Thread: The Pits

Hm.....

I searched the threads to see if this topic was brought up and couldn't find anything.

There's an interesting thread on tribe about dancers and arm pit hair.

What's with this new trend? - Belly Dancing - the Shira.net Tribe - tribe.net

If you read the link, someone mentions a dance troupe/group that has performed with some of the members with noticeable arm pit hair. Some of these dancers could be on bhuz for all I know. Also other dancers who prefered not to shave and others all for shaving.

I was just wondering what people thought about this. Arm pit hair or no arm pit hair for performances? Does it depend on what style of belly dance you perform? Personal choice???

Years ago, I took a workshop about performing in clubs with Phae and A* two locally seasoned dancers in MA. They gave us tips on how to ask a club owner for a gig and their experience. And among the many things they said at the same time they said "Shave...It doesn't matter what your personal preference is. If you want to dance in a club, that's what you do" or something to that effect.

Thoughts?

Um, yeah, shave if you want to work as a professional belly dancer (traditional style). No one wants to see a beautiful woman in a sparkly costume with poodles under her arms. In most of the Middle East, depilation is not an option: visible body hair is removed.

For tribal, the standards are a bit different.

I already put my opinion on tribe!
I even like it when men shave!

In my humble opinion - it should always be NO hair.

That said, we've had a 3 different fusion styled dancers/groups come through for workshops in the past year and they all were anti-razor.
I've never had a cabaret guest instructor like this.

shave...please...

I didnt shave in the winter before I began dancing..(old hippy) But if your gonna use your body as an instrument in an art form...shave....

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

No one wants to see a beautiful woman in a sparkly costume with poodles under her arms.

LOL...Poodles... I'm sorry...just the visual cracks me up. But true.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

I already put my opinion on tribe!
I even like it when men shave!

And you got called out by an Egyptian when you visited Egypt for the little hair that you have on your arms.

I chatted with Shadia who was the costume mistress for the Urban Nutcracker for years and she said that the male ballet dancers shave.

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

Um, yeah, shave if you want to work as a professional belly dancer (traditional style). No one wants to see a beautiful woman in a sparkly costume with poodles under her arms. In most of the Middle East, depilation is not an option: visible body hair is removed.

and also for not-so-visible body hair! Long before the 'Brazilian' came into fashion, there was the 'Arabian' (if you don't specify you want a Brazilian at the beauty salon, they'll go ahead and wax it all off - a lesson I painfully learned!) Seriously though, performers who are appearing in front of Middle Eastern audiences mustn't underestimate the cultural aversion to body hair!

haha.... this topic made me laugh. On a side note- I'm having that high intensity light hair removal stuff done! anyone ever done this?

Originally Posted by SuhaDeeb

and also for not-so-visible body hair! Long before the 'Brazilian' came into fashion, there was the 'Arabian' (if you don't specify you want a Brazilian at the beauty salon, they'll go ahead and wax it all off - a lesson I painfully learned!) Seriously though, performers who are appearing in front of Middle Eastern audiences mustn't underestimate the cultural aversion to body hair!

Really!!! .w.: The Arabian, huh? O-u-c-h!!!

Shave it. EWWWWWW!!!!!

Now is the time I can share my story. I was chatting with an arab man and the first thing he said to me was. "You shave under your arms, that's so sexy, not all of arab women do that".
I didn't know how to respond to that.

P.S. Isn't the "arabian wax" done before weddings and ALL body hair is waxed off?

Geek factoid..Ancient Efyptian priests plucked all body hair. Royalty and upper class Egyptians wore wigs over shaven heads. I wax my forearms..and I have done laser removal of the hairs on my chiny chin chin...nuclear melt down....make em pluck one hair first so they can gauge the depth of the root....mine wraps around my jawbone...I swear!! Thanks Mom!

hairy arm pits will take away the beauty of any dancer, tribal or cabaret, because that's all you can look at, like the tissues creeping out of the bra.

Isn't that what cholis are for?..g.:

I stopped shaving under my arms *and* my legs in the early 80s, like everyone else, then continued to shave legs only, due to unattractive ankle fringe, and leave my armpits as they were for years and years. I never had a problem with it and neither did my lovers (I had more back then); in fact it felt sexy and earthy to me. Never even considered removing the hair from my forearms.

