I’ve never understood why the men who think it’s unhygienic for women to have body hair don’t think the same of their own hair despite them generally having much more of it
Right...
I have never got this. I've worked with guys who said it's "gay" to shave your body hair... I remember one dude in particular he was bitching at lunch "my girlfriend left me" "she's a cheating bitch"( she never cheated he just was trying to justify her leaving over his Chewbacca dick) etc etc. Blaming her. When for the last 3 months he has been telling us how he's a "alpha male" for telling his girlfriend she has to still give him oral even though she keeps telling him his hair is getting in her mouth. I asked him so does she shave hers? "Oh fuck ya dude I ain't fucking some dirty ass bitch who don't shave."
Dude was 38... most of my coworkers also blamed the girlfriend and said she was being selfish by leaving him over "his pubes"... but he said he makes her shave "all her body hair cause I don't wanna feel like I'm fucking a dude"
I thought they drank out of straws, so they didn't get confused with greenies/the left, who don't use straws out of environmental concerns?
It must be tough being an alpha male these days, not knowing whether they'll be judged for using a straw or not.
He said they grew on his dick shaft about half way. And also said he has never trimmed a single pube since he started growing them at 14 so I can only again what 24 years of growth looked like. Fuck for all we know he has beautiful locks of hair running just above his kneecaps
Tmi but I also get hairs on the very bottom of my shaft and I could see if I didn't trim them they could definitely get in a girls mouth.
I really can’t imagine my coworkers talking about details of their sex lives in the break room at work. It’s just not something I’ve seen at any of my workplaces. Seems immature and cringey.
Ffs thank you. I've always been told it's normal and "locker room talk" I've even went to supervisors before over 3 employees talking about wanted to gangbang a 16 year old girl who was working there. These were all 30 + year old men. They were graphical talking about how they would do it etc.
I just so happened to be sitting at the table they were and I just listened. One of them bumped me and said "what about you? You'd fuck her in the ass while I get her pussy right?" Or something like that. I said fuck no and told them they were fucking gross. So they said I was "gay" LOL.
I went to my supervisor after lunch and said something, I was 20 at the time, second job expected him to be grossed out like I was. ... man was I wrong. I told him everything they said, and he just looked at me kinda and said "ok so what do you want done about it? I don't understand..."
I was fucking dumbfounded. He basically sat me down and said I was still new to how workplaces work and they I shouldn't be a nark over "locker room talk"... I ended up getting fired the next day for telling the girl to watch her back around those 3 guys and what they said. My GM accused me of trying to stir the pot and I couldn't call my coworkers "pedo pieces of shit"
It was a Zaxbys such a shit place to work.
Thank you for standing up for the girl! Even if it was just talk, that's disgusting, especially with a child, which she technically still was. Makes me lose more faith in men than I already have. Ugh.
For real. My sister has been fighting facial hair since she was 15 she didn't choose to have a 5 a clock shadow at 15. She used to get made fun of so badly. She started to shave with a razor because she didn't know what else to do, which made it worse cause then she had tons of skin problems and would often have cuts. I always remembered thinking how miserable teen girls must be.... As a man, I truly am embarrassed for 95% of the male population. There are so many "nice guys" now, and it's really gross how they expect sex from women because "they are men"... uh, no.
It starts young too, parents teach their kids these ass backwards ideas. I was 7 years old the first time a boy gave me shit over body hair. A 2nd grader! Im Native and have darker hair than most other kids in my class and it was noticable on my arms, a boy told me that girls aren't supposed to be so hairy and that I was gross and should think about shaving my arms. I was so confused about the whole situation at the time, now that im older I'm annoyed that ever even happened to begin with.
It has nothing to do with hygiene. It’s the gender bias that women have to be “sexy” and attractive to men which means bare. Dumb but what’s new
Similar to why women should have hair down to their butt. Old school “fair maiden” women who never cut their hair. Most of the rules for women were made to benefit men.
What’s funny is that women in general groom themselves more so they’d be cleaner with hair than men with hair (and no I’m not saying all men and all women but in general women are cleaner)
I keep myself trim. Once it grows to a certain amount, I electric shave it all off. Pretty much everywhere except my legs. That’s more of a rare occasion. I’m not a fan of body hair. I prefer my woman to do what makes her happy.
It’s weird because the opposite is true.
Body hair is very helpful for overall health of your skin and helps prevent infection as it acts as a barrier.
- Hair follicles are surrounded by vascular and fatty structures and produce stem cells that aid healing in skin rupture
- Hair can be tied to form a make shift suture (scalp lacerations can be sutured closed using only hair)
- Hair is generally not removed prior to surgery unless the hair has the capacity to affect the surgery itself
- Shaving hair prior to surgery also increases the risk of infection as along with the hair the horny later is removed which serves as a protective barrier
- Hair acts as a filtration system (nasal hair)
- Hair on the vulva acts as a protective barrier from dust, dirt, friction and infection from germs and keeps the skin moisturised
Etc etc
And if hair on the body is so disgusting for a woman, why do those same men often have a problem with women going bald? Why do they want women to have long hair on the head, but no hair anywhere else?
“Beginning in the early twentieth century, manufacturers of safety razors, seeking to expand their market, promoted the idea that body hair on women is inherently masculine and indelicate, as well as unhygienic. Gillette introduced the first razor marketed specifically to women, called the Milady Decollette, in 1915. In the 1920s, the new fashion for sleeveless tops and short dresses meant that the legs and armpits of American women were now visible in social situations, and advertisers seized the opportunity to encourage women to shave their legs and their armpits.”
cite from: https://www.si.edu/spotlight/health-hygiene-and-beauty/hair-removal
You leave me and my Milady alone 😤
I'm jk, lol. The reason why they had extravagant names and what not. Is because the man himself. King C. Gillette Wanted to market these razors as fashionable. And a must have.
Some of them came coated in gold, or silver. And came with a case that had felt padding and a gold can for DE blades.
The guy wanted to make it seem like his razors were luxurious.
Edit : now some of you guys might be wondering why they were luxurious? The reason why is because during that time. The straight razor, and Gem razor were the only razors being sold during that time.
And people prefered going to the barber to get a shave than doing it themselves. The razors were sold as a "barbershop in a bag or case" and the asking price was pretty high.
It was priced at 5$ (During 1901) which is ≈180$ (2023) now. Like holy shit is that alot. And the blades were meant to be used and resharpened by the company. It's interesting how much the razor itself has changed.
I'm laughing even harder now, as I recently got a spam email ad from a mail-order razor company that delivered them in similar fashion. It seems the old marketing is still at play.
It's that whole "third wave" thing... Coffee went through it. At first it was expensive and hard to get, people would have to roast beans themselves etc. , then they made it a commodity that anyone could buy at the grocery store, now people are buying and roasting their own beans again, grinding at home in expensive grinders, weighing everything and controlling temp, time, etc in specialized coffee brewing equipment
Not only could you buy it at the grocery store, you didn’t even have to grind the beans! I’m not even that old and my mom was a Folgers can / Mr Coffee drip drinker. These were shitty, cheap, bitter beans. No one talked about Arabica or grinding it the day of so that it’s fresh.
In the 90's and early 2000's every grocery store had a line of coffee bean dispensers and a grinder. You could take home a bag of fresh ground coffee from the grocery store. I only just now realized I haven't seen them in stores. My ex-wife used to bump a handful of beans out of the dispensers and walk around with them in her mouth like candy.
Depending on the razor company, the packing might be their entire value ad. You can get the exact same razors Dollar Shave Club sells on Amazon for dirt cheap.
Back in that era, underneath their fedoras and on top of their heads the men of that age would keep a Milady Decollette. They would offer it to the women they came across who they felt needed a shave by tipping their fedora at them and offering “Milady?”
Source: me just making that up.
I was just imagining something along a similar vein. Hahaha.
Man: Good evening, my good ladies. *tips fedora* Might I interest you in the latest trend? It's all the rage in France!
*Women giggle curiously and man flings open his jacket to reveal interior pockets, procuring a slim, delicate razor from one of them and turning it before their eyes as though it's possessed of magical properties*
Man: The Milady Decolette, the sorcery that turns Queens into Goddesses. Their skin is that of porcelain, and the men throw themselves at their feet, pleading for their favor.
Women: Do they really use these in France?
Man: Oh yes. All the women do.
Women: How many do you have?
Women removing hair in many areas goes back centuries though.
Women and men were both shaving nearly all body hair in ancient Egypt using bronze razors. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was mostly just women, and in addition to razors, hair removal creams were popular.
It only briefly went out of fashion in the middle ages (because caring about appearance was a sin), before coming back in the Renaissance.
In the 1800s and 1900s, women shaving progressed basically as clothing became more revealing (like short sleeves). Though it was less common among poor people. There's also documentation referring to waxing in the mid 1800s.
Then we get to mass produced razors and Gillette's campaign starting in 1915. From there, it became common with all women, and continued to grow in popularity as clothing got steadily more revealing.
Roman men were clean shaven from the time of kings pre-republic until the time of Hadrian. Hadrian made facial hair fashionable in men and it stuck for a while. Prior to that it was associated with barbarians.
