[girlygirlgag]

girlygirlgag: "I know I used to try, but I grew tired of being hungry all of the time and hating myself." right on.

shucks

What about jealousy? Have you ever been in a situaiotn where a "new" woman joins your social circle, and she happens to be gorgeous, do you ever get the initial twinges of jealousy?

[knorl05]

girlygirlgag: "I know I used to try, but I grew tired of being hungry all of the time and hating myself." right on.

[girlygirlgag]

It is annoying. I just want to say real women, have ovaries and quit putting a "judgement" on the outward appearances of our bodies.

[anna_k]

Also, I notice that a lot of famous women who are called "curvy" are still pretty petite, they just have a round butt or a prominent bust. I also didn't like the movie title "Real Women Have Curves" and the implying that if a woman is skinny that she starves herself or doesn't eat (this belongs in the Body threads).

My mom has been thin all her life, and was thin due to genetics and being athletic. She still prefers voluptuous women as sexy, saying that she thought Cher in the 70s was way too skinny. I was average-sized but developed a prominent bust in my teens, and despite seeing lots of famous women getting breast implants, it always seemed to be very petite women getting huge implants.

Sometimes I get jealous of women who had striking looks that allowed them to become teenage models or actresses, and have lots of leeway and independence in the world. As a teen, I was jealous of Natalie Portman because she was the type of teenager I wanted to be. High grades, beautiful, worldly adventures, adult roles at a young age, and a world of wonder. As a bespectacled nerd with big breasts at 14, I really wanted to be a delicate, pretty flower of a girl.

[kissmypineapple]

Sorry to take the discussion off course, but I was watching tv the other day, flipping through, and caught a few different entertainment shows, all of which kept exclaiming about how womanly figured J.Lo, Carmen Electra, etc. are...and I understand that it is important to embrace figures other than super skinny women, but as a small breasted, small butted woman, I'm saddened by the insinuation that I am less womanly because I can't fill a C-cup. Is anyone else bothered by the catch-22 of if you're not skinny, society deems you un-pretty, and if you're not buxom, society says you're aren't sexy?

[pepper]

i KNOW!! i had a bf's friend once yank my arm up over my head and loudly exclaim over my unshaven state, he was in extatics over it. now, mind, he'd had a few but still, he was overwhelmed by the sheer sexiness of it, i think he might have even been in the process of leaning in for a closer inspection when he caught sight of bf's (who did NOT appreciate the underarmage) uber scowly face pointed in his direction. i nearly died of hysterics.

[venetia]

I get what you mean, but why do we have to see them as an ideal? I'd rather I look like, well, like me. And it would be just as impossible for Super Models to live up to looking like me.

I agree with you Pepper, about people finding it subconsciously attractive. I've caught the most unlikely men sneaking lustful looks at my underarms! Especially in formal/eveningwear situations for some reason.

[girlygirlgag]

I don't know, I think it is kind of proper to emphasize that SuperModels, are kind of genetically freaky (no offense to SuperModels) and to have to live up to that ideal, is pretty impossible.

I know I used to try, but I grew tired of being hungry all of the time and hating myself.

[pepper]

oh anarch, i love your hubby! my ex was all about the leg hair too. he was the first man i have ever been with who thought the fuzzier my legs were, the sexier they were. so totally backwards. he'd grab my leg during sex and rub his face all over the hairs and bite and suck, ooh. i thought it was great. he didn't like me to wash with soap either, he liked the smell of me. sexy.

[anarch]

Two extra pussies! LOL! Thanks pepper.

I trim my underarm hair. Occasionally I'll tweeze for a special occasion (like, my wedding). I tweeze the dark hairs on my legs but I leave the lighter ones alone. If somebody wants to find my underarm or leg hair appalling, well, /shrug (erm...why would I care about your opinion?)

the ones who are in touch with their essential sexual nature (men and women equally) see it and enjoy it

I've got this one dark hair that grows on the edge of my right aureole. After I got married I made sure to tweeze it when my husband wasn't around, but after a while I got careless and he caught me one day. I was all embarrassed but he said, "That's so sexy. It's primeval. You don't have to tweeze it for me." I love him. (I still tweeze it though because I have a mild hair-pulling thing that loves tweezing thick hairs.)

