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Others' expectations of your body

Questions and discussions about your bodies and their parts.
Karyn
previous staff/volunteer
Posts: 1407
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:00 pm
Age: 40
Awesomeness Quotient: I collect condoms.
Primary language: English
Pronouns: she/her
Sexual identity: queer
Location: Canada

Others' expectations of your body

Unread post by Karyn »

The other day, my partner made a comment that took me by surprise, and I was surprised by my surprise.

The comment was just an offhand mention of how he liked my fuzzy legs - I shave them sometimes, when I feel like it, but right now they're pretty hairy, and have been for a few months. He's never said anything about my hair removal (or lack thereof) in any way, but when he said that, I was taken aback: part of me was shocked that a straight guy would think such a thing, and another part of me, even though what he'd said was positive, got kind of defensive, ready to explain why I haven't bothered shaving recently and apologize for it.

Obviously, all the years of being told by mainstream media and other sources that women shouldn't have body hair had a bigger influence on me than I thought, and those messages have shaped not only how I think about my body, but how I expect others to think about my body.

There isn't really a specific discussion point in all of this, but I'm wondering if any of you have had similar experiences, and how (or if) it made you pause and reevaluate your assumptions about what other people might expect/want your body to be like.
"Where there is power, there is resistance." -Michel Foucault
DulceDiva
not a newbie
Posts: 84
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2014 5:34 pm
Age: 26
Awesomeness Quotient: my intelligence
Primary language: spanish english
Pronouns: she
Location: Florida

Re: Others' expectations of your body

Unread post by DulceDiva »

In relation to body hair removal , I originally started shaving because I was teased. Before that I didn't care about removing the armpit hair. Now days I remove body hair in several locations because I like it.
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