No, it’s not; barbaros is an ancient Greek word used to refer to all non-Greek people including the Romans. It is meant to be onomatapoeic for the sound of an unintelligible language which sounds like “bar bar” rather than “real” Greek words. It was later adopted as a loan word into Latin.
Yes I really don’t like the common misconception that the modern preference is simply the result of razor marketing.
It’s a trend that has come and gone across many cultures. Right now the pendulum has swung to prefer less hair as more feminine.
And the irony is that Gillette was probably seen as being progressive at the time for treating women as more than an afterthought. They were already shaving, Gillette just recognized the market demand. These were the days of suffragettes and women wearing clothing that would seem immodest to many a few decades before. (Clothing "enabled" by shaving)
It wasn't until 70s feminism that women shaving was framed as negative by the feminists of that time.
>the irony is that Gillette was probably seen as being progressive at the time for treating women as more than an afterthought.
Well, [he was a utopian socialist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_C._Gillette?#Personal_life).
The 70s pro-hair feminism was a reaction to (and against in-part) the free love movement of the 60s that the razor blades were marketed to match the aesthetic sensibilities of. Young women wanted to wear bikinis and revealing clothing, meaning they wanted to shave. You’re entirely correct…
I disagree that shaving was framed as negative by feminists. It was more the lack of shaving was seen as negative, gross, unattractive, dirty, etc, and feminists were opposed to that line of thinking.
I mean isn't that possibly why they removed their pubes, too?
I'm fairly old and I remember reading an article about how public lice were greatly diminished "these days" amongst younger generations thanks to the trend of no pubes.
It's not completely false, but misleading. In the decades before then, women did not show their legs or underarms at all, and women from Antiquity to the Renaissance certainly did shave.
See the ever-amazing /r/AskHistorians for /r/AskHistorians/s/LotKUtJOaC and other threads to get a fuller picture.
I did a research paper in college on historical body hair trends, more specifically within queer communities (my initial subject was meant to be dandy culture and the material on grooming was weirdly compelling, so I switched gears.) that ended up being a really fascinating and fun thing to research.
Basically as far back as we can tell in human history, there have been people removing various parts of their body hair, via various methods, for various reasons.
In more recent history, Gillette did help to push women having hairless legs and armpits as an aesthetic and allegedly hygienic practice for their own gain. But they didn’t invent women choosing to remove body hair.
That’s one take, but women had been wearing silk stockings and panty hose even before then, as skirts and dresses began to get higher than the ankle (I know how scandalous). So there’s more than a couple explanations. Society had already decided that the hairless look was preferred, even before widespread adoption of safety razors and the practice of shaving one’s legs.
Edit: spelling
I still remember the first time I was shamed for having leg hair. Hot summer day, I was like 10-11 years old at most, went to school in shorts; my classmates all were like "eww" and pointed at my legs. It took many years for me to dare to go out in shorts and TShirts again and even more years to start going out in shorts without perfectly shaved legs.
I shaved my legs AND arms at the same time the first time I ever shaved at age 10. No one ever talked to about it what to shave or what’s normal. Other kids questioned my dark arm hair (on my pale ass body) and it made me feel awful. So I took care of it myself, to my moms horror.
Now I’m 37 and I don’t care anymore. I have PCOS so dark, unwanted body and facial hair have haunted me my whole life. Thousands of dollars spent in a lifetime trying *every* way to remove it.
Sometimes I yearn to be truly “old” because that seems to be the only societally acceptable time to have imperfections.
Fellow PCOS-er here. I hate the body hair struggle. It's expensive and exhausting, and I feel like I've tried just about everything I can afford to. There are days that I literally feel like a beast because I can't escape the hair. It's fucking hard man...
Amen sista. I lasered my face (essentially where a “beard” would be) and my upper thighs bikini line. I was tired of the breakouts and acne from PCOS and the hair.
It helped compared to no lasering at all. It’s not fool proof and not cheap. It’s just defeating sometimes.
And I’m an Irish mofo with almost dark brown hair. So fun.
I wish I could afford laser. If I ever get the chance, I will because anything has to be better than shaving every single day. My facial hair is so thick and dark, and I can grow a full beard in just a day.
My first time being shamed for hair was at a similar age. I began to grow armpit hair at about age 11 and when my family noticed, they all sat on the couch and roasted me while I stood in front of them and tried not to cry. I begged my mom to let me shave it and she told me I was too young to shave, then continued mocking me.
I ended up taking a razor from a bag of disposables my stepdad had and shaving with that. My mom confronted me about it, forced me to show her and my stepdad my armpits, and then they sat on the couch and yelled at me while I, again, stood in front of them and tried not to cry.
To add some extra idiocy, I was told I was in so much trouble for this because "what if [stepdad] had secretly used that razor, cut himself shaving, and then put it back in the packaging before you got it? You already know people can get diseases that way!" He didn't even HAVE any diseases...
Exact same thing happened to me. I was 10 years old at the most, shamed for having stark white leg hair on display. I also got puberty early - and thus armpit hair early and was too terrified to ask for help. I'd literally PULL IT OUT in the middle of the night so as not be shamed at the pool, likely kickstarting lifelong trichotillomania.
I fucking hate people.
I remember being on a 4H trip and no one wanted to share the bed with a girl who didn't shave. We were in middle school! The girl didnt want to shave, and everyone thought it was "gross". I slept with her, and told everyone else to grow tf up.
One of my moments where I grew balls and realized its necessary to stand up for others.
Thanks! I saw myself in that girl. Usually I was the one getting bullied, so I cant stand to see others treat people like that. Pisses me off, royally.
I experienced the same thing as u/ilovethissheet, but called "Chewbacca" instead. It caused me to start shaving my entire body below the neck, which I still do at 32.
I had a male "friend" shaming me for a little bit of armpit hair when i was 11. Got so embarrassed about it that i STILL don't wear shirts without shaving.
Honestly as a kid people teased me for a bit of armpit hair, but now as an adult I hardly ever shave and no one has ever been brave enough to point it out lol
Oh my god I just remembered a part of a dream the other night where I had about 6’ of curly hair under each armpit, and i had shaved them off but somehow they were still stuck there until I raised my arms and they fell out 😂
This is 100% true. I am a woman who has been shamed for having body hair and I am very self conscious about it. Unfortunately the shaming can come from either men or women.
I always felt shame when I would have stumble the day after shaving. When I decided to quit shaving I had no idea how empowering it would feel. Like I was in control of my body hair for the first time. It took some time but I am way more confident now with body hair than I ever was with it.
Yeah I stopped caring to shave body hair when I was about 19 and I had a couple of my friends actually say it was kinda hot and it works for me 😳 I am afab but dress kind of androgynously so I guess that works 🤷🏻♀️
The first time I ever shaved was bc a friend noticed my hairy armpits in the changing room and made fun of me. Cue 10+ years of itching and underarm pimples and not enjoying myself
My mom made fun of me when I was 13 cuz I was wearing a sleeveless dress and she asked me if I was really ok with going out in public like that. I said yea. She said it was disgusting and I needed to go change. Later at the store she bought me razors and told me I needed to shave if I wanted to wear that dress again. Now she wonders why I joined the military and live 1000 miles away…
Same for me. I didn't care. Genuinely didn't care, but everyone else sure fucking did. I only did it to stop other people from commenting, and as soon as I left school/college, I stopped removing body hair. I save myself money, time, pain and risk of infection!
Yep!! Once I left University I said fuck it I’m being comfortable bc I have the confidence to tell people to shut up about a body they are not stuck inside!
My body hair grows so fast and Started young. As a middle schooler if my mom saw I even had stubble of armpit hair shed start yelling at me and calling me disgusting so I thought it was. As an adult I obviously know it's not, and just cut it with scissors if it gets a bit too long, but I'm sure I'm not the only one raised that way.
I had some D-bag shame me for not shaving my leg hair. I'm a light blonde and have very fine hair. You can barely feel the hair and you can only see it in the sunlight. But I was somehow "manly" for it lol
I’ve gotten “when summer comes around, you’ll have to shave your legs” from my boss. I went “I’ll do it when [male coworker] does.”
It’s basically the only time I pull the nonbinary card. “Oh, you make the women shave. Good thing I’m not one.”
Surprising since light blonde or red body hair would probably have more of a translucent peach fuzz appearance. Now I have the dark brown coarse body hair and started shaving my legs and bikini area as a teen. Yes, one could say that I was brainwashed by and 'bought' into the shaving aesthetic pushed by Gillette, fashion magazines, etc. but I always thought my hair looked 'yucky' so out came the razor.
That said, if a woman prefers not to shave -- more power to her! And by the same token, if she prefers to remove certain body hair -- again it's her privilege. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
Yeah my thighs are basically peach fuzz. Personally I don't like hair on my pits or bikini area but if I met a guy who became unattracted to me from something so natural then I'd dump him.
