Dd 12 just asked me "what do I do about the hair down there?"

[Ledkr]

What a bloody shame.

Lurcio, can I tell you how much I love you for your comment? Well played.

At 12 I would hope she hasn't seen anything like porn yet!
The average age at which a child sees porn is 11 years of age 12% of the websites on the Internet are pornographic ( that is 24,644,172 sites) 2.5 billion emails per day are pornographic in nature – that is 8% of all emails 34% of Internet users have experienced unwanted exposure to porn either through pop up ads or misdirected links or emails.

Maddy68, so basically you're saying all women are smelly, because you can smell them but you have hyperosmia? SO actually women won't be smelly at all unless to people with hyperosmia? Maybe?

I am saying I can smelll many women who are menstruating , I am saying that I don't like to smell, I am saying that I choose to shave because I am aware of the smell, I smell less if I shave.
My choice. Your choice not to
Believe me I can smell other things too :)

I'm afraid that threads like this do nothing for feminists. Feminism has nothing to do with shaving as others have pointed out.

Actually you have been rude. If you read my posts I have said that I shave fir the reasons I posted, I have never said that all women should shave. I have stated the reasons I do.

I haven't been rude to anyone, however obviously disagreeing with certain posters results in a rather unsavoury and frankly hysterical response from them.

I am not alone in being very sensitive to smell as other posters are the same (see current thread) www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2217898-Got-told-at-work-today-that-I-smell? But I'm sure you're not interested in differing opinions .....

I could smell everything while pregnant zzz. Don't remember sniffing any fanjos though!

And it would be interesting if Maddy could confirm if she asks people if they are shaved and how she knows she can smell their periods?

I have had conversations like this with my friends yes. strange question
I don't need to ask every woman in the street anymore than I need to ask them have they had Chips for dinner, because I can smell that they have without asking.... It's quite a distinctive smell ...

Hairy menstrual smell, you mean.

Right.

A 'Hysterical' response eh?

Of course, we're just ruled by our uteri. They also travel around our bodies and shit.

Just seen this on the guardian website
Amused me. Similar arguments to here :)
www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-7196,00.html

Monathevapire1 bit rude but i sort of agree otherwise all women pre the noughties would have made a fish factory smell pleasant!
AdoraBell nutrition and diet plays a factor - if you are undernourished/underweight/small for your age, you are less likey to start puberty. The age is quite low in the West. In 1920 the average age in the West was 14.6 now it is below 10.
My dd aged 10 has pubic hair. I will discourage her from removing it as I did my 19 year old dd although what she does now I have no idea. I didn't want how to bow to pressure from the media/peers/boyfriends.

Maddy do you realise the whole point of pubic hair is to keep the vulva area clean.

And to trap the pheromones (smell) :)

Sorry Monathevampire1 in comparison not rude at all "I suspect that in a past life you must have been a Dog" from Hakluyt clinches first place . . . i'm crying with laughter here in front of my 10 year old dd and reading some out - what a great way to introduce the subject to her.

I am a feminist. I remove my body hair. My dh sometimes gets his armpits waxed in the summer because the heat makes him sweat and feel very uncomfortable. He's a man and doesn't do pain so doesn't wax his genitalia but opts for extreme trimming. I prefer him not to have dangly pubes as I don't enjoy oral sex with pubes around my tonsils. I think you should do whatever suits you best. You don't get a 'good feminist' badge for remaining hairy and a 'crap feminist' badge for being hair free.

The point is that no one is saying that you get a bad feminist badge for shaving/waxing/bleaching/whatever. The only people who have said that are the people who want to justify why they remove their hair!

What the rest of us are saying is, that this doesn't happen in a vacuum. That there are reasons why women now feel the need to remove body hair to the extent they do when they didn't up until really recently. That those reasons have nothing to do with smell, feeling more comfortable or whatever, unless you are suggesting that women were happy with being uncomfortable, smelly, dirty, lazy,

I've spoken to mine about it and explained that it's fine to take it off if it's showing beneath swimsuits etc but that it's there for a purpose and removing it is not the thing. It results in sore skin and often in ingrowing hairs.

Why are to telling them that removing us is not the thing?
It might not be the thing fir you but you are projecting your opinion onto them?
How about given them a balanced opinion. I choose not to because.....
Others choose to because they think....
Up to you

They will listen more to their peers than their parents anyway so give a balanced view and show that either way is fine

Of course I recognise that the messages we get as women are patronising and sexist and generally crap. I still choose to remove my body hair - I prefer it's look and feel and that's chuff all to do with porn. It's my choice. I support you in your choice and would in no way criticise it.

Not so long ago I would have said that shaving was my choice and been offended at the suggestion I did it because of social conditioning, reading MN and the feminist boards in particular made me question this and I realised that I shave my legs in summer, because I am wearing skirts and shorts more, and the reason I do this is because I don't want people to comment on my hairy legs, which I then realised I've been kidding myself, I may shave by choice but that choice has been heavily influenced by society and comments I've heard against women who don't shave. I still shave but no longer kid myself on the reasons why.

Dd 9 saw me trimming pubic hair before we went on hols, I told her what I was doing and how I didn't want hair to hang out if my costume to which she replied "that's ridiculous, you should be angry at people who are looking down there" Shes correct and I'm questioning a lot of my views, choices and opinions lately as a result. Its overwhelming sometimes, there are so many things I've just accepted or never challenged, and I'm sorry to say whenever I heard the word feminist I would think of bra burners etc, I was so so wrong and feel a bit stupid now and worry that I have transferred some of societies expectations of women onto dd.

"So no, not a crap feminist if you choose to shave, but a pretty crap one if you don't recognise the mechanisms by which society and industry are telling you that you're a crap woman if you don't. IMO."

This. Oh, this 100 times!