The Truth About Bush: Should You Shave Down There?

Fashion affects pretty much everything in the world, and not even your sexual wellness and wellbeing gets to escape from that. Like everything else, the fashion world has an opinion on what you should be doing with your bush.

 

It’s almost worrying that fashion becomes mainstream and the norm, and that certain things then become expected of young women. The porn industry has long peddled the notion that women should be shaved ‘down there’, and following on from this celebrities began to talk about having Brazilian waxes or the shaved look. This has filtered down through society and now it is almost expected, the same as a shaved leg or arm pit, for the women of today. Young women often feel that they have very little choice about whether to shave or not – it’s more a question of how much or little to shave and what ‘look’ to go for down there.

 

Organisation Mother London has been working with feminist organisations to launch a campaign looking at the pressure that is on woman regarding their most intimate region. They have invited women to come forward and have their ‘bush’ photographed, to be exhibited in a major public exhibition in future months.

 

Mother London are looking to promote Project Bush, the notion that what a woman does with her nether regions should be entirely her choice. The ladies who come forward to have their photograph taken as part of the project will remain anonymous, and will be photographed by top female photographer, Alisa Conan.

 

Mother London, and the feminist organisations which are also involved in Project Bush, hope that by producing this exhibition they will help to redress the balance and normalise the various looks that women choose to have in their private regions.

Categories: bush, feminist organisations, hair, mother london, nbsp, nbsp mother, project bush, shave, shaved, Women, young women

How Stalking Can Cause Problems For Victims

We all have the mental image of the deranged, straggly-haired stalker following a woman around, sitting outside their home trying to get a look in and causing general distress all of the time. Obviously, this type of stalking is very bad and would be extremely worrying for any victim of it. But one of the problems with it is that it is an egregious example of the extremes of stalking. In fact there are many different types of stalking – usually done by an ex-partner or former lover who has become obsessed. The fact that we have the mental idea of stalking be a certain prescribed way, as mentioned earlier, it can lead some people to not realise that this is exactly what they are victims of.

This can be a big problem because there is absolutely no doubt that stalking is a very bad thing. Firstly, it is clearly a very distressing thing to happen to victim. Try to imagine how it would feel to have someone following you around and harassing you wherever you go. Clearly we can see the potential for this to be something that is very upsetting and frightening for anyone who might have to experience it. But we can also see that the fact that the stalker is doing this, shows that they have a serious mental issue that needs to be cleared up before they do something that is much worse.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who would suggest that stalking is a good thing, but perhaps there would be some people who would deny that this kind of thing would do lasting damage to the victim. If such people do exist, it is pleasing to learn that there has been some research into the subject and it has confirmed that stalking is a highly distressing and worrying thing to happen to someone.

According to this new research, women who have been the victims of stalking are up to three times more likely to experience psychological distress than women who have not been through this sort of thing. The researchers, who are from Washington and Lee University have argued that policy makers need to pay attention to this research and put more money into bringing down the number of incidents of this sort of crime, and also offer more support to victims after the crime has occurred.

“I think the major implication of our findings is that while not everyone takes stalking seriously because in most cases nothing physical happened, the detrimental impact is clear,” said Timothy Diette, who is the assistant professor of economics at Washington and Lee University “This study helps raise awareness that in many cases it’s a really scarring event that causes real-life psychological outcomes for victims’ mental health and their ability to function in society”.

The researchers found that it was older victims who were more likely than younger victims to feel the most distressed by being stalked. Women between the ages of 18 and 22, who were the victims of stalking but not sexual assault or rape, were found to be 113 per cent more likely to feel psychological distress than their peers. However, women between the ages of 23 and 29 were found to be 265 per cent more likely to experience mental problems from the crime.

Clearly regardless of the age, the focus needs to be on reducing the occurrences of this sort of crime and also finding better ways to help people who have been the victims of stalking to see if we can end this kind of distress altogether.

Categories: crime, lee university, mental, people, stalking, victim, victims, young women

Why Focus on Premarital Sex Could be Damaging Young Women

A shocking insight into the sexual health of young women was recently revealed by a kidnapping survivor named Elizabeth Smart. Speaking at a summit into human trafficking, held at Johns Hopkins University, the young survivor claimed that young women may not try to escape from their captor if they have been raped, because they have been brought up in such a strong culture where premarital sex is taboo. Many cultures cite a woman’s worth in her sexual purity, and so when they are robbed of that through rape, they may feel worthless. Smart, a Mormon, told the audience that a teacher in her past had once described a woman who has had sex as being like a piece of chewed gum. She said that the rape affected her mental and physical wellness and wellbeing, as she thought to herself ‘who could want me now?’ and so she can understand why young women do not try to escape from captors.

 

Speaking out against the conservative nature of her religion’ s sexual ethos, Elizabeth Smart is one of the most famous people to air their views on this important topic, but other voices are also joining the fight. In recent weeks, prominent evangelical bloggers and writers from all walks of life have been speaking out against the emphasis that is often placed on sexual purity within conservative Christian religions. Criticisms of this culture are not new, but this is the first time that the criticism is starting to emerge from within the religions rather than from the outside.

 

This new wave of criticism speaks out against the metaphor of women as being ‘damaged goods’ once they have had sex. One such voice is Sarah Bessey, an author of a forthcoming book called Jesus Feminist, which speaks out against the ‘true love waits’ rhetoric of her own church, and says that this sentiment conveys the idea that as a non-virgin, you are disqualified from experiencing true love.

Categories: elizabeth smart, premarital, premarital sex, Sex, sexual, sexual purity, smart, speaking, virgin, Women, young, young women