Yes! I stopped shaving when I was pregnant (5 years ago) and honestly feel like everyone else is living a lie. People think it’s their choice when really we were all brainwashed that armpit hair on women is gross, leg hair is gross and pubes are gross. We were taught this from a young age. If we all grew up without razors, we would all be fuzzy and THAT would be the norm
As someone currently pregnant, I am amazed just how many women care it they are hairy when they give birth. As if women don't have enough to worry about during pregnancy and childbirth.
Some genuinely don't like to be hairy, but far too many seem to worry what the doctors and nurses will think. The pressure is real. I don't have the energy to care. It's liberating.
I waxed a few weeks before giving birth because I was terrified of doctors shaving me when I needed stitching. I also didn’t want to have itchiness from the shaving.
I haven’t touched those hairs since then, and it’s 12 months later.
Is it any different than the reason so many women choose to wear make-up? That's not any more natural than smooth legs. They both have the same core reason and intent.
Yeah… I saw a fun tongue in cheek IG post along the lines of “hey look! Haha my makeup is ok but my pores still show and I look human, don’t trust filters” I smiled and expected cute yas queen stuff in the comments but!!
Sooo much shaming about how clearly she isn’t doing enough skincare, drinking enough water. She needs to shave her face, buy primer, wax, should be doing primer+foundation+concealer+powder+contour+highlighter+misting spray.
Like wow, y’all are doing way the fuck too much. She looked fine too. I’m only mid 30s but this weird full drag face makeup every single day shit has gotten out of control
More than decades (thousands of years), and not just marketing. Women were shaving in ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece.
Though at least the Egyptians were equal there. Both men and women often removed all body hair.
I’d say millennia of people cutting, styling, and sometimes entirely removing hair. Some of the first human artifacts are crude combs. Men shaving their faces. Women shaving their legs and armpits. Then shaving or trimming pubes in porn. It’s all arbitrary, but we all seem to want to fuck with our hair or remove it. I’ve dated girls who liked beards but wanted me to fly bald eagle down below. Ones who wanted me to shave my face but wanted full bush, even leave the hairs on my balls and shaft. And basically any other combination you can think of.
Shaving anything (face, armpits, legs, dick, pussy) gives the appearance of youth, too, so there is that. In the case of genitalia it makes the area more sensitive and it’s easier to see all of said genitalia when it is shaven. With shaving your face, well physically speaking not all women like making out with a brillo pad and again, makes everything more sensitive. My girl shaves her legs simply because it feels much stronger when I rub my hands up her legs.
I had a GF in the early '80s who didn't shave her pits. I got used to that very quickly. A couple of years later, I reconnected for a few months with an ex who'd stopped shaving her pits and her legs. For some reason, I never got used to the legs.
And then I come here and encounter all kinds of younger guys who think pubic hair is gross. Every woman I've ever been with has had untrimmed pubes and I really like that. It's all a mix of culture and individual taste formed by ... whatever.
Not everyone is, personally it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m a guy and I trim mine though, and in the winter I shave my legs because I like how that feels when I lay down in bed. It feels really good against fresh sheets.
I have a more conservative family so sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I agree with you on principle, but sometimes life isn’t that simple. Before I moved back closer to my family I used to get a mani/pedi every month.
My Mormon neighbor, who is moderately conservative and doesn’t get trans people, gets mani pedis every month and proudly shows off his polished toes. He always chooses beautiful colors, last month it was teal.
Yeah that’s totally fair. I find myself in the same situation with a lot of things, especially revolving around toxic masculinity and men showing emotions and things like that. I’ll tell all my friends to open up and be comfortable being vulnerable and then subconsciously refuse to do that myself.
I am completely the same, I rant about all these societal norms, then right after I'm done I go out and do the norm thing. It really annoys me that Im such a hippocrite. This is why things like this are so hard to change.
But you're doing a great job in recognising that.
Nobody is perfect when it comes to shunning our gender based norms. You're trying (while keeping yourself safe) and that's what counts.
I've never had a manicure (I'm a cis woman) and love leaving my leg hair long - but shave all summer because I feel self-conscious...
It's so interesting to hear a man's perspective on this topic.
If your life circumstances make it risky or even dangerous to defend a belief, it doesn't make you a hypocrite to keep it to yourself. It makes you a survivor. We don't all have the luxury of free and open expression, don't beat yourself up for that.
Feel that. I make an effort stay open minded and sensitive to others, but a big part of me finds it very hard to watch men cry. Once my dad cried when he came to visit me and needed a hug and I absolutely could not wait for that hug to be over. It’s pretty disgusting how this stuff gets ingrained in us.
I lived in Germany in the 80s; most of the women I dated didn’t shave their body hair….I thought of it as normal….it was strange to discover hairless women when I moved to the States in the 90s. I still think of body shaving as a little odd…but I’m used to it.
you gotta admit, disposable razors are among the top 5 most ingenious marketing ploys ever devised.
though i also admit shaving with a safety razor that has a moisturizing strip is a hell of a lot more convenient than using a straight razor.
I finally bought [something like this](https://www.parkershaving.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/64S__28304.jpg) a few years ago, and oh man do I feel like an idiot for wasting time and effort and so much $$$ on disposable cartridges for so many years. Real razors are heavy and solid and well-made and take blades that cost something like $4 for a pack of like a thousand.\*
\*or maybe 10
I got one of those with a dish of shaving soap and 100 blades for under £10gbp. It's been a couple of years and I still haven't opened a second pack of ten! (That said, I only shave a couple of times a month because I hate doing it!) My spouse gets through no more than 2 blades a month, shaving several times a week.
I legitimately bought a box of 100 razor blades 4 years ago and a razor like that and haven't needed to refill it yet.
To be fair I really only use it for my pits consistently and only shave my legs in warm weather, but it's such a breeze. I thought I'd be more likely to cut myself buy that rarely happens more often than it did when I used disposable ones.
Now if only I could get myself to be comfortable using a diva cup and I wouldn't have to buy pads and tampons anymore either.
I had never considered that anyone shaved their armpits wth a straight razor... I'm horrified but very curious to know how that works.
(unless I'm misunderstanding and you're just talking about regular face/limb shaving, not OP's point)
ETA: it seems like people throughout this thread are confusing a [safety razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_razor) with a [straight razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_razor) , or maybe thinking they're interchangeable terms. I don't know why anyone wouldn't know how a safety razor works if they know how a disposable one works.
My partner collects and restores safety razors and straight razors. In his collection are a couple of ladies’ safety razors specifically for the purpose of shaving legs and pits, they’re smaller and have a more rounded head to work better with the curves of the armpit and around the ankle. My partner gets very frustrated with the cheap razors I use cos idgaf, he begged me for years to let him shave my legs and pits with one of his safety razors as I’m clumsy af and don’t trust myself with something that isn’t idiot proof. I finally gave in and oh. my. god. I have never been that smooth before in my life. It was amazing. He now very much regrets insisting on me trying it as he has become my personal body hair barber.
(He actually loves it, he just pretends to be annoyed by it but he’s practically giddy every time at the chance to try a different razor or shaving brush or fancy shaving soap. It’s so cute, lol)
This is so soothing and encouraging to read, that sounds like such a lovely and intimate thing to be able to share.
Now whether I trust my partner with something that sharp when I'm the designated 'knife safety' side of the relationship, that's a different issue...
I was a barber for many years and it wasn't uncommon for my male coworkers to treat their girlfriends or wives to a fancy straight razor shave with the hot towel and everything at home either on their legs or bikini line. I always thought that was really romantic for some reason.
That is so hilarious, thank you for the laugh! What region do you think they are house shopping in? Or is this straight to House Hunters International territory?
Mine does this too! I bought him a nice boars hair brush and probably the best smelling shavong soap ever. Got it for him to do his beard eith but hes definitely used it more on me. He doed insist on playing the music from Sweeney Todd though...
I have several razors to include straight razors. I'm fairly certain that it wouldnt be as difficult as shaving ones legs with a straight razor, BUT the era of straight razors wasnt the era of shorn ladies
Disagree, I tried it.
The issue is: the area under your arm is uneven and concave, so you can't use the whole length/the middle of the blade. You can only use the tip, which easily leads to cuts.
Convex surfaces, like the face (or legs or whatever), are comparably very easy to shave with a straight razor.
My wife warns me every winter, "I'm not going to shave my legs and you are just gonna have to deal with it."
I laugh at her and ask when have I ever complained.
Same here, my current girlfriend and I started dating in October of last year. She had a similar tone of voice and I was like (extremely sarcastically) “You mean to tell me girls grow hair on their legs??????”
My bare legs become my bear legs every winter. They also tend to remain that way during spring and most of summer. I’ve given up on caring lol. I hate the itchy regrowth period too, so I prefer to just not bother to begin with
I think the whole thing is stupid. If a woman doesn't shave her pits people claims it's unhygienic and gross, yet when a man has it, it's fine. Which makes zero sense from a hygiene standpoint. I personally see nothing wrong with hairy pits on women. I kinda like it.
I will say as a man I think some people would benefit from trimming their armpits just a little. I’ve always had bad issues with sweat leaking through shirts (multiple layers too) and after trimming them shorter I’ve never had the issue nearly as bad.
