[NSFW] Do you mow the lawn - down there - (if so, how/with what) or embrace it?

I shave whenever I feel like it, which is pretty often. Why? ‘Cause I want to.

@AnonymousGirl all the time and everywhere? No cuts no nothing? Cool then, thanks!

Just go ahead and say it, we’re all adults. Yes, I shave my pubic hair! I don’t shave it bald, to avoid ingrown hair, but I shave it vey short.:)

Great question. I’m a guy who mows when it already looks like there’s a rainforest down there. I just don’t know how to deal with the nutsack? The skin there folds and wish another guy could give me a tip on how to clear brush there.

@mazingerz88 love it! You’re stuck there though.. don’t think I would be of any help!

How do you edit a question? My addition to it is… Which do you prefer for your significant other?

@greenergrass Cuts can happen, but that’s life. You’re welcome. :)

As for what I prefer on a sexual partner, I want him to be comfortable. I do prefer him having a bit of hair because I want him to look manly, though. :)

There might be an Edit link in the same area as the Great Question link is.

@AnonymousGirl love that too! (especially the manly part! ;) ... hmm I’m not seeing an edit option though… perhaps I’m blind… thanks though!

:)

It’s possible that there is a time limit.

I wonder if a mod can fix it? I learned that you can flag your own content and ask for it to be edited.

I’ll try it!

I probably have answered this before on her but there is a pretty decent amount of trimming that I do.

I will never shave to the skin again. It’s painful to begin with and looks and feels horrible not very long after shaving. I admit..it’s nice for 8 hours. And then, not so much. So I use an electric razor with the shortest attachment and I never have to deal with gross stubble. Blahhh.

@deni do electric razors hurt? Isn’t that a little heavy duty for a sensitive area? But hey do what you wanna do! Thanks!

@greenergrass No it doesn’t hurt, of course unless you clip yourself at a bad angle, then holy hell, yes it hurts. I just did it yesterday, the whole area, and it was delightful and not painful at all. lol

Unless you want to look like you have Buckwheat in a leg lock or you’ve got 1978 on a disco breakdown at least a trim is nice.
I shave down below without any cuts or slices, dices or nicks…
I keep a little hair there sometimes, unless I am expecting a night of brown chicken brown cow…

@Gawdlike I hear yah bro. I hear yah. : (

I only started shaving because of a boy. I shave completely bald though, like @judochop, I’m not super judicious unless I’m expecting some mocha animal action and I’ve found that even though it’s a bit of a hassle and I get razor bumps in the weirdest places it’s just so much easier. My underwear is more comfortable and when I get my period, it’s just cleaner and easier to deal with.

I prefer my partner be pretty well shaved. I don’t mind a little hair, but I am foursquare against the bush. At this point in time, I’m not sure if that’s more about personal preference or lingering resentment at my last boyfriend’s refusal to shave, but I’ve been dealing with boys who shave, so it hasn’t been an issue. :)

I get a bikini wax as needed and then trim the remaining hair short – cause “It makes me feel like a natural woman—- WOMAN!” I went fully bald once and I felt like a 12 year old girl. I didn’t like it. But I am neatly groomed and never had a man complain well once because I got lazy and didn’t trim for awhile and it got a little long.
And on my partner, I at least want the same – neatly groomed. But I had men in all colors of the rainbow. From nothing done at all to fully shaven.

@Gawdlike @mazingerz88 you guys really can’t shave your sack without injury? What?
Razors do not require much friction. All you basically have to do is hold it and rest it against the sack and pet gravity pull it in a downward motion. Seriously guys….It’s less difficult than shaving your chin without injury.

Every once in a while, a guy tries to tell me that it’s so much worse to shave the ball sack than for me to shave anything I’ve got. I just tell them about the few times the razor has slipped and entered my body and that usually shuts ‘em right up. ;)

@judochop Can you post that in Youtube? Seriously. : )

I try to keep that thang shaved bald as possible.

Yes, I shave down there—I don’t shave it all off, but I keep it trimmed. I don’t find “bald” to be sexy (on a guy) though I know some people do. Don’t really have a preference in a partner other than not really liking it bald…I havent seen a lot of pubes in person in my day, but unless it’s a full blown fro down there, I don’t think I would really mind.

I shave down there. I like to be smooth and I have reason to believe my boyfriend likes it too.

Totally shaved, and also prefer the same on my partner (though, trimmed is fine, it’s the full-on bush that I don’t really care for).

I have a landscaper take care of my lawn.~

I don’t trim, and I like hair. Bald really creeps me out, but I can put up with a bit of trimming. I blame porn. This obsession with looking like a baby is a very contemporary trend popularized by porn, I think.

