staff.

Its depressing that some women are worried about what the people who are paid to tend to their health needs bleedin' well think of their looks/personal grooming.

habbibu I think for me it was the combination of lack of air con (my body had got used to ice cold temps for over 10 years), liking the heating on as I have poor circulation and a hormonal surge since having children. It is not hot here, I agree!
My DH showers daily but doesn't like to use a chemical deodorant regularly, so prefers just soap.

A friend of ours shaves his armpits/ pubes as he is a heavy sweater too and can't afford to have the regular Botox injections that prevent extreme sweating.

In fairness though, I genuinely didn't know whether you should shave prior to birth

I think it's a fair question

I don't understand all this "it's just personal choice!" stuff.

None of us make choices in a vacuum, do we? For example, where I live it's 32c and humid as all hell. I would like to walk around in my underwear (with a biiig sunhat) but I have made the personal choice to wear a light sundress. I would be more comfortable in my pants, but still made a choice. This choice was influenced and informed by the cultural taboo of people walking down naice suburban streets in their undies, my own sense of shame about my insufficiently sexxxay body and insufficiently sexxay undies, thinking I don't want our neighbours to see my bum, knowledge of the risks of skin exposure, etc etc etc. We all factor crap like that into our decisions without even noticing it.

In this instance women are making decisions about how their pubes should look (or whether they should have any at all) because they are concerned about being judged and scorned by others. We say "It's my choice!" but a lot of what drives choice is fear of negative outcomes. I think it's a crying shame that there's a fear of negative outcome related to having normal adult pubic hair.

If someone is afraid that a medical professional who is there to help her will think she is dirty and disgusting if she doesn't modify the appearance of her genitals in some way ... then yes I do find it sad and depressing, and I do think that it is a feminist issue.

To put it another way: if nice, normal people in Jim Crow era Atlanta or apartheid South Africa made the choice not to befriend black people, we would all agree that their choices were (1) their own personal choices and (2) almost definitely influenced by the laws, habits, customs and taboos of their society.

We would also note that (3) their choices were probably racist.

We would further note that (4) the circumstances that produced these choices have radically changed as a result of social agitation and the resulting personal choices people make have also altered.

Saying "nope, nothing to see here worthy of feminist analysis, it's a personal choice!" is all phooey.

Agree with blackcurrants.

It never occurs to me that a professional fanjo-inspector will think about the state of my pubic hair, in all honesty.

Back peddling here, but where in the post does it say that she thinks her hair is "dirty and disgusting".

I've not seen the original thread, this is a thread about a thread.
Aren't you putting negative comments about women's genitals to make your point? In that case, you are assuming that women think negatively of their own genitals.

I haven't read the thread in question, but yes I am assuming that women who remove their pubes are motivated by some of the socially prevalent fear and disgust towards women's genitals.

But surely those women are exposing more of their genitals by removing all of the hair. They are out and proud, rather than covered up and hidden?

Do you mean they feel disgust for the offending hair or for the more exposed genitalia?
Surely if they were motivated by 'socially prevalent fear and disgust' they'd be hiding their genitals behind as much hair as possible, rather than thinking about their body parts and other people's perception of them more.

I was treated with contempt while I gave birth. It made it more traumatic than it needed to be.

I very much doubt that had anything to do with my pubes. But whatever the reason, it was a silly one. Even if only 2% of midwives are as moronic as the one who attended my DD's birth, conforming in any way possible seems sensible.

greenhill I mean that the women who modify the appearance of their genital areas, whether by removing hair, removing hair and gluing on little crystals, whatever - are doing so because they fear a negative outcome, (this could be judgement, sneering, being thought to be dirty or messy or ugly, or any range of things) - if they don't do these things.

And HoleyGhost I think we can agree there. There's a world of difference between condemning an unfair system (such as the Patriarchy) and condemning what women do to get by in such a system.

I hate to see hairy armpits on a woman and hairy legs and hairs sprouting from the bikkini line of a swimming cosutme.

"I mean that the women who modify the appearance of their genital areas, whether by removing hair, removing hair and gluing on little crystals, whatever - are doing so because they fear a negative outcome"

So they don't do it because of gaining a positive outcome then? Only because of fear of a negative outcome? And you know this is the case for all of them because...?

Whatmeworry, I do realise there have been overarching "fashions" in body hair throughout history and in different countries and cultures, whether it be hair on the face, head, legs or genitals. However, women removing all or most of their pubic hair through waxing or shaving in Western society is a modern phenomenon.

As mentioned, 20 years ago, I was a nurse - a year of that working in gynaecology so in an average day, I saw between 20 and 40 pudendae. Apart from women who had no or little pubic hair due to chemotherapy or medical conditions, and a few who probably "trimmed" the length and around the top edge a bit, I honestly don't recall ever seeing a hairless or nearly hairless pubic region on any patients. This was in a hospital in London and I saw women of all ages, from all cultures and backgrounds of all socio-economic classes.

I left nursing, but kept in touch with a former colleague who stayed in the field. I distinctly remember a conversation with her in 2003 when she said that she first started noticing a few women shaving or waxing in the late 1990's, but it was still unusual to see more than a couple a week, mostly young women, until after the turn of the millennium when more and more were showing up.

This timeframe corresponds to the emergence of hairless genitals in porn, at a time when porn was becoming more explicit and readily accessible, free of charge, via the internet.

