Want your hairy legs to be accepted? Grow a penis. via coolfununiverse @ flickr
As my mother was preparing on Sunday to leave New York for much warmer climes, she remarked that she’s so relieved to have kept shaving her legs all winter long because now “they don’t look like a forest.”
“Mine do,” I said blithely.
“I noticed.” Her tone was one of ‘it’s-time-you-shaved.’
Perhaps the only reason that I love winter (well, besides my irrational love of the Christmas season) is my opportunity to wear black opaque tights. Like BeckySharper, I hate pantyhose. Give me tights any day, because then people tend to get the fuck off my back about not keeping my legs hairless and ladylike all year long.
Women grow hair on their legs. And on their vulva. And in their armpits. This is not a newsflash, obviously, but our society’s standards of womanly beauty sure likes to deny that we ladies grow hair in the same areas as men.
When I emailed my fellow Harpies to let them know I would be writing a post about this, it triggered an avalanche of gmail ad links for laser hair removal. Permanent hair removal. I understand the desire to do something permanent to your body — I have a breast reduction and a tattoo under my belt — but I just don’t understand the need to zap off your leg/pubic/underarm hair. When you plug “laser hair removal” into Google, it has 3.5 million results. 3.5 million. Clearly, a lot of women (and some men) do indeed want to be hairless in certain areas but is it really, honestly worth spending that kind of money?
I shave my legs in the spring/summer. I opt for hairless armpits. As for my ladybits, I will not be sharing that bit of information, other than to say that I am not the kind of lady who feels the need to do anything permanent down there. I remember those halcyon days when “Brazilian” was merely a way to describe Gisele Bundchen and “Sphinx” just referred to actual sphinxes and nobody seemed to be treating their pubic hair like topiaries. And I remember being endlessly confused when my best friend in elementary school shaved her forearms to try and get rid of the black hair on them. It’s just hair, right?
Body hair is a guy thing. Well, it is if you consider which gender is more likely to go out in public in this country with visible hair on all the body parts I’ve mentioned. Hairy legged women are anarchists, or atheists, or lesbians, or something like that. Hairy pitted women are just nasty and nobody wants to smell a woman without a splash of CK Obsession. Hairy vulva’d women never get laid because no guy would ever want to deal with that gross mess!
Really, it’s easier to spread your legs for a laser. And razor your skin to shreds on that tricky nook next to your knee. And grimace in pain when a huge fucking swath of pubic hair is torn off by a waxing specialist. That’s the way to be a real lady. Pain is beauty, right? RIGHT?!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go decide which shape I should sculpt my pubes in so I can drive my man wild. It’s going to be either poodle-shaped or Bart Simpson-shaped. Or maybe I should just date Edward Scissorhands.
Do I want to know what a Sphinx is? No, I don’t think I do. Besides, researching that would take away time from all the leg-hair braiding I need to do.
Also, Soalg: do you have a tattoo “under your belt”? Or a tattoo under your belt?
Yeah, I am utterly grossed out by the mere possibilities floating into my head as to what a Sphinx is.
I googled a sphinx wax and to be honest, I kind of wish I didn’t.
This is another area in which the public seems to be disgusted by my natural physical form. I was mercilessly teased by multiple actors in junior high for not shaving. I got harassed in the gym locker room, at swim parties, daily harassment (“monkey girl” may as well have been my given name) by a particular, powerful boy in homeroom, and eventually dropped off a sports team because of the shit I took from my teammates for it. It’s just shocking how much other people seem to care about something that has so little import. What on earth could it signify? I was as bewildered by the attention it drew then as I am now.
I prefer my legs to be shaved at all times cause the hair on them bugs me, I don’t do it for others, I wear pants in the winter (cause I’m in WI, IT”S COLD!!!) so it’s not like anyone would notice except me.
I cut my ankle this morning, I’ve bled through 3 band-aids (and countless TP before I found the bandaids) so far, should I be worried?
@jd: I really think a lot of it has to do with notions of gender and that women are perceived as aping (sorry for the pun) men’s bodies in order to be less feminine and “delicate.” God forbid!
In an interesting twist on gender equity, the military mandates that men must shave their faces but doesn’t have any rules about women shaving legs or arm pits.