@wundayatta Have you considered that maybe those who shave, and those who like things shaved, don’t see it as looking under-aged any more than they see shaved legs, armpits, and faces shaved as looking under-aged?

^^ Good point.

Maybe those who prefer their partners being shaved simply enjoy oral without getting hair in their mouths as well!

@Aethelflaed Nope. Never considered that. Is there any reason I should? ;-P

I forgot to mention, I like my boyfriend to be fairly natural. He neatens it up every so often but is certainly not bald down there.

@wundayatta I choose to be bald down there because I hate the way it feels to have any kind of hair or stubble anywhere but my head!!! it has nothing to do with porn or wanting to look young just comfort. I feel cleaner.

@Leanne1986 But where did the idea to do that come from in the first place? If we track it back, from where you first heard of it, to where that person first heard of it, I am pretty sure we end up back in a porn director’s office. You may no longer be aware of the source of the idea, and you may find that it is more comfortable, but in my youth, this idea just didn’t exist. No one shaved. Not in the men’s locker room anyway. Not any woman I ever saw. Not even in the porn of that time.

But then things started changing in the “men’s” magazines and in the movies and thirty years later, young people think it is completely normal, having no idea how rare it was forty years before. You may do it for comfort, but I don’t think you would be doing it for comfort if it weren’t for the influence of porn, and for the subtle influence that the idea of sex with young girls has on male psychology. No—no one would ever admit to it, but innocence has always had its attractions for me. Lolita wasn’t so popular just because of the scandal, I don’t think. I think there is built into males a desire for girls who just crossed menarche.

You may feel “cleaner,” and I totally believe you feel that way. However, in no way does that occlude the idea that there is more going on, and that you may be responding to much deeper urges about appealing to men based on youth without being consciously aware of it. I can’t prove this, of course. I don’t know if anyone has studied it yet, but I’m sure there are people at work at it now. We’ll see what they find out.

@wundayatta Are you really so sure porn created this desire in people, instead of acting upon a desire people already had? And that it was definitely men pushing this one women? The first place I heard about pubic shaving was in some hardcore dyke porn, and about how it made it so much easier for the partners to go down on each other for hours. And let’s say it is porn creating the trend – why are they doing it out of some pedophiliac desire, instead of a desire to show more of the relatively small area they’re filming? Porn in the 90s didn’t create some new idea on pubic hair styles; getting rid of pubic hair has always been an idea, going in and out of style like all other styles.
Also, maybe ix-nay on the accusations of false consciousness.

@Aethelflaed Was this a fad in the past? Have there been other times in human history when people shaved their pubic areas?

Is there a problem with the a “false consciousness” hypothesis? Suppose you are motivated by motivations you are not aware of. Is that a problem? If you became aware that you were being motivated by something hidden from you, would that change your behavior?

@wundayatta Yes, there have been other times. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Britons, medieval Ottoman Empire, Renaissance/Baroque, India, northern Africa- all have a history of pubic hair removal. Course, this is often either explicitly only for the upper-class ladies, who have more resources to remove hair, or where the author commenting on the trend probably doesn’t spend much time finding out about the pubic hair of lower-class women. But yeah, basically, removal of pubic hair, not a new thing.

Accusations of false consciousness are generally perceived to be horribly condescending. They tend to sound like the person is saying “You are a total puppet, and I am both smarter and morally superior to/freer than you”. People usually don’t take kindly to being told that someone else, especially someone who’s never met them, somehow knows what’s in their head more than they do. Yes, questions of agency are good ones, but also quite tricky, so if one doesn’t have tons of evidence to prove how right they are, it’s often prudent to stay away from. And agency works both ways – yes, women today are influenced by (among other things) patriarchal norms (of which I’m still not convinced the bare pubis is a hands-down example of). But this time before pubic hair shaving, in which there was no option other than full bush, no discussion on the topic, and anyone who bucked that would have been shamed, how is that somehow totally free will, and yet a world when women see pubic hair styles of all types (full bush, shaved, landing strip, mutton chops) and have a vigorous dialogue going on about the issue have compromised agency? Similarly, people who spend actively avoiding mainstream media but deliberately consume mass amounts of alternative media (in this case, probably certain branches of feminist thought) aren’t less influenced, rather, they are differently influenced.

In my case, I’m sure it does have to do with porn (indirectly), so @wundayatta isn’t far from the truth (at least for me). When I was in my teens, I had a boyfriend who ripped off my pants and was angry at me for not shaving. He is (or was) addicted to porn and seemed to think that I should look like some porn star. He was mad at me for not shaving and angrily told me that I should shave because that’s what guys wanted and I might as well get used to it. I have obsessively shaved after because of this, even though before he disrespected me like that, my shaving pattern wouldn’t have been as obsessive.