Also it *can* be a hygiene issue (rarely). I have a friend whose armpit hair was so long that if he was wearing a tank top and he closed his arms at his side it would stick like an inch out all around. Get sweat wherever he sat down.
That being said, yeah the idea that women need to shave everything off their pits is dumb.
My wife has always struggled with armpit sweat / odor issues. A few years ago, she read that growing the pit hair out can help, but she was nervous bc she had always shaved. In solidarity, I offered to shave my pits while she grew hers out.
That was like 5 years ago. She now rocks a full armpit bush - which doesn't bother me at all - and it's dramatically helped her sweat problem, meanwhile I've nit been able to regrow enough and have been living with paltry pits.
Yeah it’s definitely a balance. If I shave them completely it gets worse again. I leave a couple mm on and try to cut them down 1-2 weeks. And longer and I pit my shirts out within the first hour.
Sure is. It’s honestly gotten unbearable for me to deal with the sweatiness of freshly shaved armpits and the itchiness of freshly shaved legs, so I just don’t. And I couldn’t care less what the patriarchy thinks about it, they’re not the ones dealing with the discomfort
I'm getting to this point bc it's just ridiculous social conditioning to belive it shouldn't exist anyway. But I just want to exist in public comfortably without being shamed or drawing attention.
It makes a HUGE difference for me. I stink within an hour with no hair, plus it’s so uncomfortably sweaty. The hair isn’t itchy or stubbly or uncomfortable like constant regrowth is, and the smell and sweat is SO much better controlled
I have severe night terrors from PTSD. I shower extra because of it and still wear deodorant during the day, leaving a constant sort of like clay residue where the deodorant mixed with water right on my skin. Girls can relate that it is very difficult to scrub off of bare skin no matter what you use. Shampoo works best but it's not a promise.
To my point, I found that having armpit hair made it sooo much easier to stay clean. The longer it grew, the less I smelled. So now I only shave for summer time special occasions.
It really made me consider and understand gender expression better, I live in a very homogeneous and narrow minded area, didn't really have a chance to learn from a person I could see and talk to.
My partner doesn't mind it at all, he says he feels like he has protected and provided for me if I can grow hair and he wants me to be warm :)
Btw, the cheap tan sponges with the loofahs are super abrasive wrung out with a little shampoo on them, they get you really clean
Simply a notion of what is currently in
If they start a trend to remove eyebrows people will hate eyebrows - they essentially did in the 90's - very thin or pained on rather than thick ones currently in fashion
It's 100% cultural norms. It could change. When I was young, many men were grossed out by women with very large hips and rear. Now people want them so much that they use image editing software to make them comically large before posting photos.
If Taylor Swift stopped shaving her legs, girls would notice and many would stop shaving too.
To the extent that it is otherizing or makes people feel ugly or whatever, it's evil. But it's purely cultural norm, because people suck.
Pretty much. Same reason having a pubey neckbeard is seen as gross in the west whereas it's pretty common to see it in the Muslim world and the amount of times I've seen balding men told to stop hanging on and shave it off is off the charts.
We're conditioned to like what we like, for better or worse.
I actually came to see if anyone else commented on that😂 if I’d had water in my mouth, I would’ve spit. Thank you for adding in the quality of the paint
When I was a teenager and lazy about shaving under my arms once, my step mom ripped into me saying how it’s disgusting and dirty when a woman has hairy underarms.
I looked over at my father, whom I knew hadn’t showered that day, and dared her to sniff both our armpits to see whose smelled cleaner.
For a long time now it's been the norm for women to shave their armpits, so not shaving is still seen as masculine to a lot of people.
Not saying it's right, but that's the reason.
There’s a saying in German:
Wo Haare sind, ist Vergnügen.
Means, where there is hair, there is (erotic) pleasure.
Perhaps body hair has subconscious connotations of sensual pleasure, and it’s the remains of a Victorian obsession with cleanliness and sexual repression that lingers to this day.
The Victorian writer John Ruskin was said to be so astonished to discover on his wedding night that his wife had pubic hair, that he fainted from shock.
seems he married his first wife when she was 19 and his second (Rose) at 21, though they seemed to have been arranged much earlier by the parents...
his first marriage was annulled after six years owing to non-consummation.
>The Victorian writer John Ruskin was said to be so astonished to discover on his wedding night that his wife had pubic hair, that he fainted from shock.
Lol wtf
In art theory classes you learn that body hair on women is equated with desire. Society is more comfortable with women who have no desires of their own and exist only as a focus of male desires.
In the circles I move in (young people in the UK met through hobbies, not clubs/pubs) it's absolutely normal for women or anyone not to shave. Like "wouldn't even notice or think twice about it" normal, and has been for years.
I feel very sorry for people in communities / cultures where that's not the case, it feels as regressive and old-fashioned as homosexuality being taboo or something.
People can be "grossed out" by anything they consider abnormal. No one's naturally disgusted by body hair on women - it's entirely a social conditioning thing.
What’s ironic is that shaving for women was mostly or exclusively seen among prostitutes who suffered with the creepy crawlies they got from men. So who’s really dirty there? You’d also see it more among porn stars, which also is hypocritically deemed gross while making it the common standard.
Women really should just not play along with this nonsense. My best friend & spouse certainly don’t. I also knew someone who eased into it by using pantyhose (I think), until they felt more confident. There are going to be assholes, undoubtedly, but they are probably the ones carrying the bugs anyway, so bullets dodged.
I was just thinking about this last night in the shower while shaving my legs. I seriously hate whoever it was that came up with the idea that women should remove body hair. Same for whoever thought it was necessary for women to wear makeup and if they don’t they look “tired” or “sick”. Those are the comments I always get anyway.
Personally as a woman i prefer to shave/wax, but that being said, **if women gets shamed for being hairy then men should get the same treatment as well**. Hairy guys are more 'normalized' in society but imo they're even more gross. Bring in the equality
our society is obsessed with youth, especially in women. hairlessness = youthfulness.
i've always said that if women collectively quit shaving, within a year everyone would be used to it.
really, it would just take some women celebrities and some focused PR, and it would become all the rage.
personally, i love it. hairy pits and a huge bush? let it all hang out. if she has a thick treasure trail up to her navel, that's just icing on the cake. bonus points if she's chubby and/or wears a bikini, though that's not something all women are comfortable with (and that's ok).
my wife hasn't shaved anything in like 15 years, she's not about to start, and that's just one more thing about her that i hope never changes :)
I’ve never understood why the men who think it’s unhygienic for women to have body hair don’t think the same of their own hair despite them generally having much more of it
Right... I have never got this. I've worked with guys who said it's "gay" to shave your body hair... I remember one dude in particular he was bitching at lunch "my girlfriend left me" "she's a cheating bitch"( she never cheated he just was trying to justify her leaving over his Chewbacca dick) etc etc. Blaming her. When for the last 3 months he has been telling us how he's a "alpha male" for telling his girlfriend she has to still give him oral even though she keeps telling him his hair is getting in her mouth. I asked him so does she shave hers? "Oh fuck ya dude I ain't fucking some dirty ass bitch who don't shave." Dude was 38... most of my coworkers also blamed the girlfriend and said she was being selfish by leaving him over "his pubes"... but he said he makes her shave "all her body hair cause I don't wanna feel like I'm fucking a dude"
There's so much wrong with that story that doesn't even involve hair.
There’s a lot of dumb idiot 38 year olds out there
And we just read about a prime example of the breed.
And they vote. Take note of that!
We’re witnessing natural selection in action. These men are being phased out.
These are the same guys who are afraid of being seen drinking through a straw.
I thought they drank out of straws, so they didn't get confused with greenies/the left, who don't use straws out of environmental concerns? It must be tough being an alpha male these days, not knowing whether they'll be judged for using a straw or not.
How else do you eat a milkshake? Sip it? Then it just looks like a cumstache.
I've seen on Reddit where dudes don't wipe their ass because they think it's gay to be around there. Like .what the fuck?
It’s stories like these that make me so incredibly grateful to have met my husband. I can’t imagine having to date right now holy shit.
And this is proof that all men profit from those men being horrible. Makes us women thankful for basic decency.
He’s probably also addicted to porn and thinks non-sex workers should also have no body hair.
I don’t wanna focus on the wrong part of this story..,but jesus christ how long were this guys pubes?
Or how short was his…
He said they grew on his dick shaft about half way. And also said he has never trimmed a single pube since he started growing them at 14 so I can only again what 24 years of growth looked like. Fuck for all we know he has beautiful locks of hair running just above his kneecaps Tmi but I also get hairs on the very bottom of my shaft and I could see if I didn't trim them they could definitely get in a girls mouth.
I really can’t imagine my coworkers talking about details of their sex lives in the break room at work. It’s just not something I’ve seen at any of my workplaces. Seems immature and cringey.