With regard to pre-op shaving, this was a common tradition that had no clinical basis. Research has shown that pre-op shaving can increase the risk of post op infection of the surgical site. (See Norrie & Melen, 2011's comprehensive review of evidence ), If hair will get in the way of stitching the wound (wherever it is on the body,) it is recommended that it be clipped short rather than shaved. When I've had surgery, the pre-op information from NHS in Wales said explicitly NOT to remove hair before surgery, citing research. It depresses me if health care practitioners are either retreating to outmoded traditions or putting fashion above clinical evidence.

As for fashion, a doctor raised serious concerns about the increased risk of skin and gynae infections as well as scarring associated with pubic hair removal. But I doubt this will make a difference when the practice has become so embedded and the marketing of products and services based on the falsehoods that pubic hair is ugly, dirty, smelly and unsexy means women feel they have to "suffer to be beautiful." I can only hope that sometime soon, there will be some sort of backlash against it and a move to "go natural" again.

(The citation is Tanner, Norrie & Mellen 2011 - no idea why the first name got left off.)

It's only reading on here about shaving before smear test/childbirth that has had me a bit worried about what the health professionals might think of me not bothering
I must admit, I'd never given it a moment's thought until I started reading about it on here. Now I do find myself wondering what people might think. I find the idea of shaving it all off bizarre but I have become a bit more groomed recently, purely from mn! I don't think I've ever heard it discussed in real life though.

Some really strange comments here while I was composing that post.

Greenhill, I seriously don't get the argument that I think you are posing that women who shave their pudenda are "out and proud," implying that if they don't they are more likely to be motivated by "socially prevalent fear and disgust." Um, no. The "fear and disgust" is of the female body in it's normal, adult form, which happens for most people to involve hair in the genital region. Nope, they are submitting to expensive, time consuming, painful and often risky procedures to make their bodies "less disgusting" and conform more acceptably to the current fashion for women's bodies. Suggesting that this is "liberating," and not shaving is a sign of feeling fear and disgust seems very bizarre to me.

Empusa, that's kind of just playing with words. Basically, if you don't shave or wax, you'll get comments like those from amothersplaceisinthewrong above. That's a "negative outcome." If you do shave or wax, you're hardly going to be handed bouquets by other women in the shower room or diamond earrings from your husband for having a particularly fine and smooth pudenda. Thing is, you'll only get comments if you don't conform with the fashion, and those comments will be negative.

Trust me rosy. Doctors, nurses and midwives see HUNDREDS of fannies a week. They're interested in diagnosing and treating health problems. They don't give a flying fig whether you're fanny is a fashion plate. If they DID say something, I'd complain, just as if they made a negative comment about your hairstyle (on the head), your blouse, your teeth or anything else related to your appearance which was clinically irrelevant.

Look, having investigations and treatments is stressful enough in the best of circumstances. Why the Hell are folks adding to the stress with this?

Trust me rosy. Doctors, nurses and midwives see HUNDREDS of fannies a week. They're interested in diagnosing and treating health problems. They don't give a flying fig whether you're fanny is a fashion plate.
Oh, I know that. It just crosses my mind in a way it never used to. Obviously that must be evidence that all this shaving is not personal choice at all, despite what people like to think!

I can't imagine that anyone is looking at the hair when you're giving birth, there's far more important things to worry about - although I did hear of a rather rude comment made to a pregnant mother by a doctor about how long her hair had got! I've got to admit it's the only one and possibly one on MOBSW though.

The only reason I'd consider trimming is because being a mooncup user I'm not used to using towels and hate the feeling of blood in my pubic hair (sorry if that goes on the TMI side).

I'm not disagreeing with you, you are making good points.
But I don't understand why someone's own choice of personal grooming has to be a negative, self-hating one if it is not 100% natural and untouched.
Yes, vajazzling is a silly fashion, but it is very much a minority one, mainly connected with not very bright TOWIE girls, some may copy it, but it is a fad and only a small percentage of people would copy it. Then it would be done probably for a laugh, which is not connected to self hatred.
People dye their hair, have tattoos, pierce their body parts in the name of fashion and to be part of an in-crowd. None of these things are done out of self-loathing.

Green you are missing the point about shaving pubic hair. It is not the same as having a tattoo or dyeing the hair on your head because a) those things are not in an intimate area of the body and b) there is no social pressure to have a tattoo or dye your hair but there IS social pressure to shave certain parts of a woman's body. Also, the original post suggests that this pressure is being extended a) to increasingly more intimate parts of the body and b) in circumstances where it really ought not to matter ie that of giving birth. Noone is going to suggest that really in order to look your best for giving birth you ought to get a new tattoo - we all accept that giving birth is far more important than such a trivial fashion choice THEREFORE the concern felt by the pregnant woman over the appearance of her pubic hair while giving birth suggests soemthing far less trivial than fashion is going on.

Thankyou KRITIQ for your really interesting posts, I think your argument is very strong.

And finally, at risk of derailing my own thread, what on earth is vazjazzling? And what is a mooncup??

A mooncup is a silicone cup that you use instead of tampons and wash out. It collects everything with very little leakage so a lot cleaner (I'm only saying that because like I said before it's so different to towels especially with how much you lose after a baby, not that there's anything wrong with blood).

My understanding of vajazzle is it's a diamonte design that replaces the pubic hair.