@AnonymousGirl He sounds like a dick. That sucks that that happened to you.

^^ I agree. Don’t worry, though. I haven’t been with that guy in a long time now. I can resent him for the things he did to me or I can make the best out of my worst experiences and learn from them. I’d rather do the latter.

Awesome :)

@wundayatta: I read recently that trend toward less hair/no hair is due to bathing suits becoming more revealing circa 1970’s to the present.

@wundayatta actually I do remember when it started. I started shaving when I was 11 shortly after I started my periods (warning this next bit is not safe for work) and I found that pubic hair and period blood feels nasty (this was before i started wearing tampons). At 11 I wasn’t trying to impress any man (or woman) I just did what felt comfortable to me. I asked my mum what most women did with their pubic hair and she said that everyone was different, some liked it shaved off and some didn’t. At 11 I had never seen porn and I only learnt that some people found the bald look appealing when I was in my teens. I did try the landing strip look for a while and I admit that this was more to do pleasing a man but I found that difficult to maintain! If

@wundayatta I forgot to say that I don’t completely disagree with you that the porn industry has influenced various styles of pubic hair removal but I feel that the influence porn had on my decision (originally) was minimal. I don’t deny that now I shave because I like the way it looks as well as the way it feels and I know that my boyfriend likes it as well so there are definitely more things influencing my decision nowadays.

Well, this is all very interesting. Thank you for the personal stories. My own story in exchange.

I was a very innocent boy. I had been taught about sex and love and all the technical part of it, but the idea of actual adult relationships between kids my age (13, at the time) was shocking to me. It was embarrassing. I could not wrap my mind around it.

When, eventually (very late in life), I became sexually active, all the women of my experience and all the pictures in Playboy showed no pubic hair removal. I trust you, @Aethelflaed, that there have been other periods of time in history when wealthy women “landscaped” their nether regions. It does seem like an elite kind of thing to do, intuitively speaking.

Of course, even now, none of us can be said to be immune to our exposure to popular culture and the icons and memes thereof. We see stuff and it enters our consciousness and we respond. Our mothers and fathers and boyfriends and girlfriends all play roles. In my case, I was on my own. I learned to shave my face on my own, and obviously it never occurred to me to shave anywhere else. Soon enough, I stopped shaving my face, too. I do “mow” my chin and shave under my neck, by my face has never been hair-free since I was 18 or so.

Hair, for me, is a natural thing, with all the connotations one might guess are associated with “natural.” Breaking the taboos of hair is a kind of revolutionary idea for me, with, in my mind, the feminists I hung out with back in the day, being in favor of taking back pride in feminine hair—in this case located under the arms and on the legs. I was all in favor of that.

For me, lack of hair is associated with sexuality. That’s because the only place I see it is with sexually oriented media. I know it’s supposed to be a turn-on, and so it does turn me on. When I see a woman is shaving, it’s like she’s saying she’s getting ready and that she has a pretty positive attitude about sex. She is, to use a loaded term (but it is not pejorative in my mind), a slut. She wants sex. She likes sex. She does not buy into the negative ideas about how most people use the term, “slut.” She can claim sluttiness for herself as a freedom to do what she wants without worrying about how others see her.

This kind of landscaping, in my mind, is preparation for sex. It’s about being clean and about being seen and about pleasing partners—or also about pleasing yourself. Feeling sexy.

Going bald… well, I can’t get past the prepubescent image. I believe that it encourages certain kinds of male fantasies. I think it offers pornographers who want to push the age limits a kind of cover—plausible deniability. But it’s an aesthetic that I’m sure many people like, and I am not urging censorship. I do urge that people keep these things in mind in your relationships.

There are dicks who tell you to shave. They’re pretty obvious. But how many men think the same thing but don’t say it? Or say it more subtly? Do you want to support this kind of imagery and thinking, women? Or does it not really matter?

@wundayatta It’s not always sexual. A woman can shave without being a slut.

@wundayatta I respectfully disagree with your statement: “When I see a woman is shaving, it’s like she’s saying she’s getting ready and that she has a pretty positive attitude about sex. She is, to use a loaded term (but it is not pejorative in my mind), a slut. She wants sex. She likes sex.”

How anyone takes care of there body and body hair, has nothing to do with sexual activity.

@wundayatta I don’t really think that the only way to achieve equality is to purposefully reject everything that’s traditionally feminine. When I wear makeup, put on jewelry, paint my nails, grow my hair long, put on a skirt, choose humanities over science, and yes, shave (anything), I can see how that can be construed as reinforcing patriarchal norms. But how is having to look and act and study things I don’t want to in the name of screwing over the patriarchy, and not having that choice, somehow better? This thing where you suddenly loose your feminist card by shaving your pussy, it’s a feminism of correctness, not choice, and I have no desire to be a part of it. I don’t really want to support the patriarchy, but I also don’t want be unhappy just to screw over the patriarchy, either. Plus, if every single woman stopped shaving tomorrow, would we really be any closer to an equal society? Don’t things like day care, family leave, reproductive rights, the valuing of care work, equal wages, rape culture, etc have more of an impact on gender equality than how women style their hair?

