fMhLisa of Feminist Mormon Housewives has a great rundown on the obligation women feel to shave their legs. And by extension anywhere else.

I was sitting on mfranti’s couch, when the evening light hit my legs at the right angle and she (in that uber mormon-nice way of hers) screeched, “Ahhh! Leg Hair! Ewww!” while pulling her gag face. I don’t really blame her, truth be told, I often have the same reaction. Especially when I put on my dressy boots and the leg hair kinda flops out over the top, ewww. Run Away!

So why not shave? you ask, and save yourself the horror of the leg-hair boot flop.

Well, I’m totally lazy.

Plus the getting old thing, simultaneously less attractive (chin haired, boob sagged, and wrinkled) and more comfortable with myself (dude I’m totally awesome, I kid you not).

And then there’s the ideology. Though I’m never really sure if my ideology is an excuse for the laziness or my laziness is an excuse for my ideology (one wouldn’t want to come off as a militant weirdo).

She said it here.

This is going to sound like a total digression. It’s not.

Back before I was “figleaf,” in fact back before blogs, I spent a lot of time on the old Usenet newsgroups pertaining to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. And because I was a stay at home dad I talked occasionallly about shopping and cooking.

One day, sort of out of the blue, I got an email from a reporter from a national cooking magaine asking if she could interview me about being a dad in the kitchen. I said sure and after a little back and forth I sent her my phone number. When she called she spent a minute or two asking a couple of general how-are-you question like how did I like being a stay-at-home dad and how often did I cook. But then she started asking me how my mother’s cooking influenced my cooking. I said not at all, my mom hated to cook and except for a couple of pretty good scratch recipes she relied heavily on cans, freezers, and (when it came on the market) Hamburger Helper. I started to tell her instead that I’d gotten the idea when an african american woman from our church stayed with us for a week when mom needed surgery and mentioned that, since she worked during the day, her son, who was my age and in my Sunday school class, would cook his own lunches.

No, no, says the interviewer, can you tell me more about how you learned recipes from your mom. And I said, well, I didn’t really learn any recipes from my mom. Instead I was bored one summer and read the Joy of Cooking cover to cover and… No, no, says the interviewer, what recipes did your mom use that you use now? And I said, well, I guess I make macaroni and cheese from a box the way she did but, really, I read this short story about a chef in upstate New York who… And the interviewer said “it sounds like you didn’t really learn to cook from your mom.” And I said no, I learned… And she said thank you, but my editor wants stories about stay at home dads and how they learned from their mothers. And she thanked me again.

And that was the end of that.

I mention this because a friend and I were talking today about gender and fashion and somehow shaving came up. And I opined, based on my old hippie friend’s experiences with “straight” boys and men, that men aren’t really as concerned about shaving (legs and armpits back then) as they were made out to be. I mean, sure, they might say something. But they didn’t run screaming from the room. And, for that matter, later many of them became hippies themselves. And stopped shaving. Their faces.

My friend brought up the point that thanks to porn men are insisting that women shave not just legs and armpits but pubic hair before they’ll have sex with them. And I was thinking… you know… it wasn’t that long ago that men, not just hippie men but “mainstream” men, were suspicious of women who shaved their pubic hair. (We won’t even go into the whole, stupid “does the rug match the drapes” business, m’kay?) And it wasn’t that much longer before that that porn would rave on and on and on about “luxuriant” pubic hair being an indication of sexual appetite. So I said I still didn’t think that many men are really refusing to have sex with their partners because they don’t shave.

And my friend said (and here’s where my digression stops looking so digress-y) that she didn’t know. “Even” Cosmopolitan is obsessed with the importance of shaving body hair. And she mentioned that any time they run an “ask men” feature that involves pubic hair, sure enough, all the men insist they can’t even get it up for sex with someone with anything less than a full-on Brazilian wax.

And I thought about how the article the reporter who contacted me was all about men who were influenced to cook by their mothers.

Hmm….

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. It absolutely does. But probably no more often than women insist they won’t go near a man with back hair. In other words, it happens. But in one case word of every instance carries a ton of freight; in the other it vanishes with scarcely a ripple.

Which brings me to my next point. The Las Vegas Courtesan (l’ll link in a minute) writes intelligently and in the first person about sex-worker issues. She also does self-photography and posts them. The photos are not “half-nekkid” and, since photos like that aren’t everyone’s cup of tea I wanted to let you know that if you following this link would take you to a photo of LVC minus underwear, plus pubic hair.

I mention this because the comments are are relevant. And again for those who’d rather not check out the photo I’ve quoted them below. (The second comment is from LVC.)

#Nice shot. Very hot! Love the nude and the hands, so much more erotic.
Glad to see the “bald” look hasn’t completely taken over. (Much sexier IMHO).
March 29th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

1. lasvegascourtesan Says:

Yea I am going to take some more photos before I get waxed again because I know quite a few people like the natural look. :)
March 29th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

1. Thru.Blu.Eyes Says:

Stomach and legs are awesome! I agree about the “bald” look. It seems so predominant everywhere you look now. I prefer smooth lips and a little hair on the mound. Landing strip, triangle, heart, doesn’t matter. I just like women to look like, well, women. Love your pictures on the site, LVC. Very erotic and sexy.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:52 pm

1. John Says:

Awesome picture! Very erotic and I love the not so bald look. Slightly trimmed is a much better look in my opinion. Mmmm, thanks for sharing!
March 30th, 2009 at 4:19 am

1. Jeff Says:

Very nice picture… I agree with previous notes about liking a little patch of hair more than simply bald. Don’t be fooled though! I personally don’t like the forest look

Say anything you like about the overall tone of the comments, but it’s kind of inescapable that

a) the four men who chose to comment affirmed a bias towards at least some pubic hair.
b) only the last one, Jeff, chose to say anything even slightly negative (he doesn’t like a lot of pubic hair.) Another commenter said affirmatively that he likes slightly trimmed pubic hair. (Call it a cliché, or call me a whiner, but since pubic hair really does go up your nose I prefer trimmed pubic hair too.)
c) LVC acknowledges that “quite a few people like the natural look.”

Again, it could just be that commenter #5 hasn’t come along. Or it could be that would-be commenters #5 through #5000 all retired to their fainting couches a la the Romantic artist John Ruskin on (allegedly) his wedding night. But I doubt it. Instead, the first four outside comments about a (literal!) “pornstitution” photograph said, more or less, “cool, pubic hair.”

As opposed to “‘Ahhh! Leg Hair! Ewww!’ while pulling her gag face.”

Question Authority, m’kay?

Oh, and go read the rest of fMhLisa’s post. Compared to my rambling anecdotes she directly articulates why the pressure (in her case from other women, but from men as well) is overblown. And generally worth ignoring.