Zael - The Specter of Excess Response

Zael Ellenhorn

Let me start this blog post by saying that any opinions expressed within said post are my personal preferences that are not me trying to be closed-minded, or anti-feminist, or anything even close to that. They are the views that I have been raised with, society’s norms, and while I do acknowledge that they don’t entirely make sense, they are still there and exist to a point where no matter how open minded I am, they aren’t going away.

But I could never be remotely attracted to a girl who didn’t shave and had body hair.

Yeah, there is a lot that’s wrong with that in terms of equality and sexism, I fully understand. Why should women have to shave their legs when men don’t? Why should society reject underarm hair in women, but not in men? What about pubic hair, why do women feel the need to get waxed or shave and men don’t, to a certain extent?

The answer is simple: it’s not sexy if women have hair in any of those places to the majority of the population. Like it or not, women having body hair has become associated with poor hygiene, homosexuality, and unattractiveness. I am not so shallow of a person that I would only love somebody if they didn’t have any body hair, and neither are the boyfriends in this article. 

If I had a girlfriend who started growing body hair the way that these women did, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t still love her, but my attraction for her would disappear no matter how good looking or sexy she may be. For me personally, and lots of other guys out there, in terms of attractiveness, it is probably the number one deal breaker for a girl to have body hair.

Why this is, I’m not entirely sure. What is it about dead cells growing out of skin that people find so revolting? Back before clothing, hair was the only way to stay warm, and still is on every single mammal that exists on planet except for those select few, like whales, and even they have hair. I think that society reached a point early on where hair was not considered feminine, and was therefore emasculating for men to see it on women. Therefore, hair became rejected, and not sexy, and removal of it became essential. Let me remind you that as this path continued, women began to remove more and more body hair until this modern age, where the only hair that exists on most girls is on their head, and that is by choice and preference. 

However, this does apply to males too. Recently, body hair on males became masculine, but not attractive. The beautification of the male body has also lead to the feminization of it in the sense that if it is feminine to have no hair on your body, then male hair removal is feminine. However, being feminine in this regard seems like a low price to pay considering the responses given when girls were asked about hairy guys.

It is not clear why being hairless has become such a societal norm, and such a necessary one at that. However, I can vouch for the boyfriends who didn’t want to sleep with their girlfriends in this experiment, and for the boyfriends who were supportive in the beginning but upon seeing the body hair withdrew their approval. I’m not saying thats right, or just, or fair, but it is the way that it is.