Neutral

@Alyson Mance you "pegged" her right! Mo'nique has been back tracking a lot. What we should do is think about some other things she was against and look at her PATTERN!

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Highest Ranked

Sandra,

Shaving the legs is a cultural norm for our culture. Many women all over the world, even here in parts of the U.S.A., don't shave their legs. It is not a necessity at all! Personally, I shave my legs, yes, I've fallen victim to many of this society's oppressive norms, but I say HORAAAY!!! to all of those independent minded, free-spirited, strong willed women who march to the beat of their own drum. There is nothing dirty, shameful, or disgusting about being natural, my gosh what a sad way for a human being to think, when we begin to deny and become ashamed of our nature. By thinking this way, you are saying that what God made is disgusting and shameful, because he made us with hair on our bodies. God did not make hair grow from our bodies for us to shave it off! It is there for a reason. All of this shaving, tiny wastes, high heels, big & upright breasts, smooth and soft legs, super long hair, fashionable form hugging clothing that accentuates the woman's curves or reveals lots of smooth skin, girl, this is all imbedded in the male idea/fantasy of a perfect woman for HIM. It's a man's world and women are always trying to conform to it, whether we all know and admit it or not. Their ideals have become our necessity! It is wrong, disgusting, and dirty to be anything else! To be completely natural and culturally varied is wrong and shameful! To be anything but what is pleasing to a man's desires is wrong! If we find a woman who doesn't shave and is completely natural, we immediately associate her with not washing herself and being disgusting. Of course, she can't possibly enjoy the hair on her body and wash herself thoroughly at the same time, noooooo, it's impossible, absurd, "ladies" don't do that. WAKE UP LADIES! WAKE UP EVERYONE!! It is always best to be natural and maintain what we are born with. For the ladies who want to shave, shave, that's fine. Not every woman who shaves does this to please a man, but understand that this act derives from the desire for the woman to be more pleasing to the man. Certainly don't look down on the women who choose to please themselves or just want to be natural. Be natural. . . if you dare. But be forewarned ladies, it may actually reveal that you are confident and think for yourself, and I mean, do you actually want people to know. . .ssshh. . . you do this?

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Neutral

Why is someone's personal grooming any of our business! If she likes hairy legs, then good for her because (NEWS FLASH) we're mammals too, therefore we grow hair. She is a real woman who has a mind of her own. I don't oppose shaving but the way I see it alot of people don't think for themselves and go to the extremes to please other people (i.e. plastic surgery, several layers of make up, etc.) Apparently today's society is more attracted to the 13-year-old-girl look rather than an honest adult woman. It's sick! And to Sandra, if being real with one-self is so disgusting, why don't you just turn yourself in and admit to child molestation just because you love the feel of smooth, hairless skin so much. (That goes to anyone else who think a little hair on someone's legs is disgusting). Get real!

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Neutral

Doranda, could read all of your post, you lost me along the way. I am Black, so I don't think you can tell me about Black culture. I personally don't have hair on my legs. A lot of Black women don't have noticeable hair on their legs. For a longtime I though only men did.

However if you have a bush like Monique, you should take a weed wacker and wack that grosse thing off!

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High Ranked

Sandra,

You replied to me, but maybe you are mistaken my comment with someone elses; I never mentioned anything about Black culture specifically, I zeroed in on no race specifically, my comment was for women in general. However, I am also African American and I do shave my legs (still weak), the hair is noticeable on my legs. You should take some time to study about the physical being of humans, all of it's aspects and functions, such as body hair and it's function and purpose, gain some appreciation for our nature. To summarize my prior comment: POWER TO ALL THE NATURAL WOMEN (AND MEN) WHO DENY ALL UNNECESSARY SOCIAL BURDENS, I'M ALMOST THERE, I'LL BE ALONG SOON!

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@ dorandamartin, you are right, I completely misread your comment. However, not everything merits appreciation. It's natural to sweat, and have funky breath in the morning, but evolved people do not need to embrace that natural state, we usually combat it with bathing, deodorant and toothpaste.

I am all for each person doing your thing, but if your thing infringes upon my comfort, there's a problem. While grosse legs are not as bad, everyone agrees, body odor, bad breath etc are offensive. We should sometimes think of others is all I am saying. I love Monique very much, but her legs grosse me out.
Your individual freedom ends where my nose begins.