Okay, okay, I am weak, curious, whatever, but I looked up a sphinx, and found this site that includes something called a “Sphinx Male Brazilian” and a note that “the price may be adjusted if client brings their own assistant.”
WTF does that mean? Assistant? What’s going on here? ‘Tis a riddle worthy of a sphinx…
Inneresting, Hill Rat! Are there any other rules about women’s head hair?
Nitpick: We don’t grow hair on our vaginas! We grow hair on our vulvas!
This is just one more way women are required to alter their bodies in order to distinguish them from men’s. We are the ones who add to and remove from our bodies; men’s bodies are taken as they are. Baby girls get headbands to distinguish them from baby boys (the default) and adult women remove body hair to distinguish ourselves from men (again, default).
@PhDork: What, you don’t have an indentured servant on Crotch Watch? YOU PLEBE!
@Hill Rat: Echoing JD, I’m curious about head hair as well.
@Hill Rat: I don’t think the the military needs to mandate body-hair issues for women–there’s enough policing going on already
@ SMC: Yep. “The slave acts more than the master.” Twas ever thus.
@SarahMC: Gah, my bad.
I feel like some sorta stealth not-shaver because people don’t notice my legs unless they’re up super close. I can’t remember it ever being an issue with dudes I was intimate with and I woulda told them to gtfo if it was an issue.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat through conversations where it is implied that women who don’t shave are gross/nasty/smelly etc. Usually it’s among people I’ve just met and I don’t really say anything and instead make a mental note that we probably aren’t gonna get along too well.
Ahh, one of the good things about winter. I just don’t like getting rid of my body hair and I worry I’ll freak people out or something. For special occasions fine, but why am I not allowed to wear a tank top with furry arm pits. On the plus side I can chase my sister away my showing her my arm pit, which is funny.
I’ll never forget my 6th grade frenemy who looked at my underarms on the One. Day. I wore my favorite tanktop to school and said “Time to start shaving, MKP” in a voice full of contempt. I responded by borrowing my mom’s razor and shaving every hair I could find off. I didn’t respond well to criticism.
After my first women’s studies class (read Body Outlaws, y’all!) I quit shaving for about a year and a half, including a trip to India where my arms and legs were covered all the time anyway. Now I’ll shave if I want to wear a short skirt but defiantly wear shorts to the gym regardless of whether I’ve shaved. I call it progress.
I have ridiculously dark hair on my legs… even when I shave, you can see it under the skin. Boo. I keep up with it anyway though because otherwise it’s scratchy as anything.
I remember Tracie answering a Pot Psych question about removing nipple hair. It’s insane.
Do women in the military have to rid themselves of the stray mustache area/chin hairs? That’d be kind of funny in an equality way. “Everyone with facial hair must remove it, regardless of gender.”
On a side note, my sister used to yell (when she was a toddler) at bikers through the car windows, “I LIKE YOUR HAIRY LEGS. GO HOME AND PUT YOUR JEANS ON.” My mother was mortified.
One dude’s opinion:
As a heterosexual male with a big ol’ beard, I have to say that I am perfectly fine with hair on a woman wherever she may choose to have it. I have dated women who didn’t shave their legs, and the majority of the women I’ve dated also didn’t shave their pubic hair. It wasn’t until after college that I ever encountered a woman who did, and I had no idea that removal “down there” was now expected.
It makes me sad, angry, and more than a little frustrated that men expect to have so much say over the manner in which women approach their own grooming. I would never expect my girlfriend to depilate anything, and she doesn’t expect me to de-beard myself.
Our culture really manages to mess with people’s heads.
…what? I’m sorry, I was busy shampooing, deep-conditioning and fluffing my body hair….
I’m all for a little grooming–I trim my head-hairz too–but what I find most ridiculous/infuriating when I encounter men with full-on body hair reminiscent of an angora sweater who loudly complain about how they can’t abide any body hair on a woman at all and she’d better go wax because oh gross, etc.
More than once I’ve said, “I’ll wax if you will. C’mon, I’ll make us an appointment.”
Shockingly (!) none of them took me up on it.
i would also like to say that i am equally disgusted by women who insist their male partners manscape. fuck that shit. it’s not nearly as enforced or widespread as forced hair removal for women, but it’s gross nonetheless and shouldn’t be encouraged as cute and metrosexual.
