Does your relationship status play a part in how you maintain your pubic hair?
I know some women who wax religiously every five weeks, not for a man, but because they’re more comfortable without hair down there. Then there are those who shave or wax occasionally, and then others who just let it all grow out and hang out (*raises hand emphatically*). Whatever your chosen grooming practice and schedule, how would you feel if the person you were with asked you to either shave down your hair or get rid of it completely?
I ran across an article earlier this week on Cosmopolitan‘s website called “If a Guy Demands That You Get Rid of Your Pubic Hair, Dump Him.” In it, it was shared that in a survey done by the site, 40 percent of men have asked their partner to change their pubic hair while only 23 percent of women have made such a request to a man. To writer Frank Kobola (yes, Frank as in a man), that is unacceptable.
“For one, if a guy has some serious hang-ups about going down on a woman if her pubic hair isn’t up to his precise specifications, he should straight-up not be going down on women at all,” he wrote. “Actually, he should probably voluntarily relocate to a desert island so he can remove himself from the gene pool. No one should ever feel forced to do something they don’t want to do, and guys like this who put their preference and ‘convenience’ above a woman’s comfort and pleasure during sex don’t deserve girlfriends, case closed.”
Tell ’em, Frank!
But who are we kidding? Telling women what to do with their bodies is a favorite pastime of the male race. Hence the reason there are so many advice columns from over the years with women asking whether or not they should be offended that their partners want them to mow their lawns or flat-out refusing to.
Like this woman:
“if my boyfriend and i have agreed to try fingering and whatever else goes with that should i be offended if he asked me if i can shave my vaginal area because he hates hair down there?”
Or this woman:
“So after sex my boyfriend was like, ‘can I make a suggestion? I don’t think it’s mean but you might take it the wrong way.’ I was like, ‘no. you cannot make a suggestion.’ So he was like, ‘Well I was just thinking like maybe you can shave it.’ I got so pissed and freaked out. Keep mind, I am neatly trimmed. I have very little trimmed hair just near the bottom. Should I shave it for him? Was it wrong of him to ask me?”
And like this woman:
“Today, my boyfriend told me to completely shave off all of my already-groomed pubic area because, ‘It looks so unnatural.’ Ignoring the obvious lack of logic, I asked him why he keeps his totally ungroomed. Turns out ‘Men having hair is okay. Women aren’t supposed to, though.'”
Well, that last guy is just foolish.
But I can understand both sides of this coin. If you’re a woman who enjoys having your boyfriend go down on you, then it shouldn’t be a shock or an insult if they ask you to shave your hair, especially around the lips of your vagina. I’m sure the taste and texture of hair in one’s mouth if off-putting. And if they’re doing such a service for you, I don’t think it’s wrong for someone to openly share their preferences for the conditions they’re working in.
However, I do believe there is a difference between someone respectfully sharing what works for them in the bedroom and such a conversation leaving you feeling like you’re being given orders in the most disrespectful way. I read about a guy who instead of telling his girlfriend that they were only having sex once a month without much foreplay because she had too much hair down there, brought her a “present” that consisted of shaving cream and razors to send such a message. And someone saying pubic hair looks “unnatural” is just asking to get cursed out. But being considerate and specific about why the hair down there may not work (as opposed to “I just don’t like the way it looks…”), to me, isn’t grounds to wonder if you need to dump your man. Still, you have to do what you’re most comfortable with at the end of the day.
I will say, though, that if we’re being honest as women, we can probably admit that for the right man who does all of the right things in the bedroom, this probably wouldn’t be such a big deal or looked at as an out-of-pocket request. But for a guy who is just licking for the sake of licking but not really blowing your mind 69 times, the request then might be grounds for serious pushback. He wants you to go through the painful process of waxing or a tedious shaving method because it’s his preference for your body, but you leave unsatisfied after every sexual encounter? Boy, bye. Shave yourself…
But as always, that’s just my opinion. What say you? Is it petty for a man to ask a woman to cut or completely get rid of her public hair?
Image by Getty
The post Is This Petty? He Told Me He Couldn’t Go Down On Me Until I Got Rid Of My Pubic Hair appeared first on MadameNoire.