An article titled “Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture” by Christine Hope says that US businesses began “encouraging” American women to shave their underarms around 1915, when sleeveless fashions became popular. Harper’s Bazaar featured an ad stating: “Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.”
The war against nature’s leg warmers came a bit later, as changes in clothing allowed women to display more than just an ankle. According to Hope, convincing women to shave their legs was more challenging, so advertisers pulled out all the stops. “Some advertisers as well as an increasing number of fashion and beauty writers harped on the idea that female leg hair was a curse.”
…another theory for the surge in leg shaving in the 1940s – Betty Grable. The pin-up’s epic legs may have started a trend. Flaunting one’s ‘‘gams’’ was suddenly “in.” Since short shorts and woolly limbs don’t mix, it was goodbye to hairy legs and hello to something equally pleasant – razor burn.
[quote=“Bellith”]Asian women do shave their legs, or arms or armpits for that matter, I beg your pardon!
Trust me, I know, I am Asian (born in Taiwan)![/quote]
Most of my friends don’t. I know my last roommates didn’t. And I know that I see about 10000 hairy legs a day with women wearing skirts and having unshaven legs.
So yes, SOME might. But I wouldn’t say they generally do.
Same goes for my girlfriend. She doesn’t need to shave, she has nothing on her legs. Not even light fluff.
But to agree with Such a Fob, I also see plenty of hairy female legs daily. Nothing worse (IMO) than driving along on your scooter, spotting a hottie and stopping next to her at the traffic lights when… Aaaarrrggghhh!!! She has more hair on her legs than me!!!
Then again. Some guys like that. French guys I presume…
My mother used to pose for artists in France and England in the 1950s. I don’t think she ever shaved anything, despite having plenty of black armpit hair.
My ex-wife is Kurdish - one of the world’s hairier races. They use some kind of sugar stuff to get rid of unwanted body and facial hair.
The girlfriend before her was Sicilian and she did shave her legs. I must say when it comes to physical contact, I would rather stroke hairy legs than stubbly ones.
My current girlfriend is rather hirsute for a Chinese - It runs in the family. When she met my ex-wife, exxy gave her some advice on hair removal.
Not having an older bother (and a father who never talked about these things) I only had my older sister to turn to for pubescent advice. I knew she shaved her armpits, so naturally I thought it was normal. Somehow when I did it I got odd looks from everyone so I stopped…
Not having an older bother (and a father who never talked about these things) I only had my older sister to turn to for pubescent advice. I knew she shaved her armpits, so naturally I thought it was normal. Somehow when I did it I got odd looks from everyone so I stopped…[/quote]
The guys were jealous and the girls wanted you. Your low self-esteem made you believe they were weird looks.
