Like, I don’t mean pubes. But if you’re wearing a sleeveless outfit, and you have underarm hair, is that considered rude? Or if your legs are hairy and you’re wearing a skirt/dress? Or maybe rude isn’t the word. Unkempt or something, perhaps.
As a female of the species, I try to remove any and all errant hairs. But is it actually wrong in the Emily Post sense of the word not to?
It’s unconventional, and may be situationally inappropriate, but it’s certainly not inherently rude.
ETA that I personally find it aesthetically unappealing, and IMO exposed hairy armpits don’t belong in the workplace (the reason why women can generally get away with sleeveless and men can’t is about the hair), but I can’t imagine being *offended *by body hair, in a casual setting.
This is something I wonder about too. I’m a twenty-three year old woman who doesn’t shave. I’m also a middle school teacher at a moderately conservative private school (it’s a Catholic school, FWIW). I think unkempt is a better word than rude as well. Generally, if I’m wearing skirts to work or church, I’ll wear panty hose regardless of the season. This seems to give my legs a smoother look. The hair is still visible, but it looks more professional. I do not wear shirts that reveal my armpits in any setting where it would not be appropriate for a man to wear such a shirt. Unfortunately, with the popularity of capped sleeves, this makes shopping a little trickier. Neither my boss nor the nuns have commented on my lack of shaving, so for the time being I am assuming that I’m not being horribly offensive.
If I’m just hanging out with family, I’m likely to let my hair hang out. I think it bothers my mother a little, but more because she wishes I was more traditionally feminine than because of the hair itself.
Wouldn’t this differ with nationality? My female high school students in midwestern America would die of shame if any pit hair or leg hair made its appearance, especially when dressing up. Foreign exchange students from Europe have not been so picky.
I assumed hairy pits were compulsory in Germany. 
There’s clearly a social taboo on furry females in the USA, so I suspect Emily Post would advise dressing in a way that doesn’t cause a stir. Whether that sits comfortably with you is another matter - plenty of counter-culture types in the US see it as liberating and would find a plucked female body offensive.
It depends on where you’re going and how much hair there is. I never show my armpits if I havent’ shaved, because the hair grows dark and thick (if short). Legs I’m less concerned about; my leg hair is sparse and thin and doesn’t show up well at all.
That’s for shorts, for a short outing. With a dress, I’d shave.
That’s the key point. It’s never rude for a woman to show off her body hair unless it would equally be rude for a man to do so. If people have a culturally-derived distaste for women who don’t shave, that’s their own problem.
Nonsense. *Rude *is anything which offends your audience. Saying fuck in front of my brother is not rude. In front of my aged Mother in Law, saying fuck is quite rude. As she’ll readily inform you.
The idea that the rudeness is inherent in the behavior, not the audience reaction, is silly. The idea that identical acts will be viewed as equally rude regardless of the sex of the doer (or the audience) is also silly. We might wish to live in such a world, but we don’t. Not even the youngest and hippest of us are free from sex-linked differences in expectations of acceptable behavior.
I think there’s also a difference, or should be, between like six inch long underarm hair and a few errant hairs or stubble. Like, one might be someone just didn’t have time to get a wax/shave it off, the other might be just plain don’t care.
unappealing, yes. Rude, no.
I actually think the former looks better and is arguably less offensive - it says “I don’t feel the need to shave my hair, ever”, rather than “I couldn’t be bothered to groom myself for you today”.
I wish I’d never started shaving, especially my legs. Coarse, short, stubbly hair doesn’t look nice.
I’m hoping it says, “I want to reduce my carbon footprint by using neither razors nor shaving cream and by cutting down on my shower time!” I have a feeling that it might be too much to ask of my body hair to deliver such a message.
I shaved up until I was eighteen or so and then decided I had had enough of it for a variety of reasons and stopped. At first my hair was stubbly and gross, but now that it’s longer it’s soft. If you really wished that you had never started shaving, then know that it is possible to get to a point where it will be as if you had never started. My only word of warning is with your armpits. I feel as if I sweat more now than when I shaved.
I lied…upon preview I thought of another word of warning. I have shaved my legs twice that I can recall since I was eighteen, once for my sister’s confirmation when I was standing up as her sponsor and another time for that same sister’s wedding. Both times that I shaved, I felt incredibly prepubescent and uncomfortable in my skin. Be careful, if you stop shaving you may start thinking that adult humans are meant to have a bit of body hair!
I guess if you’re in a locale where such things are important you have to decide if it’s worth the hassle to assert yourself or to pitch it in and go with the flow (assuming that you’ve already decided what your own personal preferences are).
Just remember that there are places you can go where such things are not on the radar and you’re free to do as you please.
Some years back, a graduate student in a different lab would often wear extremely low-cut jeans. I didn’t know you could buy anything with that small a crotch-to-waist distance, but she found the minimum. Many inches of ass crack is bad enough, but I do not need to see anyone’s pube stubble unless I’m getting naked with them, thanks.
Rude? Not the word I would use.
Nonsense. “Rude” and “unconventional” don’t mean the same thing. People may choose to be offended by whatever they like, but that’s their responsibility. If your aged Mother in Law believes that women shouldn’t leave the house without their makeup on and their hair done, she’s free to be offended by those that do, but that doesn’t make the uncoiffed women “rude”. Can you give me an example of a situation where it would be okay for a man to have his armpit hair on display, but not a woman?
I dunno, I think that if you didn’t have time to shave, and chose the sleeveless top anyway, that falls pretty firmly into the “don’t care” category.
And FWIW, I thought of an example where I DO think it’s rude. Please take care to not be walking around with your pubes hanging out. Either pick your swimwear more carefully, or suck it up and get rid of whatever is hanging out the side. Because seriously, people… ew.
Well in the summer I pretty much wear sleeveless tops all the time, and my hair does grow in pretty thin (I wax it fairly regularly). I mean, if you happen to see like, a few tiny hairs and you get grossed out, that’s your problem…I’m going to be as diligent as I can but at some point, you know, no one’s perfect.
Yup, that would be “don’t care”.
Just for the record, there’s no negative connotation there, there’s nothing wrong with not caring.
I’m not really sure how that’s not caring though–I’m pretty much the most obsessive person I know about hair removal. It’s just that I can’t be aware of every single piece of hair at every given moment. And underarm hair is really hard to remove. And it’s not like anyone’s going to be studying it in depth. Like right now I just checked and I have a tiny bit of hair that probably could be waxed off, but I’m not going to stop wearing something I like just because of a very small amount of hair.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, but if you KNOW the hair is there, and choose to wear the sleeveless, it’s because you’ve decided that you simply don’t care that the hair is there, at least not enough to cover it up. After all, you’re probably correct in your assumption that no one is going to be inspecting your armpits, so why *should *you care about a tiny bit of hair that no one is likely to notice? Again, there’s nothing *wrong *with that.
Can we agree on the pubes, at least?
Interesting, thanks. I do think if I stop shaving anywhere completely, it’ll be far more likely to be my legs - as it is I don’t shave above the knee.