I started shaving again when I did my first bellydance performance because it just didn't *look right* with sequins. Not on me anyway. So I decided to get out the razor and remove it for performance, and eventually just kept on doing it. I'm pale, my hair (well apart from the stuff on my head) is dark and as I've gotten older, like other body hair, it's sort of sparsened and spread at the same time. It just wasn't looking all that cool any more. I do know dancers who like their armpit hair and get around keeping it by wearing sleeves, though.

My teacher made it a personal choice. I know dancers who are extremely blonde who don't shave and you don't even notice unless you're close up; on stage this really isn't an issue.

Personally I think pit hair can look totally hot in your teens and 20s, unkempt and uncaring in your 30s and 40s. I don't know why it can look like you've "let yourself go" when you're older but it just does. Unless you still wear very hippyish clothes, in which case it looks totally right. (I was more of the "sophisticated sharp urban look with OMG the shock of my earthy uncomplicated sexuality peeking out at the armhole" generation.) When I started doing some parties etc it occurred to me that I really should get rid of the hair on my forearms too, because there's quite a lot of it. I zip over it with the razor now and then but regret it in a way because you always end up thinking, oh now I need to do my hands and knuckles and... and none of that hair is even thick!

I think you possibly can get away with it more easily with tribal-type performance but not because tribal is more "earthy", rather that it's trying to be either more hippyish or more edgy. I actually don't understand the "tribal is earthier than oriental/mainstream bellydance etc" thing. I look at it and they have their ribcages and their arms higher than your average ballerina and do a hell of a lot on demipointe. The *costuming* is earthier but the dancing sure ain't, at least based on what I see.

One side note: women in the ME don't use razors. It seems shoking to them that we, in the west, would use them. Like a MAN!

{{{HUGS}}

i've never shaven my legs, well i tried it once and i hate how it feels (so thank god i'm blond i think i can get away with it).

i shave my pits for performing obviously, and I make my troupe do the same, so far no one complained. not sure what i'd do if someone would complain. i dont shave when i'm not dancing. and i know many women that dont. my boyfriend says it's "european"...

personally, and like many folks, especially here in the states find it a. distracting, b. unsightly, and c. there's that olfactory thing.........yes, the elephant in the room rises...........hair holds scent..........and as for the 'european' thing, many have a 'scent' issue, and not a good one...........

we spend hours on our hair, make-up, costumes, nails, etc, but to leave that one little 'natural' bit un-touched(leg hair as well, even as a natural blond, i'm reeeeaally pale, so it shows up more), all that polish loses it's lustre....looks....unfinished, even the tribal folks,...........there's ALOT of work going into that look, and the GP will pay more attention to the pit-hair than they do the amazing things we do in either style..........but that's just my humble opinion

i'm a hippie in alot of ways and i don't usually shave during the winter unless i have a performance. i don't want to offend American sensibilities so I shave for the stage and i shave during the summer if my pits will be seen. now i'm shaving or wearing sleeves when teaching. i figure that i'm pretty to the left as it is and i don't want to freak my new students out completely. so i shave or cover up.

strangely i've never had a complaint from a lover about my hairy pits or legs. But then again I don't let it get too long tho. Even in winter when I'm going to be wearing sweaters and jeans all the time I still shave about every 2 weeks.

I can't bring myself to get a bikini wax either yet. i just feel like there's something wrong with it. Why are we trying to get rid of something that signals womanhood? Why do we want to look like prepubescent girls? I'm not saying have a big afro bush but there's sposed to be hair there.

And as for smelly hairy pits, I think that has to do with your diet and how much water you drink. Truthfully I don't stink unless I have sweat dried and started sweating again. I think that's a testament to my diet. I know many people disagree and say that BO is just about bacteria on your skin getting wet but I'm speaking from experience here. I've said it before and i'll say it again. Eat a goat, smell like a goat. that goes for pigs, cows, chickens etc.

hmmm, i've never heard that..........but i do know vegans that are a little....ripe? but i agree, it may be sweat and its drying, but i DO agree about hydration..that i DID hear............huh, you learn something new everyday....i like that!

