(no subject)

[conuly]

DEAR HARRIETTE: My girlfriend does not believe in shaving her armpit hair, and it’s starting to become an issue. She believes that shaving armpit hair is unnatural and conformist. She didn’t have these beliefs when we first started dating, so I feel that it’s unfair for her to expect me to have no problem with it now. I’m afraid to ask her to shave because I don’t want to seem like I do not support this journey (although I do find it questionable). What can I do? -- Girlfriend Going Natural

DEAR HARRIETTE: My girlfriend does not believe in shaving her armpit hair, and it’s starting to become an issue. She believes that shaving armpit hair is unnatural and conformist. She didn’t have these beliefs when we first started dating, so I feel that it’s unfair for her to expect me to have no problem with it now. I’m afraid to ask her to shave because I don’t want to seem like I do not support this journey (although I do find it questionable). What can I do? -- Girlfriend Going Natural

https://www.uexpress.com/life/sense-and-sensitivity/2021/12/03/1

Comments

[conuly]

Since LW is almost certainly a guy, here's what he needs to do. First, he needs to shave his underarms and wax his legs. Then, only after having done that, he needs to go to his girlfriend and tell her that he thinks her hygiene is questionable because she has hair like an animal. He should be careful to use exactly that wording.

She will, of course, break up with him at that point - but really, isn't that for the best?

With that said, growing up I was told that it's a lady's prerogative to change her mind. This is false only because it really applies to everybody, especially when it comes to their own bodies. If GF used to shave her pits and now doesn't, well, the fact that she changed her mind is her business.

[kindkit]

her hygiene is questionable because she has hair like an animal. He should be careful to use exactly that wording.

Why? He doesn't say anything like that in the letter.

To be clear, I think this dude's reaction comes out of gender stereotypes. He almost certainly doesn't shave his own armpits, and would find weird if someone asked him to. But I will give him a little bit of credit for not being a flaming bag of dicks about it.

The GF has the absolute right to control her own body. But LW has a right to his own reaction, even if it's a stupid one. Nobody owes anybody sexual attraction. He even has the right to say (ONCE only), "Honey, this is a big turn off for me, could you consider changing it?" But if she says no (and his saying she thinks it's "unnatural and conformist" to shave suggests they've already had the conversation) then he needs to either get over it or end the relationship. He doesn't get to keep nagging her about it.

[conuly]

He certainly uses the word questionable. I can't think of any other reason he could use that word unless he thinks it's her hygiene that's in question, and she certainly does have hair like all mammals do.

[kindkit]

Well, my immediate thought was that it's her association of "natural" with "good" that's questionable. If we humans did everything that was natural to us as primates, and nothing that isn't, we'd be in a pretty sorry state.

(Just to reiterate: she has a right not to shave! And shaving or not shaving is morally neutral! But I find the moral valorization of the "natural" in general to be worrying; it can lead to bad places. The specific way that women shaving their armpits is unnatural*--i.e. it's based on a cisheteropatriarchal and also largely white/colonial expectation--is the problem, not the fact that other mammals don't shave.)

[lemonsharks]

But LW has a right to his own reaction, even if it's a stupid one.

Does he, though? I'd say he has the right to realize his reaction is stupid and get over it without shaming his GF for not performing femininity to his specifications.

[kindkit]

Yes, he does. Because otherwise we get into "you're not allowed to find X unappealing" territory that makes consent meaningless. I believe it's morally necessary that people are allowed to refuse consent (to sex, to dating/romance) for any reason. Even stupid reasons. Even bigoted or horrible reasons. And I say this as a trans person--I am fully aware that bodies like mine are seen by bigots, and sometimes even people who don't mean to be bigots, as disgusting, monstrous.

Two things are true at once: people have an absolute right to refuse consent, AND some reasons for finding someone unattractive/undate-able are bad, stemming from prejudice.

I never said he had the right to shame her. And I also don't mean that his reaction shouldn't be challenged. I agree that he should think about why he's so revolted by a woman having armpit hair. The best outcome is that he gets over it. But if he can't or doesn't want to, he has the right to end the relationship. (Because, again, people have the right to refuse consent for any reason.)

