In this humorous 6-minute mini-documentary, women discuss why they did it and what it was like:
You might also want to check out our posts on advertisements for shaving pubic hair (here, here, here, and here). Guys, too! And don’t forget the dye job!
Via Jezebel.
argh – it’s not waxing the vagina, people. it’s the vulva, and the labia. interesting, amusing, but so very heteronormative — and no alternative opinions on waxing/shaving/letting it grow offered.
I don’t give an F about anything today but our bravest of the brave men and women in hot as hell afghanistan and iraq. A toast to you all.
Look, I’m sure pain tolerance and skin sensitivity are an individual thing, but, frankly, I don’t think it hurts nearly as much as any woman there indicated. The anticipation is far worse than the pain itself for me.
I’d agree that the film is pretty heteronormative, but as a hetero woman, that’s also the perspective I can present. I’ve never been with someone who won’t sleep with me because I’m not waxed, but I like how it feels, and the current guy loves it, too – I think it feels a little taboo.
Okay, I haven’t watched the film, ’cause my kids are around, but after the last time the issue of crotch-denuding came up, I, as an open minded person, acknowledged that maybe I just didn’t understand the benefits that people seemed to be touting, and that I shouldn’t knock something I hadn’t tried.
So I did plenty of research on what to do and not do, and one evening, I shaved — not everything, but enough to say I was giving it an honest try. So I show off to my husband at bedtime, who says “Oh, I liked the hair”. Thank you very much, Mister Notgettinany. By mid-morning the next day at work, the chafing started. Now, I’m not the thinnest rail in the fence, but even Twiggy would have to walk with her feet spread wide to avoid any skin-on-skin contact down there. It hurt. I spent the rest of the day doing the baseball player thing, trying to shove my underwear into whatever crack was hurting the most. When I got home I saw that I had rashes down both sides, and there I was, a forty-mumblemuble-year-old woman putting diaper rash ointment on my bum. The chafing lasted for another couple of days, by which time the hair had grown out enough to stop hurting and, of course, be visible.
So maybe waxing is worth the pain, but I am 1000-times more confident than I was before that shaving one’s antipodes is for the insane, and I have just loved watching wilderness take over those once-cultivated lands.
@ cq: “it’s not waxing the vagina, people. it’s the vulva, and the labia.”
haha thank you for clarifying! I was wondering why some of the women were talking about waxing “deep into the vagina”! I was thinking “I’m pretty hairy.. but there’s certainly no hair IN my vagina”!
as for the heteronormativity, I don’t particularly see it. yes, the women were talking about their boyfriends/husbands, etc. but plenty of lesbians wax/shave “to please” their partners, too.
Why is it that Americans say vagina instead of vulva ? I’d never heard it before I came to the US from Europe. It sounds especially weird in the context of that movie!
Americans say vagina instead of vulva because the quality of our sex education is abysmal, and too many parents are squicked out to go into details with their kids. It drives me mad.
The connection between pre-pubescent females and a waxed vulva is entirely too creepy and obvious for me to deny that this is another way that women in our society are infantilized. When will we be equals?
I see the heteronormativity. But speaking as a woman who is basically asexual and wants no one else anywhere near that region, I still shave. Because I don’t like the way hair feels. It just feels better when there’s only smooth skin. It has nothing to do with appearance, or going for infantilization, or pleasing anyone. Hair just feels really awkwardly placed there, especially since all sorts of liquids come out of there, I don’t need hair added to the mess. Thanks a bunch, puberty.
I agree with the heteronormativity of the presentation, but I too admit that quite frankly, a brazilian hurts less than getting Novicain at the dentist. The worst part is not the vulva or labia, but the mons pubis. What wasn’t discussed too much was the cultural norms surrounding females being hair-free as a male-created youthful appearance.
To Trabb’s Boy, as far as chaffing and irritation goes, I find that’s what happens when you use a razor to shave the whole area (ass too). I’ve never waxed, but I use one of those electric shavers, marketed as a bikini shaver and trimmer. Using that for the vulva area I find I don’t get that chaffing irritation.
And my fiance has professed over and over that it doesn’t matter, that both ways (hairy or hairless) are pleasing, but that a change is always fun. So I shave it, let it grow in, and then shave it again. There’s different sensations with hair vs no hair, it’s not just about aesthetics. Also, though it’s not necessarily involved in the video, some men shave too. My man shaves his entire package at regular intervals, of his own volition.
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