Yasmin Gasimova: ‘I haven’t shaved in 8 years but I still meet hot guys’

Yasmin Gasimova a 19 year old Reading, UK student has embraced her body hair in a personal essay, extolling that her disregard for her appearances has demonstrated her ability to retain her femininity.

In a revealing behind the scenes look the computer science and philosophy student has shared pictures of her legs, chin and stomach, telling after years of being self conscious she now embraces her body hair.

The only grooming Gasimova, a first year Liverpool University student undertakes is the occasional grooming she does on her face, admitting that she only removes her natural beard when she can not be bothered.

Writing for student newspaper The Tab, Yasmin said: ‘Being hairy isn’t scary

‘In a society where women are expected to shave, I’m not ashamed to admit I don’t.

‘I might trim my pubes if I’m going on holiday, but catch me on a normal day when my armpits are bushy and my legs furry, and you might be surprised.’

Yasmin says she used to get bullied at school when moustache hairs started to grow on her upper lip when she was just ten years old.

She said: ‘I was trying to shave my noticeably hairy stomach.

‘I was never not self-conscious of my hair, but now I embrace it.’

In a bid to come to terms with her own body and her gender identity the teen said was to stop fighting her own body and dismissing what others expected of her.

Reiterated the woman: ‘I stopped caring when I was 11, as having naturally thick, fast-growing hair meant I’d need to waste an hour just to get prickly dots on my legs, which would grow back in a week.

‘It’s a huge inconvenience for me, as it never made me feel comfortable, gave me loads of ingrown hairs, and my hairless legs wouldn’t match the rest of my hairy body.’

Since she’s stopped shaving, Yasmin says she feels much more liberated – but admits that she still regularly tames her eyebrows.

Disinclined to having to shave, Yasmin says when she does it is only for a very good reason.

Reiterates the student: ‘If I do shave, which is very, very rare, it’s for absolute necessity.

‘If I’m going on a beach holiday, having swimming lessons, or if I’m trying to pull a one night stand, I’ll shave.

‘I still unfortunately prefer the inconvenience of shaving to the inevitable dirty looks and rejection.’

Yasmin wants other women to embrace their own hairiness, because men are judged by their ‘manliness’ on their ability to grow beards.

She added: ‘Although women have just as much body hair, albeit generally thinner and lighter, as a society we have decided they have to be completely hairless in order to be seen as truly feminine.

‘But nothing about a woman’s natural body should make her feel like less of a woman. 

‘There is also nothing dirty or unclean about body hair. Besides, we shouldn’t hold women to a higher standard of cleanliness than men.

‘This is the reality of a woman’s body, and it shouldn’t be hidden away.’

As for women concerned with being hairy and finding a significant other, Gasimova said there is no shortage of guys who find a girl with excess hair sexy.

‘I am speaking from experience,’ she said.

And then there were these comments on the web that caught my eye. See what you think?

Urgh sexuality is something that you’re born with, taste is something that you develop.

If you’re completely repulsed by body hair on women, maybe it’s because it has never been presented to you as attractive? Beauty in the media is always presented as smooth and hairless, and adverts for hair removal products constantly shame hairy women. So it’s not surprising that most men are not attracted to women’s body hair.

Wow, no, I’m saying men can be attracted to whatever they want, but thinking hair on women is disgusting is socially conditioned. They can still think its gross, but I’m just saying prehistoric man found it attractive, so thinking it is gross is purely socially conditioned.

My main point is that, you are wrong in using one example to generalise that all men will find women with hair growth (if it became ‘normal’) more attractive than without it: “at the moment men find it gross because they’re not used to it”. From these assumptions, combined with the naivety in thinking men hundreds of years ago would still find you as or more attractive, your whole argument collapses. It is up for grabs as to who finds it attractive. Perhaps there is some social conditioning involved, but given given shaving is not a new phenomenon and women biologically have less hair anyway, it is not surprising that most men (judging by the comments) find it less attractive.