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Sandra,
Racist Caucasians don't like to look at colored skin, kinky hair, full lips, Black people in general. They feel we are offensive to look at, some of them feel as it is a waste that we even exist. Should we be extinguished because we are offensive to their eyes? Everything that may not be pleasing to your particular eyes or tastes shouldn't offend you. Body hair(which is the subject here, not bad breath and body odor)does not make you clean or dirty; proper cleansing, or cleansing at all makes the difference between cleanliness and filth. How in the world is body hair offensive? Just like the hair on our heads that we love so much, for most of us the more the better, Yes, body hair can hold odors if you don't wash yourself. Body hair in and of itself IS NOT odor!It does not equate to bad odor, it does not MEAN bad odor. Should we cut our hair off of our head just because it can stink, and boy can it stink to high heaven, nooo! just wash it. Now, if you want to be bald, so be it, more power to you. I am also offended by a stench, I don't want to smell someone's bad body odor, it makes me sick! I'll be the first person to get up and move elsewhere if someone who smells awful plops down next to me, but if I should happen to want to confront the person about it, and they have body hair, I would tell them they need to bathe or shower immediately, not "you smell awful, please go cut your body hair!" It's improper to compare body hair to funky breath, sweat, and body funk. Bad breath, sweat, and body odor are mechanisms our bodies have to alert us that we need to cleanse. Sweat is a cooling mechanism which takes place when we get over heated; it often holds bad odor and makes us feel very uncomfortable and sticky, causing us to want to wash to feel fresh and clean again. Odor signals a need to cleanse, it is not meant for us to walk around with bad odor just because it naturally develops; that is the PURPOSE of odor, to tell you your body needs cleaning. However, you can't wash away or cleanse away body hair, it's not MEANT to be cleansed away or shaved off, it's meant to be permanent. The purpose of body hair (depending on an areas natural climate)is to sheild us from the heat, or sheild us from the cold, among a few other things such as bacteria. It's actually a protection mechanism, and it signifies physical maturity. Adults have body hair, babies and children who have not reached puberty do not have body hair. Women shaved their legs and other body hair to look more youthful, "innocent," to have that baby-soft, smooth skin all in the hopes of being more appealing to men by looking younger and innocent. To these people, body hair signified adulthood, aging, non-youthfulness, ripeness, sex, filth of the mind, womanhood, development, wildness, boldness, dirty. These are all negative human perceptions of the image of two kinds of women: 1. innocent, flirty, clean , young, and new 2. adult- woman, sex, aged, has-been, old and dirty. Both of these images, overall, are fantastically wrong and damaging to the natural, healthy, true, beautiful woman. Anyway, I've bent your ear to long, but please believe me, body hair is a good thing; adult women are meant to have body hair, it's healthy. It's inconceivable to even consider in our social society now, but then we are not exactly a very natural oriented society are we? Far, far from it. When we stink, wash; bad breath, brush your teeth; sweat, wash, simple as that.

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Lady, we obviously are not operating on the same wave length. You are taking this way too seriously and taking it to a level it's not at. I have to confess, I don't have the attention span to read all your little novels.

Just chill. NOT everything is a CIVIL RIGHTS struggle. Drawing parallels about hairy legs with racism is a bit preposterous and quite frankly offensive and diminishes the real struggle.

These blogs are just a place one can escapes to, to write nonsense that has nothing to do with anything; just mindless ramblings just for fun. Shoot some breeze, talk out of the ass, that sort of thing. Lol! Don’t take it too seriously. I certainly never do.

I love all my Black Sistas including you; hairy legs or no hairy legs. Lol!

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I couldn't resist, but in the little bit I went back to read, I find it incredible that, what you find offensive (i,e, body odor) you think no one should have and you incredibly think it's ok to make or tell that person to bathe to stop offending you, but I can't say Monique needs to shave!!!! My, my my! You are a bit nervy.
Did it occur to you that what bad odor does to you, is what hairy legs do to me? It's all subjective.

See neither of us have any right to tell anyone what to do, all I was saying was as individuals we should be slightly sensitive to others and voluntarily conform to social norms are they are established standards that's all. The key word here is VOLUNTARILY. I would never in a millions yrs tell anyone in their face they need to shower or shave for that matter, but you apparently do.

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Sandra,

I'm sorry if you feel I took all of this too seriously, I didn't mean to offend you or argue, just converse. I have been told that I am a very idealistic and passionate individual, sometimes I come on strong. I've been slowly transitioning into this type of person for the past few years. I'm just so against many of our social norms, becuase I feel they are not nature-friendly, you know.

No I don't like body odor, I don't like my own, so I wash myself. Bad body odor isn't really meant for anyone to enjoy, it's our body informing us that we need cleansing. Our bodies are meant to cleansed.

Please don't get me wrong, I've never approached anyone about their B.O. The most I've ever done is quietly moved if it gets that bad. My point was if I had ever decided to address someone with body hair concerning their B.O., it's not their lack of shaving that would need to be pointed out, it would be their lack of washing. Their body hair wouldn't even be a consideration of the problem. Personally, I would never approach someone about that unless they were a friend or someone close to me.
For you, If you want to shave, shave your legs then, thats no one elses business, I have no right to judge you. However, before you guys rag on someone else for not following social norms (as you and others clearly have done) and wanting to be natural in ways that we are meant to be natural and that is beneficial to our overall health, you should have understanding of the root/history of a social norm. Some of them need to be abolished and denied. Some of them, such as shaving the legs, is against our nature and our natural healthy, physical progression, you know. If it was just a comment from someone saying, "well I personally don't like it, I just don't like the way it looks, but to each his own, etc.," I wouldn't have even left a comment, because we all have our right to like or dislike something. However, when you start chanting things like: against social norms, offensive, what someone NEEDS to do, downing someone's grooming habits (which is very offensive to someone)and barking about how someone should live away from society if they're not going to abide by NECESSARY social norms, thats some serious commenting to me. In light of the subject matter, based on some of these comments, I felt the need to speak out because they were seriously wrong. But I am just conversing, speaking sincerely to you; I don't want to disrepsect you or anyone else or offend you. I just wanted to get my point across since the subject of "social norms" is a very serious topic, in my opinion. People base their lives, actions, beliefs, values, and decisions on social norms. Imagine the impact of a widely accepted, bogus social norm.

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We'll agree to disagree. Peace :-)

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High Ranked

If you have severe eczema the amount of lotion won't matter. Alot of people with dry skin only shower every other day I AM ONE

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I think people spend WAY too much time worrying about outward appearance when there's more important things to concern oneself with. Hairy legs, armpits, etc.??? Bathing habits. As long as the person comes out of the shower clean ... no problem. I'm not prepared to judge someone for having different habits than me. Big deal!

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Trust me,if whoopie said every other day,then she really means every two or three days.Just sayin......

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@reginaldbig, those are some good points. I think I do have a great-grandmother who no longer shaves he legs. But you'd be hard pressed to find me a straight man that is OK with having two hairy legs on his shoulders. Let's get real. You know if she isn't shaving her legs, she probally isn't shaving anything else. Come on now, we are women, we have to maintain some standards.

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