OT (sorta): The Leg Shaving Thread

[Kimmyt]

So I was a bit bored and browsing through the threads on Bicycling.com forums and came across one of the (I'm sure) infinite 'why do male cyclists shave their legs' threads.

The thing has always confused me a bit, but I've always just considered it a quirk of the sport. Most of the replies agreed with my ideas on it, but then a few of the posts went on to the female side of things.

Saying how female racers didn't have as much of an emphasis on shaving legs, since most of us do it anyway. (I don't race, so am not sure what the female racing world is like, and I'm unsure that any guy would know what it's like either)

From there the conversation degenerated a bit, into how lazy and gross it is for women not to shave their legs.

I have to say, at this point was when the steam started rolling out of my ears (ala cartoon character, red face and all!). Because, honestly, this has always been a pet peeve of mine.

It's not that I don't shave my legs at all. I do, especially if I'm going to be wearing a dress at a formal event, or if I'm going to the beach or if I'm expecting to get laid or something. But it's by no means a regular thing. Perhaps once every week or two, and I've gone months without doing it. I explain it to people by saying that I've got light colored hair (while it isn't dark, it's certainly not invisible)... but really, I just don't find that having a bit of fuzz or stubble bothers me. Perhaps it's something of my mindset about the whole thing. When you spend alot of time outside, it's just more of a hassle to shave sometimes than just let it grow naturally.

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.

'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth' they do say...

Anyway, just wanted to see if I was by myself in this thinking here, or if there are other folks out there like me!

[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

[Bad JuJu]

Oh, man, don't get me started. I hear ya, sister! I'm kind of a fair-weather leg shaver; that is, I do it pretty regularly in the summer, but just kind of off and on in the winter months. The chief, my so, is ok with that, too.

But mainly it just pi**es me off when people complain about women with unshaven legs (even women complain about it sometimes). I mean, where do they get off? It's my freakin' body, and as long as I keep it clean and healthy and I'm not spreading disease, whose business is it of anybody else's whether I shave it or not?

And here's another thing about women shaving: it supports the image of women as persistently infantile. If that sounds a little extreme, hear me out: when we're little girls, our legs (and underarms) are hairless (except for the fine, almost invisible childhood fuzz), so if men want us to have hairless legs when we're grown up, doesn't that suggest that they want us to remain childish and therefore governable by them?

I can hear the shrieks of protest already, so let me hurriedly admit that I know that our culture values smooth skin, and nice smooth legs are appealing to many of us--I like them too. But that should be MY choice, or possibly a choice agreed to between me and my significant other, not someone else's. In fact, that's what feminism is all about: choices. And if you think you're not a feminist, think about whether you'd like someone else making these kinds of decisions for you: if you're OK with that, you're not a feminist; but if you're NOT OK with that, whether you want to own up to it or not, you're a feminist, sister.

OK, rant over. You may now return to your originally scheduled thread.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[bcipam]

Oh the joys of being Japanese and American Indian - no leg hair!!!!! None. My legs are really smooth (as are my arms and underarms) but unfortunately due to my advance age (55) I'm starting to get sprouts on my chin - what's up with that????

[li10up]

To me this goes right along with makeup...if the world was devoid of men how many women would still wear makeup? How many would still shave? I admit that I do both but I do it begrudgingly.

[Nanci]

Can we talk about men shaving now? :-)

I'd still shave if I was the last person on earth. Plus, I'd get to run around naked a lot more!!

[RoadRaven]

Well, before I began racing I would have told you I shaved only in the summer when I worked (we have 6 weeks off over summer and I don't/didn't shave then)

...

but... now I shave my legs to my shorts line every Friday night - and its winter - why? because of the Saturday race.

I do not shave the bikini line although I have in the past but I simply don't have time to do it, and my hair grows quickly so it would have to every day and what is the point anyway when my partner has no prefernce either way.

My armpits stay gloriously hairy until it is warm enough to be back in singlets. I hate shaving my armpits but with such dark hair it just doesn't look right. I did try bleaching my pits at the start of last summer... but it just looked weird.