Fuzzy logic

Something came up today on a forum I hang around on, and I thought I’d share. Consider it a gift.

The theory was posited (as an extreme - I don't think the person who posted really thought it - it was more as a conversation piece. I hope) that men who like women to shave their foo-foos are latent kiddy-fiddlers. The discussion then spiralled off into a place where society’s requirement that women keep their legs and underarms fuzz-free was denounced as a patriarchal contribution to the repression of women blah blah blah.

It’s kind of an interesting one though.

I’d like to start with the shaven-women-as-faux-ten-year-olds theory. I don’t buy it. I just don’t think that such a huge swathe of the male population (and I might be way, way off-beam here. Do loads of boys really like that? Really?) are pandering to their suppressed desires by grooming their unsuspecting partners. Not even if they’re doing it subconsciously. It just doesn’t ring true. And, if this really was the case, would the women involved not get wind of the subtext and maybe question it? Just a bit? And what about single women who dare to go bare? Are they somehow subconsciously enabling men they don’t even know who may or may not have suppressed paedophilic tendencies which are just waiting for someone to draw them out? I really don’t think so.

As for body hair in general, then. My goodness. It’s a minefield.

If you prefer to shave/wax/thread/depilate/pluck errant hairs with an organic tweezer made from a hazel twig then you are open to accusations of sisterly betrayal. Which is sort of fair enough, in a way. I mean, who says that if I want to grow my leg hair so it pokes through my tights in winter (Mrs Evans, from the Art Room, I’m talking to YOU), it's wrong and unfeminine? Or grow my lady garden down to my knees? And what of armpits? I’m sort of easy-going when it comes to armpits*. Some of my best friends have armpit hair. I had it myself for a while, but that might have been to do with general fat-girl-trapped-in-a-bad-marriage self-loathing than anything else. I also had a wrestler’s neck and lots of elasticated waistbands** in my wardrobe, so I’m not sure my opinion counts. Anyway. Body hair. If you just let it all grow, of course, then you’re up for a great deal of jokes about people who knit their own lentils. Oh, and other women will look at you with a mixture of horror and admiration (come on girls, which of us hasn’t wished that we could just give it all up and go native? No more waxing, no panicky stubble-razing, no sliced shins that just won’t stop bleeding…).

So it’s a lose/lose situation. I personally prefer to keep everything under control, but does that mean I am being dictated to by the male ideal of female beauty? Does the fact that I think my legs and underarms look better without a five-o’clock shadow (or a full Rasputin) mean that I am in some way betraying the sisterhood?

It’s a tricky one. Discuss.

* I’m not, not really. Bare is better. But after the bollocking I got from the feminists over the pole-dancing post I’m too scared to say so. Nobody ever reads the footnotes so I should get away with it.

** Seriously. Poor self-image doesn’t really cover it. I am way better now, honestly. Other Half, tell them. Please? Otherwise everyone will now picture me as a hairy fat girl (not that there’s anything wrong with that [see above]) and after the weekend I’ve just had I need all the self-esteem I can hold onto. I’ll blog about the fat-girl years another time, if I run out of things to talk about (not that there’s anything wrong with being fat. Or hairy. No. It’s all about choice. I know that).