...in the mainstream?
To my knowledge, body and facial hair on women has never been considered an attractive feature (excepting pubic hair, and maybe armpit and leg hair at a certain time.) However, when it comes to hair and men, the fashion changes (compare today's ideal man with that of the 70s.)
I am a hairy young woman. Although I would like to try to accept myself as I am, through the media and my life I have been convinced that hair on a woman is not attractive and must be removed. As such, I feel ugly and am always trying to remove and obscure it. I know that many, many women are in the same situation as I am. I sometimes feel that by participating in hair removal, we are all ensuring that the standard of the hairless woman lives on, and hairy girls will never feel normal. With electrolysis, and now with the popularity of laser hair removal, it seems like our culture is increasingly intolerant of hair. Do you think that this situation could ever change? Will hairy women ever be portrayed as attractive in the media? Please share your thoughts...

In my opinion, not only it will not change this trend of being impeccably shaved, but will increase. ValCPU You see, there is an aspect that has escaped you: a perfect image is not all that is pursued with permanent hair removal are also looking for a soft skin to touch. Hair (especially when its roots are deep) remains sensitive to the skin. Both for those who get a touch, as to who gives the hair is a skin tag that hinder interpersonal communications.
Let me give you an example for you to understand better. If you slide a soft quill by the beard of a man, he did not notice that nothing happens. But if you slide the same quill for a woman's face, the sensitivity that gives the hair, will feel the gentle touch.

Most hairy women reject their partners are close enough to betray his body or facial problem.

Proof that what I say is true is that more and more men and women who pluck their genitals, why? because of the increased sensitivity in these areas.

I don't know about "mainstream" fashion, but there are men, and some groups that do find women with a little extra hair attractive.

Keep in mind though, that high fashion has always been about selling the idea of doing something that is not easily accessable to the masses. When everyone was working in the fields, the palest whitest skin was the fashion statement (because it said "I don't work") and now that everyone is working in windowless corporate sweat shops, the fashionista of today wants "a nice healthy tan" because it says... I don't work Ok, it says I have enough time and, or money to look like this, unlike people who work all day, get no sun, and can't afford to "fake -N- bake"

So, I have to agree with you that harry women probably won't be the next ad campaign from the pages of Elle and Vogue, because it is not something that is difficult to come by, and it is not something you could get people to pay to create where it doesn't exist.

I myself don't mind if women are hairy or hairless but don't like the in between i.e the landing strip. Its all off or all on for me where women are concerned. Be yourself and don't sucumb to the pressure of the media. I myself pefer to be completely smooth and that's me, not because of fashion trends or what other people think.

I don't think that everyone considers it unnattractive.
I could be wrong but I actually think people notice everything else about you before they see any hair..like a pretty smile etc!

I do have to admit though, I do dislike the hair on my body because I find it extremely noticable and undesirable and do feel it detracts from my otherwise nice (sorry if that sounds vain..) appearance.

Like the above poster wrote, if you want to be accepting of the hair (which at the end of the day..is just hair..something that everyone has at least a bit of.) then you should. It's about whats going to make you feel better and value yourself more as a person. I'm sure you are lovely with or without hair.

What an exellent reply, the fashionista aspect. So true, but we tend to forget it. I especially liked the white skin/tan/can afford not to work analysis. ( A la the wonderful old work by Thorstein Veblen on conspicuous consumption)

This can be applied to the wearingof the burqua actually. Nothing says 'look at me I'm making it so well I can afford to have my wife pretty much totally immobilised' than having her wear a tent.

I have some thoughts on this. First, I don't judge anyone else for what they want to do with their bodies.

I'm not very diligent about shaving my legs or armpits that often (maybe once week) because my partner nor I care about it. What does bother me a lot is the hair where it shouldn't be (on my chin especially). It makes me feel masculine, and I prefer to feel feminine. At times, I have tried to be hair-free in other areas, but I am a low-maintenance person and it is just too much bother for me personally.

A lot of current fashion ideals seem to be to make women look younger. They should be hairless, very thin, with very few curves. Most Hollywood stars and most models are very small-chested with somewhat of a pubescent figure. They are also typically very frail looking. We are currently in a fashion stage that likes its women to be frail, weak, and young. Of course, I'm not talking about the erotic industries, but what we see day in and day out as the standard of beauty. Being hairless just feeds into that.

I have always had a very hard time accepting the shape of my body for what it is. The truth is that bodies come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of hairiness. The minority is always going to be the ideal for fashion, but someone has to be the advocate for the "normal people" out there.

Firstly a note on "what's attractive?" ...

The real key to being attractive is a good happy attitude and personality. I'd say it's 90% or more of it! We find people to be beautiful and attractive because of the good energy they project. That makes us feel good. That's what attracts us to those people.

We all choose with each moment to project either good or bad energy.

People project that attractive energy when they are at peace with and accepting of themselves.

Someone might have the most classic physical beauty but if they've got a bad attitude, they are not attractive.

I've known many "good looking" people (by current social standards) who are utterly repulsive because of their bad attitudes.

The terrible mistake to make is (like I did for years) to believe "I am not attractive because of physical aspect XYZ". That's a guaranteed formula for misery.

In contrast, accept yourself, do what you can to make the most of what you have and with that confidence you'll beam good energy and be most attractive.

The most attractive thing is a happy face.

When you are thus attractive the people who will then try to drag you down (with jabs like "OMG she's got hair there!") are the ones who are miserable in themselves and who are jealous of your evident contentment. There are many people who are very low down on the scale of emotional development.

IMHO rather then free themselves from their own mental prisons, from the self-imposed limits that make them unhappy, many people try to imprison those who have broken free. So be mindful of that and don't fall prey to their attempts to imprison you too, to sabotage your happiness.

On another note....

There certainly are many people who find women (and men) with body hair attractive. As a male, I think one of the absolute cutest things on a woman is a certain amount of hair on forearms, sideburn area and top lip etc. I find a body that has a "down" and some darker hairs on it is far more attractive than one without.

I've gone out with women of all types and some have been quite hairy (arms, legs, tummy, facial down etc.) and I found them very beautiful as did other people in general... Overall not because of the presence or absence of any physical features, but as explained above, because they were attractive as people, with a joyful twinkle in their eye.

It used to sadden me a bit that my wife shaves down below but I grew to appreciate it and I respect her preference

It's really only been the last 15-20 years that removing so much hair has been the in thing to conform with.

However, I suspect it may be a runaway train ... peer group pressure to conform ... just look at how so many men now (including myself) are doing things to reduce/remove hair ... as much as we want to resist it and change mass public opinion, I don't know if we ever can. Because mass public opinion is largely driven by "belonging, following the herd, doing what others do, conforming" etc.

Though I do see some signs that it's swinging back a bit, that some body hair is back in favour.

Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I recommend choose to be happy now, make the most of what you've got, focus on the positive and love every moment.

:-)