OT (sorta): The Leg Shaving Thread

[Nanci]

BF and I have similar views on this subject- if we both won the lottery today, we'd be getting laser hair removal of everything tomorrow. Well, actually he has some key areas that are just clipped short so as to not look like a freak- but there is no Ron Jeremy-ness going on anywhere!!!

Guys with shaved legs are HOT!! It makes their legs so much nicer to look at. And who likes stinky long armpit hair. Clip it! Back hair- shave it! Arm hair- shave it!! Down _there_- clip it into submission!!

Good, now I've probably offended everyone...

Nanci

[KSH]

Am I the only one that gets incredibly angry over males who insist that women should be smooth as a baby's butt? We're not made that way, so why should we present ourselves that way? I always say to The Boy, when he makes a comment about shaving, that if he shaves his back then I'll shave my legs. Usually I'll shave my legs anyway, but he has gotten the point and doesn't hassle me about it. Besides, if he *****es about it too much I'll just withhold.

Well, I shave my legs for me. Honestly, when it starts to grow out, it gets itchy and annoying.

I only shave like every other day... and sometimes only twice a week.... but I try to keep it up for me.

Otherwise, I think we can all agree that a very high standard is set for women by men... for us to be attractive to them. I think in the end though, it's up to us to decide how much we care and what we want to do to make ourselves attractive.

I think we need to keep in mind too that this is a cultural thing. Women in Europe are not scored if they don't shave their underarms, etc.

[JoyfulGirl]

I don't really get angry. I just figure it's very few peoples business.

I tend to prefer to not have much body hair or not deal with other's body hair. On the other I've gone for 6 months or so without shaving before. I'll go swimming with legs as furry as a grizzlies.

As far as with people I've dated.. It's gone both ways. I've had guys kick up a fuss and ask me to shave. And that's all right, they can ask me for a favour and sometimes I'll oblige. And I've had a guy who begged me not to shave for many of the reasons laid forth in posts here. It's unnatural, it's infantalizing, it's contrary to feminist goals, that's ok too. It was kind of sweet even. But I still don't have to listen to anyone else.

There's nothing I do and nothing I am that it should matter to anyone else how I manage the finer details of my personal body care. Nothing even borderline like working in a formal profesional environment where you could start arguing appearance matters to clients even, nadda, zilch. Don't have any friends who are going to change how they value my friendship based on whether I shave or not. I wouldn't date anyone who thought they had the final say in any personal choice of mine.

Guess I just don't care enough to get angry. My cats taught me the fine art of ignoring someone into oblivion. As far as what other people do.. Guess I don't really care usually.

Oh wait! I confess, leg hair poking through nylons does distress me for some reason. Very odd looking to me. not quite right.

[pikato]

I used to shave obsessively, my primary reason was that I didn't want Kirk dragging his hands across stubble. Especially since he obsessively hates back hair & trims his chest hair. But one day I said "Don't touch my legs they are freaking hairy!" and he rubbed them & goes "Unless your hair is as long as my leg hair, I really don't care" Mind you, I think we were about 17 when this convo happened(we are 24 & 25, now)

So now, I can damn near guarantee that my legs will not be shaved during winter months & during during summer months I shave around once every two weeks or so, depending on what I'm doing. I am much more obsessive about my underarm hair, though, it seems to grow faster & darker than my legs, so I do those once every few days.

As for my 'woman parts'(Kirk calls them this & I find that hilarious!) I generally leave a small patch in the front & shave the rest. Haven't been brave enough to try waxing.

[mimitabby]

I haven't shaved my legs since i was 13 years old (I'm 54 now) and I have less hair now than i did then; i am not a hairy person. I don't own a rasor.
If you looked REALLY hard at the backs of my calves you could find a dozen dark hairs on each leg. Not worth dealing with.

I think women that don't shave shouldn't have to. If a guy dared to tell me what to do about shaving I'd dump him.
Same goes the other way too. If hubby wants to grow a beard, that's his perogative.

Fortunately for me, he's not hairy either (our 25 year old son still doesn't have enough hairs to shave regularly)
So hair is not an issue with us.

But I agree with the gals that are implying there might be link between hairlessness (shaving) and appearing infantile to please a guy!! yuck!

[Grog]

Thanks to reading a girly mag article on hair removal techniques when I was about 10 yo, I've never shaved. Oh, wait, maybe once or twice, when I was about 15. I must say that from the start I had light hair and after reading the article I was scared to death that it would grow dark and strong if I started shaving it.

When I was about 16 I made it a habit of having it waxed. I was always working so I had some money and I sort of though of that as paying the phone bill. Thanks to the light hair, though, I never had to have it done more than once a month or so. Nowadays I just zip the hair off with cold wax bands, which are much less efficient than the warm wax, and leave a few hair down there. They're quite soft, and my partner will make fun of me if I comment about them.

A few years back I decided to get electrolysis for my underarm. After an absurd amount of money, I now have only a few visible hair there and don't bother to schedule regular appointments. It was probably cheaper than having monthly waxing appointments for the rest of my life, but I'd rather not make the calculation. Bikini zone gets waxed and whatever is left in the front - I would never go brazilian, really not attractive to me - gets trimmed because it really bothers me less to have short than long hair down there for both sex and cycling. The long hair ends up irritating my lips...

Laser doesn't currently work with my sort of hair (very pale).

End of confession.

Sooooooooooooooooo, I am a pretty hard-minded feminist on all issues, but this is one issue about which I have pretty much resigned with regards to myself. I've grown up to think of relatively hairless legs as pleasant to the touch and to the eye. However, I claim the right for all women to refuse the slavery of hair removal.

I also suggest women don't even bother spending time on bike forums like Bicycling's and bikeforum because many conversations there get as juvenile as you can imagine, and we shouldn't allow ourselves to become cynical about the other gender as a group. For both-genders conversations on cycling, I attend a smaller forum, in French, where the discussions are enlightening. It probably helps that these people also often cycle together, they know each other face-to-face and don't tend to say things online that they wouldn't say in real life...

[MomOnBike]

It happened again today. I got junk mail for MY business that was addressed to DH.

HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY BUSINESS!!! except get out of the way when things aren't going well.

Sexist SOBs.

Thank you. I needed to vent.

BTW, I shave my legs, but mostly out of habit. When I was young & skinny & wore skin-tight jeans, leg hair annoyed me. I just keep shaving now out of inertia. Razors touch nothing above my knees, though, I'm clumsy.

[Nanci]

Yeah, I shave for _me_. Hair grossses me out. I like smooth skin. As for the infantile thing- I had a girlfriend who shaved it all "down there." I told her I thought that would make a person look like a little girl. But after months and months and years and years of taking off more and more, and then cute little designs were in fashion, which at first appealed to my artistic side, but then became tedious- I decided, who cares, it's all going! What a relief!!

Nanci

[DebW]

I'm with Kimmy on this one. I see no earthly purpose in shaving, so I don't. It's just a cultural/esthetic thing. I respond to my own esthetic sense (or lack thereof), not to everyone else's. So yes, I do get steamed by people who expect all women to follow the same standards of appearance rather than treating us each as a valuable individual.