@jdregent: I agree. I’m dating a guy who is quite fuzzy-wuzzy and if he would trim the pubes a bit, I’d appreciate it, but I’ve never once said anything to him. Both men and women gotta take it as they find it when it comes to body hair.
right, i’m certainly ok with individuals doing whatever they want to their body hair (i certainly do) and even one ask is probably ok esp if it gets in the way of intimacy, but pressurizing or insulting are big nos.
@JD: I’ll usually say something like “oh, I can do a much more *thorough* job if you trim” and magically, the trimming occurs.
But I would never in a million years say “OMG, I can’t go down there until you trim.” Because I had a guy do that to me and he only barely escaped with his nuts intact.
@JD; Metrosexual bugs me like crazy. The word itself is just such a not-so-veiled “oh, you groom! That’s totally, uh, gay. But you may not like the buttsex, so I will avoid libel by saying you look like you like the buttsex. Because only women like grooming. And you must be submissive like a woman if you groom to that extent.”
Or something like that.
Or maybe “metrosexual” just means they fantasize about copulating with the Paris underground transport system.
Ugh. When did human hair become so “gross” you know? I read this sports website and every week they do like a sex questions mailbag and there is usually some question along the lines of, “how can I get my GF/wife to shave? I don’t want to go down on her unless she’s hairless”
Bluebears, it is all because of PORN.
I am very porn-positive, but the whole totally waxed bare naked hairless pornstar thing really pisses me off. Young guys today–yeah, I’m grandma!–think that’s the only acceptable look because their sexual tastes were formed while beating off to hairless porn star twats. So when your average 20something Maxim reader is faced with a real woman and her real pubes, they get skeeved.
Men in their 30s and 40s, who came of age before the hairless twat craze, do not behave that way. Or maybe they’ve just matured. At any rate, it is a real issue with men in their 20s and part of the reason I steer clear of them.
I know. One of my major issues with porn is the ridiculous, contorted, standard of beauty it propagates. I think its worse than any other industry.
Yeah, the porn industry has a lot to answer for in that department. I’m 100% convinced it’s led to the Brazilian/sphinx waxing craze and that makes me mad as hell.
I somehow lucked out and wound up with a guy who claims to like it “natural” down there. I keep it groomed, but at least I don’t have to obsess if I’m a few days overgrown (or if my legs are stubbly).
@Becky: My husband recently told him that the other day his father mentioned in an offhand way “you’ve probably never even seen one with hair on it, the way things are these days.” I don’t know why they were talking about vulvae, but I definitely agree porn has completely changed men’s expectations.
When I googled “sphinx wax,” the website told me fear was my worst enemy. I can’t tell whether I want to laugh or barf.
I shave my legs when I feel like it. Not that anyone notices– it’s fine blond baby hair, and once, when I was apologizing to my husband about my surely prickly legs, he was like, I have no idea what you are even talking about. Bikini area is a combo of shaving and trimming. Armpits I shave because I swear, the hairier they are, the smellier they are too.
Now I’m feeling like a bad feminist for suggesting to my guy that the oral might be more fun for both of us if we trimmed him up a bit. He was more than happy to oblige, and now I don’t get hairs in my mouth. Which is one reason I trim– I figure if I don’t like hairs in my mouth, I should at least return the courtesy.
@funnyface: Oh, it’s not at all a “bad feminist” thing. I shave my legs, but I do want to question why the hell I feel the pressure to do so. As for pubic hair, I do hear you on the oral arguments. (So to speak.)
I think functionality is a much more defensible reason to groom than looks. Although grooming for looks may be ok too, it’s just the insane conformist social pressure that’s not.
That’s cool, Sarah. The comments were just giving me the impression that most folks here think it’s awful to ever express to a partner that s/he might trim some sort of body hair. And I was thinking, wow, do I suck for wanting my man to trim his pubes for my oral comfort, or to keep his beard trimmed to a decent length so it doesn’t poke my face while we’re making out? Because I’ve expressed opinions on both of those things. I mean, I’d cut a bish for suggesting that it’s like, required for me to shave my pits and legs, but I’m willing to make some concessions in order to make sex more enjoyable for both parties, provided such concessions aren’t demanded but rather given freely.
funnyface check out my exchange with beckysharper! i definitely didn’t mean to give the impression that one could never talk about grooming with one’s partner.