[pepper]

yah ven! errogenous zone indeed. i only trim mine too but no bleach, i imagine as even a mild facial bleach would sting in there and i do so love the looks on people's faces when they catch an inadvertant glimspe of the dark hair under my arms. they are so visially like two extra pussies that it's an absolute shock to see them exposed au naturelle. i think it has a deep, subconscious affect on people and the ones who are in touch with their essential sexual nature (men and women equally) see it and enjoy it. needing that area to be shaved and neutralized is on a level with the ridiculous obsession to "tidy up" or "clean up" a woman's pussy by shaving it. there's something so wrong with infantilizing an adult's body to make it more sexually appealing or even socially acceptable. justmho.

bk, when we were kids we Begged mom to shave her hairy gorilla legs and arm pits but she just laughed at us and was like "Shave for you little hooligans? Nah, I don't think so. What do you know anyhow?" it was SO embarrasing but looking back i'm glad she did it. she was very accepting of her body, my mum, she wouldn't be pushed around by ANYbody.
now, if i want to wear something that shows my legs at the bank, i do shave them, but they stay furry all winter and in any weather where i can still wear long pants. i don't care if anyone sees it either, those are MY legs after all. and i am partial to a tidy kitty so i trim there as well, but that's for *practical* reasons, heh heh. and if i want to wear something that exposes my armpits because it's unbearably hot out i bring a light wrap to cover my upper arms while i'm working and take it off on my way out the door.

i have to say, i can count on the one hand how many times someone has said something disparaging to me about my body hair, leg or underarm, and it hasn't happened in a really long time. i can just see the look on my own face if anyone dared. perhaps it's where i live, maybe it's my own attitude about it, but it's probably the people that i gravitate towards being more accepting of all things natural and personal expression. i don't know, but i'm glad of it.

[bklynhermit]

the only thing that bugs me about my underarm hair is that it gets LONG and at a certain point will actually snake out from underneath my short sleeved shirts. which is extremely gross. this is the only reason i continue to shave -- when i can see hair even when wearing a t-shirt, that's when it's time. it takes a couple of months to get to that point, though.

i actually think my unmolested pit hair is kind of hot and HATE the feeling of sweaty bald arm pits.

i had a guy compliment my hairiness, once. he said it was like being with a woman from an old painting. like someone coming out of history to be with him. i believe he actually compared me to the subjects of the pre-raphaelites, which was probably the hottest compliment ever.

[datagirl]

Why should I have to shave at all.And if I don't why am I then ostracised and deemed less attractive (dirty even) for not shaving?Yet it is acceptable,expected for men not to shave their leg/pits and pubic area.Its just another sucky thing that I would never have noticed if it werent for 1.Winter(I'm in Australia)and 2.That I'm lazy and single.

[venetia]

I really don't feel any conflict about the underarm hair. I bleach my underarm hair to a "natural blonde" colour and keep it really tidy and well manicured. You really have to be pretty close to me to notice it. It's gorgeous without being at all in-your-face.

I wear sleeves to work - my armpits are erogenous zones so it's not appropriate for me in my mind to flash them around the workplace anyway.

[bklynhermit]

i do shave more in summer than in winter.

i wish i didn't have to, and i guess i really don't, but there it is. i really only shave before going to the beach, before any kind of job interview or similar best-foot-forward kind of occasion, and when/if i'll be seeing my mother. all in all it averages out to few weeks or a month. the only one of the three i willingly shave for is the beach -- i'm at home with my gynergy and all, but i draw the line at visible pubic hair. and then feel like if i'm going there, i might as well get everything.

but i am damn well not going to lose out on a professional oppurtunity because of my body hair. and i've been fighting this battle with my mother for almost 15 years now. i'm over it. if shaving twice a year will give her one less thing to nag me about, i'm all for it.

i don't feel that it's 'rebelling' not to shave in winter. just like, who's going to know anyway? at this point, my position on body hair is far more about comfort, convenience, and practicality than about politics.

[datagirl]

Ive grown my pit and leg hair(for the winter)Im debating on whether or not to keep it for the Summer.I cant believe I have even debated it.It just reminds me of how fucked up our society it when hair is seen as a reflection of who you are.In my case I'm rebeling, but under my winter clothes,sad.

[mirabella]

That is so fucked up. I am so scared of my daughter growing up. Which is inevitable I know. Beauty standards are out of control.

[venetia]

yeah. The Body Shop ran this messed up campaign once, "There are are 3 billion women in the world who don't look like supermodels and only 8 who do" which to me epitomises that whole problem. I mean, way to miss the point.

[hummingbird]

It is really shitty when someone that you don't give a fuck about anyway, goes out of his way to tell you, without actually telling you, that your not pretty. I know that I am beautiful. Sometimes by t.v. standards and sometimes I am not considered beautiful by those standards because of my flaws. But their mine, and I will love them because they make me who I am and they give me character. And sometimes they set me free. Beauty must be defined as what we are (period) or the term itself is our enemy.
Why is it that some women and men can redefine what beauty is for themselves? While others fall victim to the constant bombardment of advertisement and hollywood bullshit? They actually believe it (f*cking cattle).
Why is it that some liberate themselves from this aesthetic oppression and others are obsessed and consumed.

[erinjane]

Weird.

(I personally would like to see a discussion start up again, but at the moment I'm running out the door. I'll try to think of something smart later. :P)