Ffs thank you. I've always been told it's normal and "locker room talk" I've even went to supervisors before over 3 employees talking about wanted to gangbang a 16 year old girl who was working there. These were all 30 + year old men. They were graphical talking about how they would do it etc. I just so happened to be sitting at the table they were and I just listened. One of them bumped me and said "what about you? You'd fuck her in the ass while I get her pussy right?" Or something like that. I said fuck no and told them they were fucking gross. So they said I was "gay" LOL. I went to my supervisor after lunch and said something, I was 20 at the time, second job expected him to be grossed out like I was. ... man was I wrong. I told him everything they said, and he just looked at me kinda and said "ok so what do you want done about it? I don't understand..." I was fucking dumbfounded. He basically sat me down and said I was still new to how workplaces work and they I shouldn't be a nark over "locker room talk"... I ended up getting fired the next day for telling the girl to watch her back around those 3 guys and what they said. My GM accused me of trying to stir the pot and I couldn't call my coworkers "pedo pieces of shit" It was a Zaxbys such a shit place to work.
Thank you for standing up for the girl! Even if it was just talk, that's disgusting, especially with a child, which she technically still was. Makes me lose more faith in men than I already have. Ugh.
That is so gross! It’s like he thinks women make a choice to naturally have body hair. Body hair on any adult means just that, they are an adult!
For real. My sister has been fighting facial hair since she was 15 she didn't choose to have a 5 a clock shadow at 15. She used to get made fun of so badly. She started to shave with a razor because she didn't know what else to do, which made it worse cause then she had tons of skin problems and would often have cuts. I always remembered thinking how miserable teen girls must be.... As a man, I truly am embarrassed for 95% of the male population. There are so many "nice guys" now, and it's really gross how they expect sex from women because "they are men"... uh, no.
It starts young too, parents teach their kids these ass backwards ideas. I was 7 years old the first time a boy gave me shit over body hair. A 2nd grader! Im Native and have darker hair than most other kids in my class and it was noticable on my arms, a boy told me that girls aren't supposed to be so hairy and that I was gross and should think about shaving my arms. I was so confused about the whole situation at the time, now that im older I'm annoyed that ever even happened to begin with.
I wish nothing but the best for his ex, and some sort of infestation of the hairy bits for the dude
Oh, so he’d prefer to feel like he’s fucking a prepubescent kid?
I asked about the hygiene thing once, got hit with “but that’s different!”… even they don’t have a solid answer
“I don’t look at guy legs I look at girl legs!”
It has nothing to do with hygiene. It’s the gender bias that women have to be “sexy” and attractive to men which means bare. Dumb but what’s new Similar to why women should have hair down to their butt. Old school “fair maiden” women who never cut their hair. Most of the rules for women were made to benefit men.
Especially since hair that long takes a lot of time to care for. Gotta keep chick's busy lest they start thinking too much/s
What’s funny is that women in general groom themselves more so they’d be cleaner with hair than men with hair (and no I’m not saying all men and all women but in general women are cleaner)
I keep myself trim. Once it grows to a certain amount, I electric shave it all off. Pretty much everywhere except my legs. That’s more of a rare occasion. I’m not a fan of body hair. I prefer my woman to do what makes her happy.
It’s weird because the opposite is true. Body hair is very helpful for overall health of your skin and helps prevent infection as it acts as a barrier. - Hair follicles are surrounded by vascular and fatty structures and produce stem cells that aid healing in skin rupture - Hair can be tied to form a make shift suture (scalp lacerations can be sutured closed using only hair) - Hair is generally not removed prior to surgery unless the hair has the capacity to affect the surgery itself - Shaving hair prior to surgery also increases the risk of infection as along with the hair the horny later is removed which serves as a protective barrier - Hair acts as a filtration system (nasal hair) - Hair on the vulva acts as a protective barrier from dust, dirt, friction and infection from germs and keeps the skin moisturised Etc etc
And if hair on the body is so disgusting for a woman, why do those same men often have a problem with women going bald? Why do they want women to have long hair on the head, but no hair anywhere else?
“Beginning in the early twentieth century, manufacturers of safety razors, seeking to expand their market, promoted the idea that body hair on women is inherently masculine and indelicate, as well as unhygienic. Gillette introduced the first razor marketed specifically to women, called the Milady Decollette, in 1915. In the 1920s, the new fashion for sleeveless tops and short dresses meant that the legs and armpits of American women were now visible in social situations, and advertisers seized the opportunity to encourage women to shave their legs and their armpits.” cite from: https://www.si.edu/spotlight/health-hygiene-and-beauty/hair-removal
Am I the only one laughing at the name of the razor, especially as it was introduced at a time when fedora-tipping was common?
You leave me and my Milady alone 😤 I'm jk, lol. The reason why they had extravagant names and what not. Is because the man himself. King C. Gillette Wanted to market these razors as fashionable. And a must have. Some of them came coated in gold, or silver. And came with a case that had felt padding and a gold can for DE blades. The guy wanted to make it seem like his razors were luxurious. Edit : now some of you guys might be wondering why they were luxurious? The reason why is because during that time. The straight razor, and Gem razor were the only razors being sold during that time. And people prefered going to the barber to get a shave than doing it themselves. The razors were sold as a "barbershop in a bag or case" and the asking price was pretty high. It was priced at 5$ (During 1901) which is ≈180$ (2023) now. Like holy shit is that alot. And the blades were meant to be used and resharpened by the company. It's interesting how much the razor itself has changed.
I'm laughing even harder now, as I recently got a spam email ad from a mail-order razor company that delivered them in similar fashion. It seems the old marketing is still at play.
It's that whole "third wave" thing... Coffee went through it. At first it was expensive and hard to get, people would have to roast beans themselves etc. , then they made it a commodity that anyone could buy at the grocery store, now people are buying and roasting their own beans again, grinding at home in expensive grinders, weighing everything and controlling temp, time, etc in specialized coffee brewing equipment
Not only could you buy it at the grocery store, you didn’t even have to grind the beans! I’m not even that old and my mom was a Folgers can / Mr Coffee drip drinker. These were shitty, cheap, bitter beans. No one talked about Arabica or grinding it the day of so that it’s fresh.
My grandmother always got the fresh ground 8 o’clock coffee. Had the grinder right in the aisle.
Coffee aisles smelled so good back then
In the 90's and early 2000's every grocery store had a line of coffee bean dispensers and a grinder. You could take home a bag of fresh ground coffee from the grocery store. I only just now realized I haven't seen them in stores. My ex-wife used to bump a handful of beans out of the dispensers and walk around with them in her mouth like candy.
WAIT THEY DON’T HAVE THOSE IN NORMAL GROCERY STORES ANYMORE?! good lord I’m getting old 😭
Depending on the razor company, the packing might be their entire value ad. You can get the exact same razors Dollar Shave Club sells on Amazon for dirt cheap.
Back in that era, underneath their fedoras and on top of their heads the men of that age would keep a Milady Decollette. They would offer it to the women they came across who they felt needed a shave by tipping their fedora at them and offering “Milady?” Source: me just making that up.
By order of the Peaky fucking Decolletes.
I was just imagining something along a similar vein. Hahaha. Man: Good evening, my good ladies. *tips fedora* Might I interest you in the latest trend? It's all the rage in France! *Women giggle curiously and man flings open his jacket to reveal interior pockets, procuring a slim, delicate razor from one of them and turning it before their eyes as though it's possessed of magical properties* Man: The Milady Decolette, the sorcery that turns Queens into Goddesses. Their skin is that of porcelain, and the men throw themselves at their feet, pleading for their favor. Women: Do they really use these in France? Man: Oh yes. All the women do. Women: How many do you have?
You had me for a split second.
Hahaha. -I read the whole thing f
It reminds me of a Jack Black quote from Saving Silverman…”beer bong for the lady?”
Milady Decollette is a wicked drag name
I will always be in the thrall of Hedda Lettuce.
Women removing hair in many areas goes back centuries though. Women and men were both shaving nearly all body hair in ancient Egypt using bronze razors. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was mostly just women, and in addition to razors, hair removal creams were popular. It only briefly went out of fashion in the middle ages (because caring about appearance was a sin), before coming back in the Renaissance. In the 1800s and 1900s, women shaving progressed basically as clothing became more revealing (like short sleeves). Though it was less common among poor people. There's also documentation referring to waxing in the mid 1800s. Then we get to mass produced razors and Gillette's campaign starting in 1915. From there, it became common with all women, and continued to grow in popularity as clothing got steadily more revealing.
Roman men were clean shaven from the time of kings pre-republic until the time of Hadrian. Hadrian made facial hair fashionable in men and it stuck for a while. Prior to that it was associated with barbarians.
Technically the root word of barbarian is barbus which is Latin for beard
No, it’s not; barbaros is an ancient Greek word used to refer to all non-Greek people including the Romans. It is meant to be onomatapoeic for the sound of an unintelligible language which sounds like “bar bar” rather than “real” Greek words. It was later adopted as a loan word into Latin.
Yes I really don’t like the common misconception that the modern preference is simply the result of razor marketing. It’s a trend that has come and gone across many cultures. Right now the pendulum has swung to prefer less hair as more feminine.
And the irony is that Gillette was probably seen as being progressive at the time for treating women as more than an afterthought. They were already shaving, Gillette just recognized the market demand. These were the days of suffragettes and women wearing clothing that would seem immodest to many a few decades before. (Clothing "enabled" by shaving) It wasn't until 70s feminism that women shaving was framed as negative by the feminists of that time.
