Letters to the Editor
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NicoleShield
You were kidding, right?
If the hsir hasn't grown in, then the hair isn't being pulled out, so the follicles aren't gtting damaged, which is what can happen to adults who routinely wax or use an epilady (remember those? eeeeekkkk!)
But, though waxing *may* destroy a few follicles, it is unlikely that even regular waxing would completely and permanently remove unwanted hair like a lsaer treatment would. (Don't believe that line about waxing or Nairing making your hair grow back in finer and more slowly, either. Hair is programmed to be ... hair.)
The moms who send their tots in for prepunescent Brazilians probably view this as equivelant to a "training bra".
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eww, eww, and eww
Very, very few eight-year-olds have noticeable pubic hair. That generally shows up about a year or less before menstruation, and though having a first period at nine is not unheard of (my mother did back in 1963), it is still unusual.
I have a box of Nair wax strips in the bathroom closet. It has a warning NOT to use them on children under the age of twelve because of the risk of removing the top layer of skin as well as hair.
I also must say that my mother and I never felt the desire to bond by going to a commercial establishment and paying for someone to rip out our pubes.
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@Dworkin
Unlike you, I have no hair on the palms of my hands. Therefore, there is no hair to pull off. Try it with overheated paraffin and then tell me who is full of shit.
Unless, of course, you're scared.
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people are willling to get hair pulled out they aren't willing to get burned
if it hurt the way you are describing there would be HEAT damage and people aren't signing on for that, besides even if adult women were willing to get burned for beauty (they aren't) no kid would put up with it without screaming BLOODY MURDER and probably causing someone to get arrested. You remind me of the women's studies "proof" that women turn female babies towards them to encourage them to be timid and submissive and hold male babies facing outward in order to encourage them to be outgoing and engaged with the world. Anyone who had ever been around a baby would know that mothers are forced to turn the boys outward to avoid being constantly kicked and punched and to prevent the kid from flinging himself backwards onto the floor.
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Or crushing things?
I'd like to think that at least one of the Broadsheet writers, instead of breaking plates, crushes a beer can with her forehead or bare hands. Just for a little variety.
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@dick
Go get waxed and then we can talk.
As for screaming "bloody murder":
1. spas have all that soothing music "sound proofed" rooms for privacy.
2. some kids scream at everything: brushing their hair, getting shots, going to the dentist ...
3. some kids don't make a sound, even when they're in pain. Especially if they're taught from birth to repress any strong emotion.
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I disagree
"When mom encourages the appearance of sexual maturity..."
Since when is the *absence* of pubic hair a sign of sexual maturity? It is, in fact, the very opposite. Pubic hair is natures way of indicating that a female is capable of reproduction. If, as another poster indicated, a young girl was growing pubic hair at very young age, I can see a mother wanting to make it go away so as to *not* sexualize her daughter.
But to make it go away in order *to* sexualize her is a horrifying sign that some peoples' idea of sexy - an infantilized pubic area - has moved from the merely odd to the downright dangerous.
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Yes, Doppelganger
Anyone, woman or man, taking a child for this particular "spa service" should be arrested immediately for child abuse.
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No True Scotsman
Liberals despise MEN and lionize women.
Their patter about being fairer than conservatives is so much hokum.
-- brightstar65
That holds true only if you pretend that all liberals are feminists and that the Promise Keepers aren't conservative.
... and the 700 club, and the Moral Majority, and all the DOMA folks, and the Moonies, and the MegaChurches, and Bob Jones University, and Liberty University, and the Left Behind fan club, and everyone else who thinks that God declared that men have no place in the home and women have no place out of it.
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@Katmarie
I think it's the ritual act of removing (nonexistent) hair that creates the "appearance" of "adulthood." It certainly makes one hyperaware of one's sexual anatomy, and how to display it.
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Crushing the beercan as we speak
"These women are reverting out of fear"
No. These women are not reverting som much as they have never entered the modern playing field. This sort of behavior, as sick (and I think rare) as it is is cut from very old fashioned cloth. It is an ancient tradition that very young women are sexualized and offered to high status males.
*See the most recent example of this in TX where an enclave of LDS fundamentalists has been raided because of suspician that 15 year olds were being offered up to 40 and 50 year olds as marriage partners.
*See the history of the Tudor family
*See Geisha culture
*See Paris Hilton
What I will say though is that this is an example of how women hurt each other. My guess is that the dads did not sign on for their 8 year-old girls to be waxed.
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Logistics
In the Philadelphia article to which this story was linked, the spa operator consented to give the young girl a wax because she suspected that, come hell or high water, it was going to happen, and she knew she could do a gentle, responsible job. I'm not wholly convinced; I think the mother was a nutcase; but I also suspect that her k/e/e/p/e/r probably had more money for lawyers than the spa operator. Also in the article, the spas are making these nutcases sign releases. Which doesn't turn them over to social services or the cops, but provides liability protection for the owners AND an evidence trail in case other types of abuse occur. It's not what I'd like. I'd like the spa owners to throw them the hell out.
Just from how spas operate, Shazzer, I don't believe a man would get very far in taking his small daughter to get a waxing. I don't know if you've ever been in a spa. The sort of spa that these people go to have men's and women's "sides" for locker rooms, of course. Some areas are in common, like lounges, but not necessarily. Saunas, hot tubs, etc. are sex-segregated. Treatment rooms are private and secluded.
There is no way in hell that a reputable operator would consent to work with a child without a responsible adult present. If you went in with a daughter and insisted, you'd be sent away. If you persisted, they'd hit the panic button.
You might think of that policy as protection for crazy fathers against committing abuse. Unlike their mothers, whom this system is more likely to back and should not.