Women really do the most! Vajacials, anal bleaching, vaginal rejuvenation, feminine wipes, washes, and supplements to make it “smell nice”. There really is no shortage of things women can, should, and evidently will do to their bodies to make them more desirable and pleasurable for men.
Your vagina must be tight, smell like exotic tropical fruit, and have zero hair anywhere near it like the preteen or porn star men really wish they were fucking instead of you. When all these expectations are not amusing, they are annoying and sometimes cross over into dangerous. Life and death dangerous.
The war against pubic hair
Pornography and publications masquerading as female magazines have for ages taken it upon themselves to educate women on what men want. One of those things is hair-free pubes. Hair removal has numerous side effects including but not limited to inflammation, itching, ingrown hairs, and blackheads.
This is where vajacials come in. Steadily rising in popularity, vajacials are generally offered in conjunction with or after hair removal processes. They are marketed as a way to treat ingrown hairs, remove dead skin cells, smooth bumps around the bikini line, and deal with hyperpigmentation.
The treatment itself leaves you prone to irritation, inflammation, and infection especially if you’re left with an open wound from an extraction (which is a typical part of the process). Then there’s the danger of the products used to brighten/lighten the skin in an attempt to lessen discolouration and hyperpigmentation.
Speaking of skin lightening, introducing anal bleaching which like most of the things women are encouraged to do began with porn stars and strippers. As pornography has become more mainstream so have the things porn stars do including but not limited to shaving pubes, anal bleaching, and asphyxiation play aka choking during sex.
Monetizing female insecurity about appearance sexual organs
So why? Why are women shaving their pubes, bleaching their anuses, and getting vajacials et al? A variety of reasons can be linked to this. Women are distressed by the appearance of their vulvas in large part because of the surgically enhanced vulvas seen in porn.
One BBC report found that girls as young as 9 expressed an interest in labiaplasty. Labiaplasty is a surgical procedure that involves shortening or reshaping the lips of the vagina. Porn has normalized a certain look and women because of their inherent insecurity regarding the appearance of their own bits seek to replicate what appears to be desirable TO MEN.
Once the hair-removal job is done, the insecurity is not minimized, if anything it’s heightened by the bumps, ingrown hairs, and the absence of anything hiding your weirdly yet specially shaped lips. Enter vajacials, another attempt at capitalism monetizing a problem they caused themselves.
The majority of the beauty industry is predicated on women being insecure about their appearance and desirability. Anal bleaching, purely cosmetic is standard practice for brides from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions, most notably Egypt. Dark pigmentation on the genital area has always been frowned upon, which undeniably has racist undertones and is solved by vaginal and anal bleaching. Do you know who doesn’t get their anuses bleached in preparation for their wedding nights? If you said Middle Eastern men, go to the head of the class. That’s patriarchy for you.
Importance of pubic hair
As crazy as it sounds, your body knows what it’s doing by growing hair places. Pubic hair acts like a protective buffer, reducing friction during sex and other activities. Like eyelashes and nose hair, pubic hair provides protection from bacteria and pathogens. It traps dirt, debris, and potentially harmful microorganisms.
In addition, hair follicles produce sebum which is an oil that prevents bacteria from reproducing. It follows that pubic hair may protect against a variety of infections including cellulitis, urinary tract infections (UTIs), and yeast infections.
Choking and the pornification of women
Vajacials, anal bleaching, and related activities exploit and monetize women’s insecurities. They pornify ordinary women, elevating the aesthetics of surgically enhanced women like porn stars and strippers. They elevate and encourage women to elevate men’s pleasure, men’s desires over their own comfort.
This pornification and encouragement of women to change themselves for men can be linked to a variety of ills women suffer. One of the trends that is currently on the rise is the rise of fatal and non-fatal choking during sex. Women assume that rough sex including choking is not only normal but also what men want and for this reason, they put up with it even when they do not like it.
Porn is the de facto sex ed system in the world with 1 in 3 young people having seen porn by age 12. One organization found that 88% of the scenes in top rented and downloaded porn contains violence against women. The scenes that dominate porn currently are face slapping, gagging, spitting, and choking. This is what children and young adults are seeing and assuming is what men want and by extension normal.
So women allow sex partners to choke them because that is what currently constitutes normal sex. Women look to porn and media like women’s magazines to see what men want and what they see is rough sex and choking. So some of them make changes to accommodate that.
Instances of fatal and non-fatal choking are on the rise with women dying in the course of choking aka breath play during sex. The Guardian reports that the normalization of choking kinks has led to a situation where women die and once a woman dies in this way, judges and juries feel ‘this is how people have sex now’ and questions are not always asked.
In conclusion: Down with vajacials, choking and the patriarchy!
We have to stop encouraging women to contort themselves into shapes that are conceived by patriarchal society and perceived as desirable to men. As huge a leap as it may appear to be, there is a direct line connecting shaving pubes, vajacials, anal bleaching, and women thinking it’s normal to suffer through potentially fatal choking during sex.
If women make zero concessions in attempts to make themselves appealing to men, perhaps refusing the small things will strengthen the muscle to say no and fewer women will put up with choking et. al. to please men. Start by saying no to any body modifications done with men in mind or those that capitalize on female insecurities and move from there. All together now, down with vajacials and the patriarchy!
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