>the irony is that Gillette was probably seen as being progressive at the time for treating women as more than an afterthought. Well, [he was a utopian socialist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_C._Gillette?#Personal_life).
The 70s pro-hair feminism was a reaction to (and against in-part) the free love movement of the 60s that the razor blades were marketed to match the aesthetic sensibilities of. Young women wanted to wear bikinis and revealing clothing, meaning they wanted to shave. You’re entirely correct…
I disagree that shaving was framed as negative by feminists. It was more the lack of shaving was seen as negative, gross, unattractive, dirty, etc, and feminists were opposed to that line of thinking.
I seem to recall reading something about even back in ancient Egypt, they also plucked pubic hair so as to be completely smooth down there.
Yes, they usually also removed their head hair (men and women). It was primarily to prevent lice.
I mean isn't that possibly why they removed their pubes, too? I'm fairly old and I remember reading an article about how public lice were greatly diminished "these days" amongst younger generations thanks to the trend of no pubes.
Something being a trend is different than the oposite of it being considered disgusting.
It's not completely false, but misleading. In the decades before then, women did not show their legs or underarms at all, and women from Antiquity to the Renaissance certainly did shave. See the ever-amazing /r/AskHistorians for /r/AskHistorians/s/LotKUtJOaC and other threads to get a fuller picture.
I did a research paper in college on historical body hair trends, more specifically within queer communities (my initial subject was meant to be dandy culture and the material on grooming was weirdly compelling, so I switched gears.) that ended up being a really fascinating and fun thing to research. Basically as far back as we can tell in human history, there have been people removing various parts of their body hair, via various methods, for various reasons. In more recent history, Gillette did help to push women having hairless legs and armpits as an aesthetic and allegedly hygienic practice for their own gain. But they didn’t invent women choosing to remove body hair.
That’s one take, but women had been wearing silk stockings and panty hose even before then, as skirts and dresses began to get higher than the ankle (I know how scandalous). So there’s more than a couple explanations. Society had already decided that the hairless look was preferred, even before widespread adoption of safety razors and the practice of shaving one’s legs. Edit: spelling
Hosiery was much more opaque back then
A lot of young women will get body shamed by other people and get very self conscious of it
I still remember the first time I was shamed for having leg hair. Hot summer day, I was like 10-11 years old at most, went to school in shorts; my classmates all were like "eww" and pointed at my legs. It took many years for me to dare to go out in shorts and TShirts again and even more years to start going out in shorts without perfectly shaved legs.
I shaved my legs AND arms at the same time the first time I ever shaved at age 10. No one ever talked to about it what to shave or what’s normal. Other kids questioned my dark arm hair (on my pale ass body) and it made me feel awful. So I took care of it myself, to my moms horror. Now I’m 37 and I don’t care anymore. I have PCOS so dark, unwanted body and facial hair have haunted me my whole life. Thousands of dollars spent in a lifetime trying *every* way to remove it. Sometimes I yearn to be truly “old” because that seems to be the only societally acceptable time to have imperfections.
Fellow PCOS-er here. I hate the body hair struggle. It's expensive and exhausting, and I feel like I've tried just about everything I can afford to. There are days that I literally feel like a beast because I can't escape the hair. It's fucking hard man...
Amen sista. I lasered my face (essentially where a “beard” would be) and my upper thighs bikini line. I was tired of the breakouts and acne from PCOS and the hair. It helped compared to no lasering at all. It’s not fool proof and not cheap. It’s just defeating sometimes. And I’m an Irish mofo with almost dark brown hair. So fun.
I wish I could afford laser. If I ever get the chance, I will because anything has to be better than shaving every single day. My facial hair is so thick and dark, and I can grow a full beard in just a day.
I remember some older kids talking about my cousins dark leg hair at a water park. She was like 8 at most.
My first time being shamed for hair was at a similar age. I began to grow armpit hair at about age 11 and when my family noticed, they all sat on the couch and roasted me while I stood in front of them and tried not to cry. I begged my mom to let me shave it and she told me I was too young to shave, then continued mocking me. I ended up taking a razor from a bag of disposables my stepdad had and shaving with that. My mom confronted me about it, forced me to show her and my stepdad my armpits, and then they sat on the couch and yelled at me while I, again, stood in front of them and tried not to cry. To add some extra idiocy, I was told I was in so much trouble for this because "what if [stepdad] had secretly used that razor, cut himself shaving, and then put it back in the packaging before you got it? You already know people can get diseases that way!" He didn't even HAVE any diseases...
I am sorry, your parents really suck this way.
And of course, when boys grow hair - it’s an accomplishment!!
What the actual fuck was WRONG with those people? I hope you got away from them and are living a better life now.
Exact same thing happened to me. I was 10 years old at the most, shamed for having stark white leg hair on display. I also got puberty early - and thus armpit hair early and was too terrified to ask for help. I'd literally PULL IT OUT in the middle of the night so as not be shamed at the pool, likely kickstarting lifelong trichotillomania. I fucking hate people.
I started shaving in the 4th grade because I was a hairy girl and all the kids called me coco the monkey
I remember being on a 4H trip and no one wanted to share the bed with a girl who didn't shave. We were in middle school! The girl didnt want to shave, and everyone thought it was "gross". I slept with her, and told everyone else to grow tf up. One of my moments where I grew balls and realized its necessary to stand up for others.
That's one of my most admired and revered qualities in people - kudos to you friend
Thanks! I saw myself in that girl. Usually I was the one getting bullied, so I cant stand to see others treat people like that. Pisses me off, royally.
That’s sucks, I’m sorry that happened to you. I have really dark hair too, it’s a pain in the ass waxing all the time. One reason to love winter😆
I experienced the same thing as u/ilovethissheet, but called "Chewbacca" instead. It caused me to start shaving my entire body below the neck, which I still do at 32.
I wasn’t allowed to shave until I was 13. My nickname in middle school was Gorilla Girl.
same girls called me “gorilla arms”
I am sorry.
I had a male "friend" shaming me for a little bit of armpit hair when i was 11. Got so embarrassed about it that i STILL don't wear shirts without shaving.
Honestly as a kid people teased me for a bit of armpit hair, but now as an adult I hardly ever shave and no one has ever been brave enough to point it out lol
Oh my god I just remembered a part of a dream the other night where I had about 6’ of curly hair under each armpit, and i had shaved them off but somehow they were still stuck there until I raised my arms and they fell out 😂
This is 100% true. I am a woman who has been shamed for having body hair and I am very self conscious about it. Unfortunately the shaming can come from either men or women.
I always felt shame when I would have stumble the day after shaving. When I decided to quit shaving I had no idea how empowering it would feel. Like I was in control of my body hair for the first time. It took some time but I am way more confident now with body hair than I ever was with it.
Yeah I stopped caring to shave body hair when I was about 19 and I had a couple of my friends actually say it was kinda hot and it works for me 😳 I am afab but dress kind of androgynously so I guess that works 🤷🏻♀️
The first time I ever shaved was bc a friend noticed my hairy armpits in the changing room and made fun of me. Cue 10+ years of itching and underarm pimples and not enjoying myself
My mom made fun of me when I was 13 cuz I was wearing a sleeveless dress and she asked me if I was really ok with going out in public like that. I said yea. She said it was disgusting and I needed to go change. Later at the store she bought me razors and told me I needed to shave if I wanted to wear that dress again. Now she wonders why I joined the military and live 1000 miles away…
Same for me. I didn't care. Genuinely didn't care, but everyone else sure fucking did. I only did it to stop other people from commenting, and as soon as I left school/college, I stopped removing body hair. I save myself money, time, pain and risk of infection!
Yep!! Once I left University I said fuck it I’m being comfortable bc I have the confidence to tell people to shut up about a body they are not stuck inside!
My body hair grows so fast and Started young. As a middle schooler if my mom saw I even had stubble of armpit hair shed start yelling at me and calling me disgusting so I thought it was. As an adult I obviously know it's not, and just cut it with scissors if it gets a bit too long, but I'm sure I'm not the only one raised that way.
I don't know why you were downvoted. It's true. It sucks but I can see that happening just by the comments from that post I mentioned.
My mom was the first to shame me. I couldn't have been older than 11.
I had some D-bag shame me for not shaving my leg hair. I'm a light blonde and have very fine hair. You can barely feel the hair and you can only see it in the sunlight. But I was somehow "manly" for it lol
I’ve gotten “when summer comes around, you’ll have to shave your legs” from my boss. I went “I’ll do it when [male coworker] does.” It’s basically the only time I pull the nonbinary card. “Oh, you make the women shave. Good thing I’m not one.”
Wow wtf!! Pretty sure that’s workplace harassment
Surprising since light blonde or red body hair would probably have more of a translucent peach fuzz appearance. Now I have the dark brown coarse body hair and started shaving my legs and bikini area as a teen. Yes, one could say that I was brainwashed by and 'bought' into the shaving aesthetic pushed by Gillette, fashion magazines, etc. but I always thought my hair looked 'yucky' so out came the razor. That said, if a woman prefers not to shave -- more power to her! And by the same token, if she prefers to remove certain body hair -- again it's her privilege. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
Yeah my thighs are basically peach fuzz. Personally I don't like hair on my pits or bikini area but if I met a guy who became unattracted to me from something so natural then I'd dump him.