My standard for if the guy I’m with is a pedophile or has pedophiliac tendencies is not “finds my shaved pussy hot”. I’m definitely gonna need to see some other proof in order to be comfortable making that connection. Because pedophiles are currently the most acceptable target in our society, save maybe for Nazis and zombies (but not really, because actual Nazis from back in the day are all dead or senile, and zombies aren’t real), so it’s basically the most horrible thing you can call someone. And I get that everyone is massively concerned about this pornification of our children, but can’t we freak out when it’s actual children, and let adults do what they want to do in the bedroom without judging them, be it some bdsm, dressing up like furry animals, etc? I feel like if these pornographers were really trying to push some pedo fantasy on consumers, they would be going for women with smaller breasts, smaller hips, not this big-boobed, curvy woman (breasts and larger hips being a rather large marker of puberty). If I have breasts, and adult-woman-sized hips, and a menstrual cycle, and other markers of age like gray hairs and wrinkles, not to mention the more pronounced and darker vulva that comes along with puberty for women, and my partner looks at the sign of sexual maturity I can most easily alter and is still a bit worried? Pretty much their problem, not mine. My sexual maturity and womanhood cannot be shaved away.

And yeah, I do hate the word “natural”, because literally no one does it, so it’s just a way to value one random thing over another. Clothes, pierced ears, cutting of toenails, wearing of shoes – all technically unnatural. Also, you don’t cut your toenails, pretty much all of society is like “wtf, dude???”.

@wundayatta Don’t forget that there is a lot more to seperate a woman with a child than whether she is bald down there or not. This is why I don’t buy into your idea that it “encourages certain kinds of male fantasies”. Sure, if I see porn with a completely flat-chested small female wearing a school uniform I would feel very uncomfortable about it but when I see porn with a woman that is obviously an adult who is all shaved up, the last thing I think is “oh my goodness this is only one step up from child porn”. I think, in porn, in general, a shaved up pubic area is more appealing because you can see more of it as it’s not hidden by loads of hair.

Thankfully my man doesn’t seem to care what I do with my pubic hair providing my levels of personal hygene remain high!

@Aethelflaed I should have read your post before posting myself. You vbasically said everything that I spent ages trying to say. GA.

@KatawaGrey “Every once in a while, a guy tries to tell me that it’s so much worse to shave the ball sack than for me to shave anything I’ve got. I just tell them about the few times the razor has slipped and entered my body and that usually shuts ‘em right up.”

I died a little inside.

@Aethelflaed What you say makes a lot of sense. I shall reconsider my thinking on this.

I don’t think the associations will ever go away for me, but that’s personal. I see how you could see it otherwise. I guess I’m not going to worry so much about that, although I do think it is probably like that for some people.

I guess that in the end, the best I can hope for is that no one judges someone else as “dirty” or “unkempt” or “pedophile” based on their personal mowing preferences. If we can stick to the idea that it’s personal preference and not right or wrong, then I’ll be happy. I think part of my fear is that it has already become somehow wrong not to shave. The idea that people have to shave out of social pressure bothers me a lot. And yet, has it not always been thus?

I think people tend to take things that start as preferences and then start enforcing them for supposed health reasons, thus taking away people’s freedom. I can see that shaving in order to keep menstrual blood from coagulating might be a kind of objective health reason. Fortunately, men don’t have that problem.

But values like “neat” and “trimmed” appear, and of course if you don’t do it, then you are “messy” and “unkempt,” and in trouble. Unless you can substitute “natural” for “unkempt” or something like that. But civilization has always gone the way of control. We need well-groomed gardens for the most part. Those who appreciate “natural” looking gardens seem to be few and far between.

I don’t think you’ll ever find me shaving. No one’s ever asked me and my wife doesn’t shave. We’re fine with it. With any luck, I’ll never have to experience the wild new world of groomed pudenda. Except via video, of course. ;-)

@wundayatta It seems to be whatever you grow up with that people prefer. Most men your age do seem to prefer a fuller bush. And I don’t really have any problem with people having preferences, any more than I have a problem if people have preferences for their partner’s workout regime or favorite genre of movies; these are the things that decide if we’re really compatible with each person. I just don’t care for this notion that some ladies are just acquiescing to a larger male pedo population :) And you may be interested to know that, in a recent survey, it was discovered that more women have pubic hair than not.