My husband is a long distance road cyclist and he shaves his legs. I can get away with shaving just over my knees once a week in the summer, but he has to shave his almost every day if he doesn’t want to be stubbly, especially if we’re going to have sex. Spiky leg hair hurts! Almost as much as spiky two-day-beard face. He admits it’s a pain to shave his legs so often. (I think it’s kind of nice, though.)
It’s amazing how strong the pressure is to shave. I can’t shave because I have trichotillomania and will spend literally hours on end pulling out stubble if I have any. My parents, especially my mother, give me crap for it constantly. I’ve had to sit them down and explain to them that having bald legs is not worth spending all my time picking the hairs off myself until I die of sepsis from the resulting infections. They still give me shit.
@Nepenthe: I cannot pretend to know what trichotillomania is like and how that must exacerbate the shaving issue. I pluck hairs with with my fingernails because I am very compulsive about things like that (biting cuticles and knuckles until they bleed, etc.). I really hope you resist pressure to do anything that exacerbates your trichotillomania.
In high school, I wore pants all the time. ALL the time, even though I shaved my legs obsessively. I spent as much time worrying about whether or not someone would notice a stray hair as I did with a razor in hand.
It’s a bit different now, though. I practically live in shorts. I shave when fit takes me during the cold months, and enough during the warm months that I don’t get disapproving looks at the beach.
(I’m terrified of cutting that bit at the back of my leg, just above the heel. It’s pointy and it hurts. I’m cringing just thinking about it.)
I didn’t think I had THAT much hair but I notice my legs feel colder outside after the few times I shave in winter. Also, feeling smooth skin rub against jeans is a weird feeling at first.
Loving this post. Hair removal is something I’ve been struggling with for a while. I have many women friends who don’t shave at all, and while I’m currently not shaving my arm pits, I’ve gotten my lower legs (ankle to knee) waxed for the first time. It’s growing back in, and I feel a lot less self-conscious about my hairiness (it really does grow in finer and softer after waxing).
I wish I could be resistant to that social pressure in the way my friends are, but it’s difficult. I SWEAR people are looking at my hairy pits in yoga when we’re doing sun salutations!
I do my own waxing at home*, which required a big initial cost, and about $15 every few months for supplies. I have gotten pretty lazy about my legs in the winter since I realized my husband doesn’t much care or notice, though I like the feel of hairless skin.
Does anyone actually know how many women get brazillian waxes or shave their pubes? It’s so high maintainance and I don’t want it to be the norm, but I personally enjoy the increased sensation I get during sex. Right now I could probably french braid my leg hair, but my vulva is totally hairless. I might grow it out to try the Bart Simpson, though.
*I do NOT recommend this for anyone who does not have professional training(I went to cosmetology school for 1500 hours). Many things can go wrong if it’s not done right.
Is anyone here old enough to remember the original book The Joy of Sex published in 1972? (or perhaps you’ve seen an old copy in a used book store?)
I was about 11 or 12 when I first saw it (my friend and I got it from her parents’ book shelves) and one of the things I remember was that the woman in the drawings was not shaved. Hairy underarms. I even remember thinking about it at the time (after my initial “gross” because it didn’t conform to what society thought was sexy) that it was cool to be more natural. Most things considered “natural” were very “in” in the 1970s.
Just a little food for thought from the “wayback” machine. It’s too bad that porn seems to have narrowed the the options for what is considered sexy (I know nearly nothing about porn, actually, but I learn a little by reading these blogs).
For what it’s worth, neither my husband nor I shave anything (he has a beard that he keeps trimmed). Both of us are quite happy with each other’s furry bodies.
I do confess to being a bit of a hypocrite. I generally wear trousers and shirts so the shaving, or lack thereof, is completely unnoticed. But if I ever wear a tank top (or shorts), which is very rare, then I succumb to peer pressure and shave my armpits (or legs). I never wear skirts/dresses so that’s not a problem! It’s too bad that there is so much societal pressure out there to conform. I do my best to ignore society’s stupid double standards but this one is pretty deeply embedded in my brain and hard for me to fight.
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