Hirsute yourself: A brief look at female body hair fetishism
In previous blogs I have examined a number of fetishes and sexual paraphilias related to human body hair including trichophilia/hirsutophilia (sexual arousal for hair, usually head hair), pogonophilia (sexual arousal from beards), and haircut fetishism (sexual arousal from seeing someone get their haircut either voluntary or through coercion). Another sub-type of trichophilia is men that get sexual pleasure and arousal from women that are abnormally hairy (including but not limited to overly hairy pubic hair, underarm hair, hairy arms, hairy legs, and hair around nipples). As far as I am aware, there is no academic research on this topic although a quick Google search with the term ‘hairy women’ reveals dozens of websites catering for (presumably) men that get their sexual kicks from hirsute women.
Other required viewing would no doubt include the television documentary F*** Off, I’m A Hairy Woman (first screened in 2007). The programme was hosted by female stand-up comic and Guardian newspaper columnist Shazia Mirza, and its focus was body image and stereotypes about women’s androgenic hair. The programme followed Shazia Mirza over a six-month period in which she let all her body hair grow for six months. As the Wikipedia entry on the show noted:
“Her introduction posed the question, ‘what would it be like if we lived in a world where beautiful women were allowed to be hairy?’ To find out, [Mirza] decided to take the plunge and grow out [her] body hair. Can [she] learn to love it, and can [she] convince the rest of the world to love it too? After six months, she advertised for other hairy women to put on a catwalk show, wearing lingerie made of body hair designed and made by artist Tracey Moberly”.
There are a few online articles about some men’s love of hairy women including a 2010 Ezine Article on ‘Men looking for a hairy woman – tips on how to find them’ (and is actually about how hairy women can date men rather than vice-versa). The author – Angelina Andrews – claims that on most internet polls ‘hirsute fetishes’ are among the top ten most popular male fetishes. While I don’t dispute this, most of this relates to general ‘hair on head’ fetishism rather than hirsute female fetishism more specifically. The article claims:
“Most [hairy] women like yourself will be tempted to join a ‘hairy dating’ website. I would strongly advise against it. These sites actually have very few members right now. Most people with a fetish for female hair tend to just join conventional dating sites. You will also find that these sites for hirsute lady lovers are overly pricey. Most men have no idea about hairy dating sites. They tend to join huge dating communities. This is where you should join too…These popular sites have advanced profile matching technology. What this means is they tend to match your profile with people who might be interested in it. All you have to do is write down that you have body hair and you would love to meet a male hirsute fetishist. On most sites this will be enough to send your profile to relevant men”.
In the name of academic research I went searching on the internet for evidence (outside of pornographic videos) to see if there were individuals that claimed to be sexually aroused by female body hair. Below are typical extracts various online forums from both men that claim to have a fetish for female body hair and from women that have dated men with a fetish for female body hair:
- Extract 1: “My boyfriend has a fetish for hairy women? Is this normal? He is also trying to convince me to let all my body hair grow. Should I do it?”
- Extract 2: “I am a 31-year-old male with a fetish for very hairy women”
- Extract 3: “I always had a fetish for hairy women. [I] was wondering if any other guys out there like me. I would really like to meet and perhaps date a girl who’s hairy or hirsute. It’s just really hard to find someone like that – especially since everyone today is smooth like a little girl. If you’re out there, then message me please. I am 20 [years old]”
- Extract 4: “I have had guys tell me about some crazy fetishes in my life. I even had a few guys – American and European mainly – tell me they don’t mind their girl being hairy. Some find it sexy! I have some comfort in knowing that men still find me beautiful even in knowing about my flaws! But it is still an odd fetish but different strokes for different folks, I guess! I even Googled the term and found a LOT of fetish/porn photos of hairy women. Not sure how I feel about it yet”
- Extract 5: “Any fetish makes me feel objectified…I’ve met a couple of guys who i suspect had a hair fetish, my arms were all they could look at, talk about and lust after, wanting to touch them when I had just met them, I had to slap their hands away to keep them from touching my arms. I normally feel whatever floats your boat as long as everybody is happy, but they make me feel so uncomfortable to be objectifying something that is part of a medical condition I have been fighting so long [i.e., polycystic ovary syndrome that results in high levels of male hormones in the body]. I’m self-conscious about my extra hair…[and] I don’t want somebody worshiping the very things I would change about my body. But if two people enjoy somebodies fetish together that’s ok, it’s just not for me. When guys show up here to talk about their fetish it really ticks me off”
- Extract 6: “I love hair on women. Not necessarily on the legs, but I love a hairy crotch and hairy armpits. I know hairy is a fetish in porn a lot, but it doesn’t seem any other people I know share this ‘fetish’. I actually made one of my ex-girlfriends grow hers out because it was shaven. Then she shaved it back and I got really pissed off”
Although there is little detail in these extracts (and I can’t ensure the veracity of such claims), they suggest that (i) there are males out there that are sexually aroused by hairy women, (ii) that such males appear to be in young adulthood (in their twenties and thirties), (iii) that women that are the subject of such desires may not like to be objectified in such a way, and (iv) that it may be culturally determined (such as coming from Europe or America). All of this is (of course) highly speculative and given that there is unlikely to be a great surge of interest academically to research the topic, I can’t see ‘the facts’ becoming any clearer anytime soon.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Andrews, A. (2010). Men looking for a hairy woman – tips on how to find them. Ezine Articles, November 16. Located at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Men-Looking-For-A-Hairy-Woman—Tips-To-Find-Them!&id=5393555
Bindel, J. (2010). Women: Embrace your facial hair. The Guardian, August 20. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/20/women-facial-hair
Goulian, J-J. (2014). In defense of hairy women: Searching for a fair standard of beauty. Vice, February 11. http://www.vice.com/read/in-defense-of-hairy-women-0000222-v21n2
Love, B. (2001). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. London: Greenwich Editions.
Wikipedia (2014). F*** Off, I’m A Hairy Woman. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F***_Off,_I’m_a_Hairy_Woman
Posted on May 21, 2015, in Case Studies, Compulsion, Gender differences, Obsession, Paraphilia, Psychology, Sex, Sex addiction and tagged F*** Off, Hair fetishism, Haircut fetishism, Hairy women, Hirsutophilia, I’m A Hairy Woman (film), Maschalagnia, Pogonophilia, Sexual fetishism, Sexual paraphilia, Trichophilia. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
drmarkgriffiths 
It may be interesting for you to know that it has been a trend in South Korea for women to get themselves hair implantation to their genital area. So having a lot of pubic hair seems to be considered beautiful there.
Actually the academic research is exhaustive and the facts are clear. Liking women with hairy legs and armpits is not a fetish. Men are biologically programmed to seek out females who have hair there as only children do not in nature (similar to being programmed to like fully developed breasts, another thing that differentiates women from children). Evolutionary scientists do not debate this and know that this hair will never stop growing on women. Men who have a preference for a natural woman either weren’t successfully brainwashed by a culture that pressures women to shave or they grew up in a place where women were able to keep the right to show their natural body in public without facing harassment, thus not rewiring male brains. Liking the removal of post-puberty body hair is the fetish, one that people (obviously) can be trained to want (in ancient Eqypt men were expected to remove all their body hair). Unfortunately in nature it should be much rarer and is actually a red flag for pedophilia. Hence the fact that men who are attracted to little boys rave about their hairless legs. Sociologists consider modern female shaving to be a fad introduced by razor companies that got out of control largely because women didn’t have enough power/equality to stop it. You can see now that the male body hair razor is on the market that they along with the beauty industry are trying to continue to expand the market.