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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25918 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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You bothered to write that so I'll respond in kind.

Shaving the pubic area only came in for the West relatively recently.

Not really pertinent imo.

It really does smack of wanting a Barbie doll/immature partner, where normal female hair growth which comes about with sexual maturity during puberty is now seen as "ugh, disgusting, unnatural".

I've met plenty of women who seem hellbent on making this analytical leap, and about zero men who think that way at all. I don't think women's pubic hair is disgusting or unnatural. I do think it hides the structure of the pussy, which I enjoy looking at, and that going down on her is about fifteen times more pleasant when I'm not fighting through hair and stopping constantly to pull loose strands from my mouth. Also, any grooming methods coded as 'interested in enjoying sex' are going to be de facto attractive on some level.

I've never met a sexually-confident woman who has weird paranoias on the subject, whereas every woman I've met whose mind runs immediately to 'this is some kind of weird desire for prepubescent girls' has been, uh, we can say sexually-not-confident. In short it seems to me that it tends to have more to do with personal insecurity than any kind of rational objection.

When guys start normalising shaving their legs, pits, and groins as well as faces, come back to me on this demand.

I wouldn't. But it is worth noting that 'more body hair' is masculine-coded and 'less body hair' is feminine-coded so this is a pretty poor equivalence. Roughness, coarseness, and hairiness are masculine traits; smoothness and so on are feminine ones. Calling attention to, and amplifying, places and patterns that are sexually-dimorphic is normal human sexual behavior and no weird motivations need to be imputed beyond that.

Also just... just, while we're here, I have several prepubescent daughters whose hairless vulvas I see fairly often (during diaper changes, bathtimes, and general little kid craziness) and hopefully it doesn't need to be affirmed that I don't find anything attractive or sexually-compelling about that per se.

It seems to me that the "pedophile!" argument proves too much. Because the same argument could be made about leg hair and armpit hair. Is there something very wrong with a man who prefers female partners who shave their legs and armpits? Hard to believe it.

Anyway, as another poster pointed out, it's easy to flip the argument around. If a woman prefers a man with (1) a full head of hair; and (2) a clean-shaven face, does that mean there's something very wrong with her? I would say "no," it's possible she simply prefers an adult man with a more youthful appearance.

Cunnilingus is not the point of having pubic hair. I'm not objecting to grooming, I'm objecting to "this is one more chipping away at the natural appearance of women for an artificial beauty standard that does not apply to men".

Yes, your young daughters are not yet at the age to undergo the bodily changes of approaching adulthood. But are you going to raise them that the beauty standard men prefer is that they retain as much of their neotenous features as possible? "Hi girls, now you've turned ten, here's a complete shaving kit because men don't like hair on women! Now that you've started growing some in those places, it's yucky and disgusting, shave it all off or no man will want you!"

  • -10

"Hi girls, now you've turned ten, here's a complete shaving kit because men don't like hair on women! Now that you've started growing some in those places, it's yucky and disgusting, shave it all off or no man will want you!"

I don't find this statement appropriate in context and appreciate it even less in quotation marks.

Hello, Butterfly! I kind of remember you for something, did we exchange views before?

All too often. I'm thinking that this may be the last time.

Well, that's for you to decide. If I could remember any details, I might be saddened/gladdened should this be our last dance, but I have no long-term memory for such things, so let it be.

Women only optimize for this "beauty standard men prefer" because they are too caught up in competing with other women in exploiting male sexual attention. If they viewed men as partners rather than exploitable peons they wouldn't be "forced" to retain "as much of those neotenous features as possible". Instead they impose this race to the bottom on themselves, because obviously treating men as people rather than resources is a bridge too far.

Cunnilingus is not the point of having pubic hair. I'm not objecting to grooming, I'm objecting to "this is one more chipping away at the natural appearance of women for an artificial beauty standard that does not apply to men".

I don't think pubic hair removal is that odd for men. Most women, if they chose to tell their male partners to remove their pubic hair, their male partners would do so. Especially if it is offered as a condition for more or better sex. It seems odd to penalize men morally for asking for something and getting it.

Do women ask it of men? I've heard of gay men shaving, but are men getting Brazilian waxes too? Google, help me out here!

Apparently even men are going for Brazilians now, though the most popular is still "get rid of back hair".

Gentlemen, my sympathies. Wax hair removal is no fun, and on sensitive areas like the groin? Ouch!

Do women ask it of men?

Most don't, but some do. Being women they tend to ask in a more passive "wouldn't it be sexy if..." or "gee, it'd feel better down here if..." way rather than a "YOU DISGUSTING PIG MAN SHAVE IT OFF" way. Manscaped sponsors half the podcasts I listen to lately, they're selling to somebody. Sex and the City and Larry the Cable guy had comedy bits about this twenty years ago.

Personally, I trim my pubic hair periodically, mostly because I grow little other visible body hair, and I just think it looks vaguely ridiculous to have smooth skin and then a four inch bush. I do it for me <3

Do women ask it of men?

N=1, but my female partner is generally appreciative of me keeping the area well-groomed and trimmed down (not waxing) for the sex-adjusted equivalent of the reasons TitaniumButterfly mentions.

I have no reason to believe she's attempting to make me look younger or more feminine as she's quite happy with hair in other places, but hair in the mouth is never pleasant, and trimming things down in that region often visually accentuates what's there quite well.

She appreciates my mustache being kept trimmed down for similar reasons.

I've met plenty of women who seem hellbent on making this analytical leap, and about zero men who think that way at all.

Hello, I'm the strawman you're suggesting doesn't exist. I personally find body hair, including pubic hair, unattractive on women for the same reason I prefer shorter women with smaller breasts (and bigger eyes!), because I see signs of physical maturity as unappealing in this context. Yes, I am aware that this is weird/creepy/gross/pedo-ish of me, but that's how the concepts connect in my head, femininity is right next to neoteny, and while I'm aware that most men don't think the same way, I didn't feel I could let the idea that men in general don't think that way stand.

I don't think that men in general think that way, and yes you're fairly unusually pedo-adjacent. Certainly pedos exist and that's probably some kind of a spectrum and hopefully you're on the right end of it, but this doesn't imply anything about normal male sexual preferences.

Fair enough! Though the reasons to be skeptical of self-reporting on this particular issue are fairly obvious.

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