[minoanmiss]

"And I also don't mean that his reaction shouldn't be challenged. "

But isn't that a corollary of "he has a right to his reaction", that others don't have standing to question and challenge it?

And sure he has the right to break up with his girlfriend over it -- he owns himself, including the choice to be in a relationship -- but I think we have the right to judge it as a stupid, petty, squeamish, and sexist reason to end an otherwise good relationship.

[lavendertook]

The problem is that by even mentioning it, he is shaming her. Just even a small polite mention. She will feell judged and shamed. Because it is reinforced by all the cultural forces you mentioned. And it sounds like she is already aware of his “issue” with her armpit hair to have gone through all these explanations with him--she is already on the defensive, about her own body due to how he feels about it. So his reaction has already been noted with all its western kyriarchical power.

So his choice here is to keep pushing his kyriarchical power on her, with the end point of breaking up if she does not conform to his demand, or work on changing his own reactions by thinking more about the issues of power involved. Sure he has a right to break up over it, but that will still be an exertion of kyriarchical power over her she will carry with her. I could only advise him to work on himself or go on being an abusive jerk. It’s not a simple matter of aesthetic taste.

[melannen]

Yes, this. It's entirely possible he has a terrible reason for disliking this - the most obvious being that he's upset that he doesn't have complete control over his partner's body.

But it's also possible he is just viscerally turned off by it. That's certainly something that would have been trained into him by society, but that doesn't make it a bigoted choice he's making. In that sort of situation, something like talking it over with a partner and asking her to shave sometimes in exchange for him working on his feelings when she doesn't seems like a reasonable compromise. It's the same sort of discussion they might end up having if he grew a mountain man beard.

It's also possible he's been trained that not performing gender correctly leads to punishment - either his own performance of gender, or what he's seen of other women. That's real fear, and it might even be somewhat justified. That's another one where talking over his real feelings with his partner might be productive - if they can both come to it in good faith. His desire to not face friction over gender performance doesn't outweigh his partner's right to make her own choices, but it's valid to feel things about her choices making his (or her!) life harder, and to want to share those feelings with her.

Maybe LW is trans and working through complicated feelings about femininity and performance that they're projecting onto GF because they haven't figured themself out yet! That too is valid. And they don't have to be trans for them to have complicated gender feelings that are valid and are being brought forward by their GF's changing relationship to gendered grooming.

[melannen]

As someone who has almost never shaved, far more than "this is a big turn off for me" or "this is unhygenic", the response I've gotten is "this makes you [and by extension us] look bad in front of other people." (And the few times I have shaved have been in response to that - i.e., for someone else's event where I'd be highly visible.) There could be other reasons too - there are even phobias about it, or LW could be seeing it as a symbol of other things they don't want to acquiesce to, or LW doesn't like her reasoning for doing it.

My advice is going to be different depending on why LW "has a problem with it now".

But LW has made no attempt in the letter to articulate why they object so I would suggest the first thing they do is figure that out and then sit with it for awhile and decide if those reasons are an LW problem, a both of them problem, or an "I'm willing to break up over this" problem, and then act accordingly.

[gingicat]

If you followed the reply to see Harriette's response... well, it made me angry, and that's all I can say about it.

[green_grrl]

Yes! This is ridiculous:
If possible, be patient and allow this moment to pass. You will see what comes of the underarm hair after your girlfriend goes through her own evolution on this topic.

I stopped shaving over 30 years ago and never went back. I still think it’s conformist bs. The only evolution has been occasional trimming shorter of armpit hair, as sporky says, for less odor trapping. Legs I don’t touch at all. (And the BF I had at the time didn’t mind either way, and no one has minded since.)

[starfleetbrat]

me too!

"If it is purely aesthetics, you may ask her not to wear sleeveless tops."

I mean, yes sure, you -can- ask but should you? really?

[lilysea]

Sleeveless tops = less armpit odour, because the bacteria that cause the worst odour thrive in poorly-ventilated body environments.

[starfleetbrat]

yes but in general asking someone to make changes to their wardrobe just to make you comfortable isn't a great idea?

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, when I saw that Hariette's response was not included here I decided that I would take that as a fortunate omission. I knew she would say nothing good.

[conuly]

I thought I *did* include it?

It wasn't great. It was also boring. Not great + boring is really ugh.

