No Shave November

November is not just November anyone. It's No-Shave November. From my perspective, it first became Movember, a month for men to grow some hilarious moustaches and raise some money and awareness for male-centric diseases, like prostate and testicular cancer. In recent years, though, it has been co-opted by women as a way to be liberated from the trials of shaving their body hair. I'm not sure if there are any philanthropic attachments to the women side of No Shave November and that isn't important for the points of this post.

When I searched the #NoShaveNovember tag on Twitter a couple of nights ago, it was saturated with comments from all genders deriding women who choose not to shave their various bits and pieces.

Which is just... bizarre. And, for the sake of balance, I think some of the NoShaveNovember derision is aimed at men too, because... I don't know. Something about beards? Who knows what goes through these people's heads.

Let me get these simple facts into your head: people can do whatever the hell they want with their bodies. This is literally none of your business.

I can kind of understand the foundations of the sentiment if you're someone who likes to have sex with women, and don't like body hair and are a been grossed out by the fact that potential sex friends might be hairier than you prefer. I get that. I get it in the same way that I don't really like lip-piercings, I find them a bit icky. But for me: tough titties. Either I don't let the lip-piercing bother me, or I don't try and get it on with that person. They don't owe me anything; it's not up to them to try and sculpt and fabulise themselves into what I find attractive. Same with body hair: if you don't wanna sleep with someone who lets it all grow out, then don't sleep with them.

The weirder thing is the heterosexual women who lay into non-shavers as if that affects their lives in any way. If anything, it's going to increase their changes of getting their hanky and/or panky on if they believe (as their tweets suggest) that they are going to send men running in fear from the hairies. Perhaps they are afraid that the No-Shavers will affect some kind of social change! Oh noes! As if you're bothered by social change: some of you have bright orange skin and wear leggings that have a measurable denier. 

I grow a beard. I literally only grow a beard cause I hate shaving. It's uncomfortable, irritating and something I can't be bothered to do every couple of days. Luckily, there's not that much social pressure for men who are deciding between bearded and clean-shaven faces. The social pressure on women is far, far greater. But I'll tell you this: I know a few women who don't shave, and they've had next to no noticeable change in their social successes, sexual or otherwise. Possibly because they don't socialise with body fascists, or maybe because they don't let third parties dictate their body confidence and sexual prowess.

Basically the point of this blog post is that I shaved my face two days ago and my chin still itches like a motherfucker. Stupid shaving.