# Do French women in general shave their armpits? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2005, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575 "2005-10-30T07:17:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/41 "2005-10-31T20:18:40Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Is it true that all the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance? What is the “hoochie-coochie dance”? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/42 "2005-10-31T22:10:09Z")
Originally, M. le **Clairobscur** , “hoochie-coochie dance” was a woman-exploitative exotic dance performed at American carnivals in the late 19th century, a chance to show women dancing scantily clad using the excuse of a “Biblical” theme like… Jezebel… or the Wh\*re of Babylon… or the most perennially popular favorite, the striptease called Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils. This was America’s heartland, plain staunch Christian folk. You could get away with staging nude women as long as you invoked the Good Book. Bible-based sex workers. Sometimes I just have to ponder how utterly bizarre we Americans must seem to the rest of the world… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/43 "2005-10-31T22:13:08Z")
P.S. The great modern dancer of the early 20th century, Ruth St. Denis, introduced America to Middle Eastern and Indian dance that she had researched. She got her start as a hoochie coochie dancer, and used her brilliant creativity to turn it into fine art. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/44 "2005-10-31T23:24:22Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > . Bible-based sex workers. Sometimes I just have to ponder how utterly bizarre we Americans must seem to the rest of the world… This concept of religious themed strip-tease is indeed really weird. I can now tell with near certainty that french women don’t do the “hoochie-coochie dance”… (or else a vast conspiracy is hiding it from me). French women probably aren’t religious enough. Too bad… ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/45 "2005-11-01T01:26:50Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I can now tell with near certainty that french women don’t do the “hoochie-coochie dance”… I am shattered. What other certaincies of my childhood will you destroy? Next, you’ll tell me there’s no place in France where the ladies wear no pants! ---
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575/46 "2005-11-01T23:53:43Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I am shattered. What other certaincies of my childhood will you destroy? Next, you’ll tell me there’s no place in France where the ladies wear no pants! But … there is a whole city now in Spain where both men and ladies are legally allowed to go around wearing no pants (or anything else for that matter). That’s something you can fill the gaping hole with (the hole left by the shattered childhood certaincies, mind you, not the dark pits left uncovered by the OP). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-french-women-in-general-shave-their-armpits/328575.md?page=2)