Man, I love vaginas! I felt like I needed to start by clarifying that fact, lest I be accused of vaginism by an irate internet vigilante. I have a lot of feminist friends, and I'm as generous with them as Joe the Plumber is with his gay friends; I let them into my house, and I even let them use my toilet.
To be honest, I enjoy a feminist more than I do a submissive, traditional female. Those submissive, traditional types tend to bore me intellectually, never providing the mental stimulation that I so desperately crave on a daily, hounding basis. It's generally the case that if a girl takes me home, she's one of 'em college-educated-feminists; the kind of woman who believes in doing everything on her own and never dreams of being a stay-at-home mom.
It's not always easy to predict if a woman has a hairy vagina, and it's not always polite to ask before one descends upon the sheets of Venus. Even here, in very direct and forward Amsterdam, an astute guy probably wouldn't want to take the risk of missing out on a one-night-stand by asking a girl if she's clean-shaven. To most guys, a hairy vagina is not enough to deter a night of pleasure, and it certainly wasn't a deterrent for me when I first started dining out with the opposite sex back in college.
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She was convinced that she didn't have to shave because it was a double-standard imposed upon women by the patriarchy. "It's natural," she would say. But there we were having sex with a condom -- an unnatural act -- and her vaginal hair would get caught inside of the condom, causing very unpleasant friction. "A double-standard!? I'm not hairy myself," I tried arguing, but there was no reprieve.
I even went as far as using my trimmers in front of her, showing her how easy and egalitarian it was, but to no avail. Then one day, after many months, I put on a condom, tried going into her vagina, and it was just too rough. When I finished, a pubic hair got caught inside of the condom and hurt like hell when I was taking it off. I ended the relationship right there.
She'd been bringing identity politics into my bed -- even though I was willing to do what she asked of me -- and when I finally couldn't take it anymore... in her mind I broke up with her because of "patriarchal reasons." She thought it was shallow, and maybe it was, but our relationship wasn't super-serious, and the sex had stopped being enjoyable. Not only had the sex ceased to be enjoyable, but her inability to comply with a personal request convinced me that there was no future in the relationship.
After all, if you ask a woman to shave her armpits because you find it unattractive, and she refuses because she thinks it's patriarchal oppression, how much luck do you expect to have living with her and asking her to do something around the house? I always keep my armpit and pubic hair under control; it takes a few minutes a month and a 30 dollar trimmer; razor bumps and micro-cuts are no excuse. So, I eliminated my armpit and pubic hair, but she refused to do the same because she didn't want to give in to the patriarchy. I saw no possibility for cooperating in an equal home with a woman like that; she wasn't an independent being so much as she was a blind follower of reactionary body politics.
After senior year of college I moved to Korea, where women blow dry their vaginas in the spa, and where shaving is seen as something only prostitutes do. A good Korean girl doesn't shave her vagina because her mother and her mother's friends will flip out when they notice it at the spa. Even the most liberal vegan girl I met in Korea couldn't shave, lest her mother rip her to pieces. In turn, that same Korean girl would insist that I maintain a clean-shaven face, something which I was willing to do. After a month of shaving before meeting up with her, I realized that I was giving myself to someone who wasn't able to equally give herself to me in turn.
In the end, a woman's body is hers alone, and so is a man's, but when a couple come together, they often hijack each other's appearances. If your partner is unwilling to alter their appearance because of some political, religious, or family reason, then you have to seriously ask yourself if that person is independent enough to your liking. A good relationship starts with sharing ownership, and a couple that can't jointly divorce itself from the expectations, beliefs, and desires of society cannot exist in a creative, free space.