I actually feel really sorry for people who missed out on the "my body hair, let me show you it" trend.

personally, and like many folks, especially here in the states find it a. distracting, b. unsightly, and c. there's that olfactory thing.........yes, the elephant in the room rises...........hair holds scent..........and as for the 'european' thing, many have a 'scent' issue, and not a good one...........

Thing is, *why* is it distracting and unsightly? I think the elephant in the room is not that "hair holds scent" - surely in the ultra-clean US culture, women would be shaving their *heads* as well to get rid of that nasty stink - but that armpit hair reminds people of thick, dark, curly, localised body hair elsewhere on your person. In short, it says "hello there I am a sexually mature woman, as you will discover should I allow you access to my nethers". Armpit hair is frankly too sexual for some people.

we spend hours on our hair, make-up, costumes, nails, etc, but to leave that one little 'natural' bit un-touched(leg hair as well, even as a natural blond, i'm reeeeaally pale, so it shows up more), all that polish loses it's lustre....looks....unfinished, even the tribal folks,...........there's ALOT of work going into that look, and the GP will pay more attention to the pit-hair than they do the amazing things we do in either style

I think that's your answer right there - the BDer these days is extremely "artificial", highly polished and not very earthy at all. Back in the 70s if you were dancing in a swathe of assuit and a few coins, with your hair straight and natural and all your skin unadorned apart from some groovy wild eyeliner, and you were 23, well armpit hair would be entirely appropriate.

Originally Posted by ruta21030

hmmm, i've never heard that..........but i do know vegans that are a little....ripe? but i agree, it may be sweat and its drying, but i DO agree about hydration..that i DID hear............huh, you learn something new everyday....i like that!

true there are some ripe vegans.

Does that mean I'll smell like broccoli?

Shave...actually, now I am getting IPL done on my pits and love the results. Before when I would shave, I would get a shadow or small bumps which looked icky when performing too. Bleh!

Brits are always shocked when they see sophisticatedFrench women with small furry animals nestling in their armpits hence the beer advert from sone years ago when the gal in the club strikes a match for a guy on her under arm stubble.
Wether that has changed or not I don't know.
And you do not have to worry about hair in the private parts as you get older-it migrates to your chin and and old dancer needs her tweezers. ..g.:
Oh and seeing as we oldies like to wear long sleeves we can grow a garden under our arms and not offend anyone.( as long as they are keen gardeners with a penchent for composty smells)..g.:

[QUOTE=anala;137098]Geek factoid..Ancient Efyptian priests plucked all body hair. Royalty and upper class Egyptians wore wigs over shaven heads. QUOTE]

This is so true about ancient Egyptians. I had a history class about them in college and they were obsessed with removing body hair, all of it that was visible. They considered cultures that did not beneath them. I was also told that one of the main reasons they shaved their heads is that lice were very prevalent in ancient Egypt and this helped to keep them to a minimum.

Lisa

I think hairy arm pits on women is NOT sexy. I think it looks quite the opposite. It reminds me of my husbands hairy arm pits.
Looking at a beautiful woman NO MATTER her age or shape and than see hair lurking out from the pits, it just screams manlyness to me. This is just my personal opinion. I couldn't care less if you wanted to plant grass under your arms.

Shave, shave, shave!!!!! Hairy armpits are not sexy at all - and it makes no difference whether you are a tribal dancer or Oriental dancer! My friends all laugh at me shaving every day - even when we are away at workshops. When workshop classes start early, I'm up in plenty of time to shave the legs and pits! They even put a pillow across the bottom of the door so they would have to listen to the buzzzzzzzzz of my shaver!! lol

Originally Posted by SuhaDeeb

Seriously though, performers who are appearing in front of Middle Eastern audiences mustn't underestimate the cultural aversion to body hair!

But that only goes for women, right?
I saw GORILLAS hanging around the swimming pool in Beirut. Oh no, they were just Lebanese men with hair on front and back... ..l;,

MEISSOUN

I agree that there is nothing sexy about armpit hair! Please shave!! Maybe it's because I am American, but I think it's gross - I had to stop eating my breakfast while reading this thread because all the visuals of hairy armpits made me queezy!