Dear Savage Love Readers,

This is the “Mini” Savage Love. You’ll find the Mini column here every week—at least one great question, a (hopefully) great answer from me.

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Thank you all, and I hope to see you at Savage.Love!

Dan


Young straight dude here. Recently I...

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...

Dear Savage Love Readers, 

This is the “Mini” Savage Love. You’ll find the Mini column here every week—at least one great question, a (hopefully) great answer from me.

To read the “Maxi” Savage Love—the full, unabridged column, with more Qs and more As—please subscribe at Savage.Love. Magnum Subs get the full column and archives and the extra-long Magnum Savage Lovecast, plus bonus podcasts and live events for just 40 bucks a year.

If you’re only interested in reading Savage Love, we have a discounted Column Only Sub for just 25 bucks a year. This gets you weekly access to Savage Love and my Weekly Reader Round-Up, the comments section, and the archives. (Only Subs at Savage.Love will be able to see or read the comments.)

Thank you all, and I hope to see you at Savage.Love! 

Dan 


Young straight dude here. Recently I have come across a ton of articles online about why women shouldn’t shave their armpits. These articles argue that armpit shaving is based on deeply patriarchal anti-feminist notions of female beauty. This leaves me feeling conflicted. I find women’s shaved armpits extremely erotic, if I’m attracted to the person. I find shaved underarms irresistibly smooth and supple. I love the sensation. Plus, I love the warmth of the area, and how the underarms are right next to the shoulders, neck, and breasts—sort of a nexus point. Even visually, I find them off-the-rails sexually arousing. When women grow their armpit hair, it turns off what is for me one of the most sexually attractive parts of a woman’s body. Reading these articles has left me asking: Is it wrong to be so sexually attracted to something if it’s supposedly based on patriarchal beauty standards? Almost all the info I find online—shaving product advertisements aside—seems to be about why women shouldn’t shave their armpits and how a woman shaving her armpits is gender oppression. It’s really left me wondering: Why is this such an issue for some feminists?

Are Reflexive Male Psychosexual Interests That Stupid?

If you were smart enough to come up with that signoff, ARMPITS, you’re smart enough to hold these two not-quite-conflicting ideas in your mind without stroking out from the cognitive dissonance: You like what you like and you’ve been conditioned to like what you like. Sometimes with a little thought and effort, we can learn to like more than we were conditioned to like (different kinds of people, different kinds of bodies, different kinds of sex), which is a favor we do ourselves, not others. But it’s not always possible for a person to learn to like more than they’ve been conditioned to like. So, what should a person do then?

A person can and should
 shut the fuck up.

A person can remind himself that beauty standards evolve, as do gendered norms, and if those standards are evolving away from something he’s been conditioned to think is desirable—something like hairless armpits—he can do his level best not to interfere with that evolution. So, don’t think hairy armpits are hot? Or bigger bodies? Or trans people? Great, fine. You can seek out people you do find attractive—and luckily enough for you, ARMPITS, most women shave their armpits—without shitting all over people you don’t find attractive. Don’t post “no hairy pits” on dating apps, don’t shit-talk with your bros about hairy armpits being gross, don’t post puke emojis all over Instagram when a woman shares a photo that shows armpit hair, and politely pass on potential sex partners who have armpit hair without feeling the need to inform them why you’re passing on them.


My ex-girlfriend and I had a good relationship, but the sex was bad. When we had sex, it would eventually become clear that nobody was going to climax, or that she was tired or bored, and we would stop. I decided to let her take the lead and stopped initiating. I began to feel like not even my emotional needs were being met and that’s when she revealed what felt to her like the mother of all secrets: she may be asexual. She said she felt a lot of shame and confusion about it and had been withdrawing for that reason.

We agreed to explore her sexual identity together and try new things that could potentially work for both of us. The first time we tried it went horribly. I felt insecure and uncomfortable, and I ended things early, as she had so often done. She started initiating trying things when we went to bed and I kept it to cuddling, then went to the bathroom to “finish myself off” after she fell asleep. She heard me come back to bed, asked what I was doing, and I told her the truth. She got out of bed, sad and angry, and I tried to apologize but we never got past this.


Go to Savage.Love to read the rest. 

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