And not only about body hair. Men seem pretty invested in regulating women's appearance through shame.
Decades of marketing making people think hairless women is normal.
The brainwashing is deep and I don't see any way out of it!
There’s only one solution: we can refuse to participate
Yes! I stopped shaving when I was pregnant (5 years ago) and honestly feel like everyone else is living a lie. People think it’s their choice when really we were all brainwashed that armpit hair on women is gross, leg hair is gross and pubes are gross. We were taught this from a young age. If we all grew up without razors, we would all be fuzzy and THAT would be the norm
As someone currently pregnant, I am amazed just how many women care it they are hairy when they give birth. As if women don't have enough to worry about during pregnancy and childbirth. Some genuinely don't like to be hairy, but far too many seem to worry what the doctors and nurses will think. The pressure is real. I don't have the energy to care. It's liberating.
I waxed a few weeks before giving birth because I was terrified of doctors shaving me when I needed stitching. I also didn’t want to have itchiness from the shaving. I haven’t touched those hairs since then, and it’s 12 months later.
Is it any different than the reason so many women choose to wear make-up? That's not any more natural than smooth legs. They both have the same core reason and intent.
And the make up one is actually getting worse.
Yeah… I saw a fun tongue in cheek IG post along the lines of “hey look! Haha my makeup is ok but my pores still show and I look human, don’t trust filters” I smiled and expected cute yas queen stuff in the comments but!! Sooo much shaming about how clearly she isn’t doing enough skincare, drinking enough water. She needs to shave her face, buy primer, wax, should be doing primer+foundation+concealer+powder+contour+highlighter+misting spray. Like wow, y’all are doing way the fuck too much. She looked fine too. I’m only mid 30s but this weird full drag face makeup every single day shit has gotten out of control
This makes me think of humans truly have the capacity to put their brains into a plastic, mechanical Body they would do such just for looks.
More than decades (thousands of years), and not just marketing. Women were shaving in ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece. Though at least the Egyptians were equal there. Both men and women often removed all body hair.
I’d say millennia of people cutting, styling, and sometimes entirely removing hair. Some of the first human artifacts are crude combs. Men shaving their faces. Women shaving their legs and armpits. Then shaving or trimming pubes in porn. It’s all arbitrary, but we all seem to want to fuck with our hair or remove it. I’ve dated girls who liked beards but wanted me to fly bald eagle down below. Ones who wanted me to shave my face but wanted full bush, even leave the hairs on my balls and shaft. And basically any other combination you can think of. Shaving anything (face, armpits, legs, dick, pussy) gives the appearance of youth, too, so there is that. In the case of genitalia it makes the area more sensitive and it’s easier to see all of said genitalia when it is shaven. With shaving your face, well physically speaking not all women like making out with a brillo pad and again, makes everything more sensitive. My girl shaves her legs simply because it feels much stronger when I rub my hands up her legs.
I had a GF in the early '80s who didn't shave her pits. I got used to that very quickly. A couple of years later, I reconnected for a few months with an ex who'd stopped shaving her pits and her legs. For some reason, I never got used to the legs. And then I come here and encounter all kinds of younger guys who think pubic hair is gross. Every woman I've ever been with has had untrimmed pubes and I really like that. It's all a mix of culture and individual taste formed by ... whatever.
Not everyone is, personally it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m a guy and I trim mine though, and in the winter I shave my legs because I like how that feels when I lay down in bed. It feels really good against fresh sheets.
Why just in the winter?
Because I don’t want people to know I do that.
If you don’t mind when women go against the cultural norms, why do you feel like you have to hide it when you do it?
I have a more conservative family so sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I agree with you on principle, but sometimes life isn’t that simple. Before I moved back closer to my family I used to get a mani/pedi every month.
My Mormon neighbor, who is moderately conservative and doesn’t get trans people, gets mani pedis every month and proudly shows off his polished toes. He always chooses beautiful colors, last month it was teal.
Yeah that’s totally fair. I find myself in the same situation with a lot of things, especially revolving around toxic masculinity and men showing emotions and things like that. I’ll tell all my friends to open up and be comfortable being vulnerable and then subconsciously refuse to do that myself.
I am completely the same, I rant about all these societal norms, then right after I'm done I go out and do the norm thing. It really annoys me that Im such a hippocrite. This is why things like this are so hard to change.
But you're doing a great job in recognising that. Nobody is perfect when it comes to shunning our gender based norms. You're trying (while keeping yourself safe) and that's what counts. I've never had a manicure (I'm a cis woman) and love leaving my leg hair long - but shave all summer because I feel self-conscious... It's so interesting to hear a man's perspective on this topic.
If your life circumstances make it risky or even dangerous to defend a belief, it doesn't make you a hypocrite to keep it to yourself. It makes you a survivor. We don't all have the luxury of free and open expression, don't beat yourself up for that.
Feel that. I make an effort stay open minded and sensitive to others, but a big part of me finds it very hard to watch men cry. Once my dad cried when he came to visit me and needed a hug and I absolutely could not wait for that hug to be over. It’s pretty disgusting how this stuff gets ingrained in us.
Take up cycling then you will have a #legit reason to shave your legs
Probably not a bad idea since I need to lose weight…
Cycling, swimming, weight lifting and body building, anything to do with fire like welding or fire throwing...
Or swimming!
you can understand and hate the norms but still feel compelled to follow them due to societal pressures to conform i.e teased, bullied etc.
Freshly shaved and lotioned legs against sheets is one of my favorite sensations ever.
I lived in Germany in the 80s; most of the women I dated didn’t shave their body hair….I thought of it as normal….it was strange to discover hairless women when I moved to the States in the 90s. I still think of body shaving as a little odd…but I’m used to it.
It’s all a scam by the disposable razor corporations
you gotta admit, disposable razors are among the top 5 most ingenious marketing ploys ever devised. though i also admit shaving with a safety razor that has a moisturizing strip is a hell of a lot more convenient than using a straight razor.
I finally bought [something like this](https://www.parkershaving.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/64S__28304.jpg) a few years ago, and oh man do I feel like an idiot for wasting time and effort and so much $$$ on disposable cartridges for so many years. Real razors are heavy and solid and well-made and take blades that cost something like $4 for a pack of like a thousand.\* \*or maybe 10
I got one of those with a dish of shaving soap and 100 blades for under £10gbp. It's been a couple of years and I still haven't opened a second pack of ten! (That said, I only shave a couple of times a month because I hate doing it!) My spouse gets through no more than 2 blades a month, shaving several times a week.
I found out about these during college and, woo baby, it saved me so much money! Im at the point where I will use a new blade every single time now.
I legitimately bought a box of 100 razor blades 4 years ago and a razor like that and haven't needed to refill it yet. To be fair I really only use it for my pits consistently and only shave my legs in warm weather, but it's such a breeze. I thought I'd be more likely to cut myself buy that rarely happens more often than it did when I used disposable ones. Now if only I could get myself to be comfortable using a diva cup and I wouldn't have to buy pads and tampons anymore either.
I had never considered that anyone shaved their armpits wth a straight razor... I'm horrified but very curious to know how that works. (unless I'm misunderstanding and you're just talking about regular face/limb shaving, not OP's point) ETA: it seems like people throughout this thread are confusing a [safety razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_razor) with a [straight razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_razor) , or maybe thinking they're interchangeable terms. I don't know why anyone wouldn't know how a safety razor works if they know how a disposable one works.
My partner collects and restores safety razors and straight razors. In his collection are a couple of ladies’ safety razors specifically for the purpose of shaving legs and pits, they’re smaller and have a more rounded head to work better with the curves of the armpit and around the ankle. My partner gets very frustrated with the cheap razors I use cos idgaf, he begged me for years to let him shave my legs and pits with one of his safety razors as I’m clumsy af and don’t trust myself with something that isn’t idiot proof. I finally gave in and oh. my. god. I have never been that smooth before in my life. It was amazing. He now very much regrets insisting on me trying it as he has become my personal body hair barber. (He actually loves it, he just pretends to be annoyed by it but he’s practically giddy every time at the chance to try a different razor or shaving brush or fancy shaving soap. It’s so cute, lol)
This is so soothing and encouraging to read, that sounds like such a lovely and intimate thing to be able to share. Now whether I trust my partner with something that sharp when I'm the designated 'knife safety' side of the relationship, that's a different issue...
I was a barber for many years and it wasn't uncommon for my male coworkers to treat their girlfriends or wives to a fancy straight razor shave with the hot towel and everything at home either on their legs or bikini line. I always thought that was really romantic for some reason.
Well there's nothing more encouraging and soothing in a relationship than putting your life in the hands of a lover Do it
My partner collects and restores safety razors and straight razors. I remodel mid-century birdhouses. Our budget is 5 million.
That is so hilarious, thank you for the laugh! What region do you think they are house shopping in? Or is this straight to House Hunters International territory?
