I [20F] have an odd relationship with my body hair – it feels like my protection, I’m scared to remove it and I’ve come to love it. I used to have body image issues when I hit puberty and I feel like hair has helped me with that since it covers my body.
Hair doesn’t feel like nothing to me, it’s not like nails that you just cut and forget about them. I also feel like if I wax my body the places that have peach fuzz hair will disappear and it’ll come out as regular hair and I’ll look awful.
This seems to be a problem for my boyfriend [28M] – he doesn’t feel as attracted to me as his previous gfs because of my body hair. I’m afraid if I remove my hair I’ll regret it but I also want to give him my best shot because I really like him. For reference we’ve been dating for 3 months. Any advice?
TL;DR: I can’t tell if hair is part of my identity and if I’ll regret removing it for my boyfriend who I really like and want things to work out.
6 comments
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A compromise that causes you to be uncomfortable about your own body is a compromise too far.
He can be attracted to what he’s attracted to; that’s neither right nor wrong, it simply *is*.
But you should not feel pressure (whether it’s coming from him, from “society”, or from yourself) to conform to what *he* is attracted to at the expense of your own personal level of comfort. If you do, eventually you will find that you have come to resent him, because in order to be with him, you have to do things that make you uncomfortable, and eventually that discomfort will come home to roost.
You’re three months in, and you have found that you and he have an incompatibility. That’s what dating is *for*.
Since this is an issue of body autonomy, keep your hair. He can have a preference, but if you prefer to keep your body hair a certain way, he’s free to accept it or move on. If he was really serious about you, body hair would not stand in his way.
There’s a reason why this man is dating a woman 8 years younger than him, and it’s because he’s hope that you are young and inexperienced enough that he can control you into becoming what he wants, and not who you are.
If he expects you to change your body for him, it’s time to leave.
Anything you do that would make you sad to please someone else is too much of compromising bc why won’t he compromise and accept your decision about your body and move on?
Very few men are going to want to be with a hairy woman, that’s sort of weird. You seem to have placed some special significance on this, it’s just hair it grows back.