My skin is extremely sensitive to razor burns. My hairs often grow in awkward places and directions where they are impossible to shave. Many hairs show through from under the skin. As a woman in transition, I find those hairs a nightmare. I wish I could just tweeze. It's easier and less painful than shaving.

I'll never forget the time in high school a guy came to pick my up and

I think you meant I'll never forget the time in high school a guy came to pick me up and

I agree that facial hair signals sexual maturity... but the stubbled-unshaven look signals professional immaturity. It signals Kurt-Cobain-wannabe, couch-surfing, not-yet-over-myself, no-job-because-that-would-mean-compromising-my-artistic-principles immaturity.

Full beards, neatly trimmed, look very professional. Also, they cover up acne, a weak chin, etc. In my view, only extremely handsome men can get away without one!

...in my experience, there are few things less-pleasant than a "necking session" with a guy who's got "sandpaper face."

In my less-assertive youth, I have literally had my face rubbed raw by guys with stubble (I quickly learned to stand up for myself and SAY SOMETHING about it).

Now we just have to wait for the study proving that men are really most attracted to women with stubble -- particularly of the armpit and leg varieties. Then we'll really be in business.

You'll never find a study to prove most men are attracted to this, not in this lifetime anyway, but a *few* of us are. We're just just been marginalized into the Fetish Zone over the last couple decades.

Me: "Hon, you don't have to shave your armpits, I like the 'European natural' look"

my SO: "Eeeeeeeeeeew gross!"

My poor husband grew a "soul patch" just before our wedding. He thought it looked really cool and "artistic" at the time, but he now regrets it and has often expressed the desire to "Photoshop" it out of our wedding pictures.

For such a little spot of hair, though, that thing gave me a heck of a rash. I wasn't unhappy to see it go.

And what you would find is that men are generally attracted to someone who's not a micromanaging bitch with a martyr complex. Is there a lotion for that?

As a historian I read about beautiful women of legend like Eleanor of Aquitaine and it occurs to me that this was long, long before it ever became a necessity for women to shave their legs or arms (and think of what a literal pain it would have been in that age with those kinds of tools...). It really is bizarre that it is completely ingrained into our culture's sense of what is beautiful and what is not that a woman with either leg or armpit hair is, these days, considered revolting at worst and strange at best. If you add up the many generations of people for whom body hair removal was not an option, you'll find that we today are the weird ones with our preferences.

I guess that's just a long and complicated way of saying that I am in favor of grooming and hygiene but hair removal just seems like an absurd social ritual and I hardly mind when I meet (clean) people who don't feel the need to partake.

I'm not sure when you went to high school, but I'd guess it would have been in the early 90's when the whole grunge thing was happening, and now we're going through a similar thing with the hipster trend - shaggy hair and stubble are in, and it's even trickled down to the Dane Cook types. But I imagine this study would have produced different results in the 80's, for example. Just a guess.

on women are just very sexy (and feminine).

My stubble is great for scratching mosquito bites on the back of my hand, but most of the women in my life have definitely preferred smooth face (or soft, short beard).

BECAUSE my wife hates it. What's she gonna do? Get angrier? Not possible.

I caught Saturday Night Live last week and in honor of George Carlin they were showing the very first SNL episode when he was the host. One of the "fake ads" was actually for a razor with three blades. Weird, huh?

Kind of reminded me of Star Trek, when stuff like the Eugenics Wars were supposed to have happened in the 1990s.

We get so close to eradicating the myth of the hairy legged feminist and now you want it back?

Ew.

Personally, I hate men with stubble. It's not manly, it's SCRATCHY. It's currently in fashion, but a generation ago, it wasn't. It was more likely to mean "bum" or "drifter" than it was to mean "Keith Urban" or (insert generic stubbly movie star name here). A hundred years ago, it might have been men with beards and mutton chop sideburns. Fifty years ago, it certainly would have been a clean shave. I don't see how anyone with half a brain can take a correlation of fleeting fashion and draw a causative timeless conclusion like "women think stubble is an indication of sexual maturity and as such prefer it." What poppycock!

What's funny is that my husband has a mustache. He's tall and slim and when he shaves, he doesn't look 35, he looks like a 20 year old with a slight receding hairline. I HATE when he shaves, not because he looks like my son, but because it feels and looks "funny." It's "right" in my mind for him to have that prickle on his lip... otherwise, it's like kissing another person. He's someone else without his mustache. It's like I don't recognize him.

Does this mean I like ALL men with mustaches? NO! In fact, I tend NOT to like most men with mustaches. Does this mean I like it when my husband goes on vacation and doesn't shave? NO! I hate it! Does it mean that I think he looks great with a beard? No, I dislike beards (I know women who like them, I don't).

What ID-10-ts!