[sporky_rat]

I shave my armpits in summer only, and that's because I can smell myself a lot faster if there's hair. Personal preference.

(Legs are different, the feel of hair catching in the fabric of trousers or longer skirts is a Big Sensory Issue)

[kshandra]

*lightbulb*

Your comment just helped me realize why I was always more likely to shave in winter when I was wearing tights, rather than in the summer when my legs were bare.

[sporky_rat]

Oh gosh yes, winter it's even Nair or something because the catch in leggings or tights are nightmare fuel.

[melannen]

Interesting! This was a large part of my reasoning for never shaving my legs: because stubble in tights is the absolute *worst*, so my options were shave like twice a day, or never shave at all. And I knew I wasn't going to do option 1.

[kshandra]

The stubble wasn't as much of an issue for me, but once the hair was long enough to get pulled the wrong direction? I was DONE.

(Interestingly enough, as I've aged the hair on my legs has thinned out enough that it no longer bothers me at any length.)

[lemonsharks]

I get the long hair caught in leggings too and it is the wooooorssst, although I don't have sensory issues with stubble.

(I shave my pits regularly because I use go through deodorant way too fast when I don't. (the hair bites through the deodorant like coarse sandpaper. ))

[lilysea]

When I was a teenager, a man at a party lectured me about how disgusting and unhygienic it was that I didn't shave my armpits. Then he asked me to date him.

When I turned him down, he told my friend [who was 16 to 19 years old at the time] that she looked like a 12 year old.
Then he asked her to date him.

~

There is nothing wrong with having preferences.

But you shouldn't shame people or try to change them.

Request as a special favour in the context of an existing relationship MAAAYBE. But be clear that it is a special favour you are asking them for.

[minoanmiss]

Oh an early proponent of negging! I hope a large rock fell on him.

[lilysea]

Oh an early proponent of negging! I hope a large rock fell on him.

I actually GENUINELY wonder if he ended up in jail [which I would not be even a little bit sad about]

my female friends and I all crashed in the one spare bedroom at the end of the party

and I woke up to find him trying to tie my wrists to a chest of drawers with an ocky strap [elasticated straps with steel hooks, an extremely common item in Australian cars at the time for keeping your car boot lid closed when your car was carrying a load too large to close the car boot lid]

I hit him in the chest, and he laughed

so I went to gouge his eyes out with my fingernails and he let go and left me alone

AND THEN the next morning he latched on to my friend and I and insisted on catching the train back with us

and when my friend and I needed to switch train lines - she was continuing on, I was getting off in the city centre - he got off the train and followed me

we walked past a vending machine inside the State art gallery near the train station and he asked if I wanted a can of Coke

and I said "Sure!"

so he went into the art gallery

and while he had his back turned, I ran around the corner and the next corner and the next corners as fast as I could before he noticed

and I never ever saw him again

he was the next-door neighbour of the 20-something brother of the teenage girl whose party it was

the 20-something brother and his partner had left their house, and their nextdoor neighbour had followed them in his car to the party without asking if it was okay

and because it was 31 December, they didn't have the heart to tell him to get lost

[minoanmiss]

Ah, fond memories of encountering a predator. I hope TWO rocks fell on him, one on his nuts and then one on his head. Ughghghghghghg.

(I really do hope he's unhappily in jail, not least because just from your description I can tell he succeeded at least one of those days.)

[lilysea]

I stopped shaving my armpits years ago

because shaved armpits = painful rash

and for me, my armpit hair has always been a bullshit detector

if someone doesn't want to date me because I don't shave my armpits, they don't deserve me

there's a significant [tho admittedly not 100%] overlap between "men who can't handle women with unshaved armpits" and "men who believe more than the average amount of sexist bullshit"

How can I control her appearance without seeming like I'm trying to control her?

[feldman]

This has been my experience; if you can't handle my fuzzy pits, you're really not gonna groove with the rest of the package, and you're probably going to be shitty about it to boot.

IME, I have way less skin or odor problems when not shaving, also it's bullshit, also, I kinda dig having primate arms. I hope LW's girlfriend finds someone who will love her pits, support her journeys big and small, and not consider her appearance to be an asset of his that she's depreciating.