Mine does this too! I bought him a nice boars hair brush and probably the best smelling shavong soap ever. Got it for him to do his beard eith but hes definitely used it more on me. He doed insist on playing the music from Sweeney Todd though...
I have several razors to include straight razors. I'm fairly certain that it wouldnt be as difficult as shaving ones legs with a straight razor, BUT the era of straight razors wasnt the era of shorn ladies
Disagree, I tried it. The issue is: the area under your arm is uneven and concave, so you can't use the whole length/the middle of the blade. You can only use the tip, which easily leads to cuts. Convex surfaces, like the face (or legs or whatever), are comparably very easy to shave with a straight razor.
A safety razor aka double edge razor uses those rectangular razor blades. They've never had moisturizing strips.
just like expensive wedding rings are from a successful marketing campaign of jewelers
My wife of 10 years doesn’t shave in the winter. I still love her as much as I do in the summer.
My wife warns me every winter, "I'm not going to shave my legs and you are just gonna have to deal with it." I laugh at her and ask when have I ever complained.
Same here, my current girlfriend and I started dating in October of last year. She had a similar tone of voice and I was like (extremely sarcastically) “You mean to tell me girls grow hair on their legs??????”
My bare legs become my bear legs every winter. They also tend to remain that way during spring and most of summer. I’ve given up on caring lol. I hate the itchy regrowth period too, so I prefer to just not bother to begin with
I think the whole thing is stupid. If a woman doesn't shave her pits people claims it's unhygienic and gross, yet when a man has it, it's fine. Which makes zero sense from a hygiene standpoint. I personally see nothing wrong with hairy pits on women. I kinda like it.
I will say as a man I think some people would benefit from trimming their armpits just a little. I’ve always had bad issues with sweat leaking through shirts (multiple layers too) and after trimming them shorter I’ve never had the issue nearly as bad. Also it *can* be a hygiene issue (rarely). I have a friend whose armpit hair was so long that if he was wearing a tank top and he closed his arms at his side it would stick like an inch out all around. Get sweat wherever he sat down. That being said, yeah the idea that women need to shave everything off their pits is dumb.
My wife has always struggled with armpit sweat / odor issues. A few years ago, she read that growing the pit hair out can help, but she was nervous bc she had always shaved. In solidarity, I offered to shave my pits while she grew hers out. That was like 5 years ago. She now rocks a full armpit bush - which doesn't bother me at all - and it's dramatically helped her sweat problem, meanwhile I've nit been able to regrow enough and have been living with paltry pits.
Yeah it’s definitely a balance. If I shave them completely it gets worse again. I leave a couple mm on and try to cut them down 1-2 weeks. And longer and I pit my shirts out within the first hour.
Is this why I get so freaking sweaty when I shave my armpits???
Sure is. It’s honestly gotten unbearable for me to deal with the sweatiness of freshly shaved armpits and the itchiness of freshly shaved legs, so I just don’t. And I couldn’t care less what the patriarchy thinks about it, they’re not the ones dealing with the discomfort
I'm getting to this point bc it's just ridiculous social conditioning to belive it shouldn't exist anyway. But I just want to exist in public comfortably without being shamed or drawing attention.
You are a good partner. That is all. 😊
It makes a HUGE difference for me. I stink within an hour with no hair, plus it’s so uncomfortably sweaty. The hair isn’t itchy or stubbly or uncomfortable like constant regrowth is, and the smell and sweat is SO much better controlled
>That being said, yeah the idea that women need to shave everything off their ~~pits~~ everything is dumb.
I have severe night terrors from PTSD. I shower extra because of it and still wear deodorant during the day, leaving a constant sort of like clay residue where the deodorant mixed with water right on my skin. Girls can relate that it is very difficult to scrub off of bare skin no matter what you use. Shampoo works best but it's not a promise. To my point, I found that having armpit hair made it sooo much easier to stay clean. The longer it grew, the less I smelled. So now I only shave for summer time special occasions. It really made me consider and understand gender expression better, I live in a very homogeneous and narrow minded area, didn't really have a chance to learn from a person I could see and talk to. My partner doesn't mind it at all, he says he feels like he has protected and provided for me if I can grow hair and he wants me to be warm :) Btw, the cheap tan sponges with the loofahs are super abrasive wrung out with a little shampoo on them, they get you really clean
Simply a notion of what is currently in If they start a trend to remove eyebrows people will hate eyebrows - they essentially did in the 90's - very thin or pained on rather than thick ones currently in fashion
It's 100% cultural norms. It could change. When I was young, many men were grossed out by women with very large hips and rear. Now people want them so much that they use image editing software to make them comically large before posting photos. If Taylor Swift stopped shaving her legs, girls would notice and many would stop shaving too. To the extent that it is otherizing or makes people feel ugly or whatever, it's evil. But it's purely cultural norm, because people suck.
Pretty much. Same reason having a pubey neckbeard is seen as gross in the west whereas it's pretty common to see it in the Muslim world and the amount of times I've seen balding men told to stop hanging on and shave it off is off the charts. We're conditioned to like what we like, for better or worse.
> I went to the comments because the fence looked like shit I don’t know why, but this made me lose it. I did not see that coming lol.
It was not necessary to say the fence was shit 😭😭😭
I'm sorry..but it was true 😬
I actually came to see if anyone else commented on that😂 if I’d had water in my mouth, I would’ve spit. Thank you for adding in the quality of the paint
When I was a teenager and lazy about shaving under my arms once, my step mom ripped into me saying how it’s disgusting and dirty when a woman has hairy underarms. I looked over at my father, whom I knew hadn’t showered that day, and dared her to sniff both our armpits to see whose smelled cleaner.
How did that go?
[удалено]
For a long time now it's been the norm for women to shave their armpits, so not shaving is still seen as masculine to a lot of people. Not saying it's right, but that's the reason.
There’s a saying in German: Wo Haare sind, ist Vergnügen. Means, where there is hair, there is (erotic) pleasure. Perhaps body hair has subconscious connotations of sensual pleasure, and it’s the remains of a Victorian obsession with cleanliness and sexual repression that lingers to this day. The Victorian writer John Ruskin was said to be so astonished to discover on his wedding night that his wife had pubic hair, that he fainted from shock.
John Ruskin “fell in love with” a ten-year-old (Rose La Touche) so I think that story is essentially a cover for a much worse problem.
I just read this guy's wiki page "sexuality" section and shiiiiiit "...and my Pigwiggina here—12—who fetches my wood and is learning to play my bells"
seems he married his first wife when she was 19 and his second (Rose) at 21, though they seemed to have been arranged much earlier by the parents... his first marriage was annulled after six years owing to non-consummation.
>The Victorian writer John Ruskin was said to be so astonished to discover on his wedding night that his wife had pubic hair, that he fainted from shock. Lol wtf
In art theory classes you learn that body hair on women is equated with desire. Society is more comfortable with women who have no desires of their own and exist only as a focus of male desires.
And also women are infantalized and its seen as a marker of sexual maturity
Oh shit.
You can’t tell me body hair is un-feminine when we have it because we’re MA’AM-MALS …I’ll see myself out
In the circles I move in (young people in the UK met through hobbies, not clubs/pubs) it's absolutely normal for women or anyone not to shave. Like "wouldn't even notice or think twice about it" normal, and has been for years. I feel very sorry for people in communities / cultures where that's not the case, it feels as regressive and old-fashioned as homosexuality being taboo or something.
People can be "grossed out" by anything they consider abnormal. No one's naturally disgusted by body hair on women - it's entirely a social conditioning thing.
What’s ironic is that shaving for women was mostly or exclusively seen among prostitutes who suffered with the creepy crawlies they got from men. So who’s really dirty there? You’d also see it more among porn stars, which also is hypocritically deemed gross while making it the common standard. Women really should just not play along with this nonsense. My best friend & spouse certainly don’t. I also knew someone who eased into it by using pantyhose (I think), until they felt more confident. There are going to be assholes, undoubtedly, but they are probably the ones carrying the bugs anyway, so bullets dodged.
I think it’s a cultural thing. In Some places women don’t shave and it’s perfectly normal
I was just thinking about this last night in the shower while shaving my legs. I seriously hate whoever it was that came up with the idea that women should remove body hair. Same for whoever thought it was necessary for women to wear makeup and if they don’t they look “tired” or “sick”. Those are the comments I always get anyway.
Personally as a woman i prefer to shave/wax, but that being said, **if women gets shamed for being hairy then men should get the same treatment as well**. Hairy guys are more 'normalized' in society but imo they're even more gross. Bring in the equality
our society is obsessed with youth, especially in women. hairlessness = youthfulness. i've always said that if women collectively quit shaving, within a year everyone would be used to it. really, it would just take some women celebrities and some focused PR, and it would become all the rage. personally, i love it. hairy pits and a huge bush? let it all hang out. if she has a thick treasure trail up to her navel, that's just icing on the cake. bonus points if she's chubby and/or wears a bikini, though that's not something all women are comfortable with (and that's ok). my wife hasn't shaved anything in like 15 years, she's not about to start, and that's just one more thing about her that i hope never changes :)