Girl on the Net

There are two things I adore about today’s guest blog. Firstly its celebration of something that is so often shamed. I’m a sucker for a change in narrative, especially one which helps to brush aside societal norms that can be harmful and irritating. I’ve always found hairy armpits wildly sexy – watching a hot guy lie back in bed with his hands behind his head makes me want to do feral, torrid things with his body. But I always struggled to find pit hair sexy on myself, until I stopped shaving back in 2020 and never looked back. The second thing I love about this guest blog is the way it captures something I’ve tried to articulate myself, but never so clearly: the way that desire can mould and shape itself to the things in your life at this moment. Your partner’s quirks and mannerisms. Their specific body, and how it changes over time. This post is an ode to hairy armpits, but I think it’s also a love letter to this kind of desire. And I adore it.

An ode to armpit hair

Armpits are one of the strangest parts of our bodies. They don’t do anything, they’re just kind of there. An unavoidable accident of the way our arms meet our shoulders. They aren’t private parts – the police certainly aren’t going to arrest you for wearing a sleeveless top in public – but we still giggle when we talk about them. They’re sometimes hairy, sometimes sweaty, sometimes smelly. They’re embarrassing. But they’re also very sexy.

Why? What is it that I find so enchanting about those little diamond patches of fuzz under our arms? I’ve given the subject a lot of thought and observation and come up with this grand unified theory of the appeal of armpit hair. I’m talking specifically as a straight man about women’s armpits, but I hope these are just as applicable to everyone’s pits.

1: Hairy armpits look great

We humans are not colourful creatures. We’re all varying shades of brown, and from the neck down, mostly the same all over. It’s the little details that break up the monotone and draw the eye. The proud pink or brown of the nipples, for instance. Freckles and birthmarks, tattoos and piercings, scars and stretch marks. And of course, body hair.

I find armpit hair especially eye-catching precisely because it’s so rarely visible. Our arms usually hang down, keeping the pits closed. Often you just get a brief glimpse, when someone lifts their arm for a moment. The lightning flash of glistening hair, gone before you’ve fully realised it’s there, tantalises me.

If you want a longer look, you have to be treated to it. Raise your arm and cock your head, you’ll find your chin rests naturally in that groove – and there’s a reason that’s one of the classic seduction poses. You can look someone in the eye and admire their armpit at the same time. You can’t get that with most other body parts, unless your lover is an accomplished contortionist.

​2: Hairy armpits are intimate

Even though they aren’t part of the same group of “private parts” as boobs and bums or cocks and cunts, pits are still a bit rude. Maybe it’s because they are so alive. They grow hair, they sweat, they concentrate our natural body odours – they remind us that we’re human. Like our feet and our bellies – two other body parts that can be very sexy to the right people – they’re on the boundary between public and private, and that makes them particularly tantalising.

It means you can glimpse someone’s armpit briefly by accident, but if you see it up close it’s because they’ve let you. Perhaps you’re dancing with them. Perhaps they’re riding on top of you, leaning on you for support. Perhaps their hands are tied to your bedpost. Seeing that patch of hair is like a little reminder to me underlining that something special is happening. I’m seeing something few other people get to see.

Armpits are sensitive – and ticklish. If someone gets too close, I find my immediate reflex is to bring my arm down and protect the tickly pit. It takes trust to let someone nuzzle into that tender fold of skin. Especially because that means they can smell you. Of all the senses, smell is the most intimate. It envelops you and brings you into someone else’s world, and the deeply personal scent of your body is especially concentrated in the armpit. Even writing this anonymously for a sex blog, it feels embarrassing to write this words, but – that’s hot.

3: Hairy armpits are powerful

Power is sexy, and there are many kinds of power. Some people express it through sports cars and Italian suits. Some people through killer heels and sharp red nails. And some people show their power by saying ‘fuck you’ to the rules of society.

Our armpit hair and our pubic hair have the same basis – evolution made us grow soft cushions of hair in the places where our arms and legs rub, to protect our skin and draw away sweat. Mainly because of social pressure, the vast majority of women especially shave these useful patches of hair away (sources I found while writing this said anything from 75% to 98% of western women remove their underarm hair). Too many people stigmatise women’s body hair, calling it – and the people it’s attached to – disgusting.

There are many ways to express your true self and I am certainly not suggesting that everyone who shaves their armpits is a collaborator with the Patriarchy. Only that, as far as ways to defy female beauty standards go, a bushy armpit is one of the most vivid. Shrugging off disapproving glares at the swimming pool, the gym, the club or even in bed takes a lot of willpower and confidence, and I find that irresistibly erotic.

​4: My brain made me do it

Our brains can do something incredible. If we’re lucky – and if we let them – they can take our tastes, preferences and kinks and mould them to whoever we love.

When my partner took up martial arts, suddenly I realised how sexy muscles are. My fantasies were filled with visions of swole biceps, strong thighs, and being literally thrown into bed. When she became pregnant, for a few months the ideal figure seemed to me to be one with a belly like a beach ball.

And when she grew out her armpit hair, a part of my brain that had never awakened before suddenly sparked to life. I’m not sure hairy armpits had ever crossed my mind before, but now they became an obsession. Have you ever noticed that in the famous painting Liberty Leading the People, Lady Liberty’s armpits are hairy? I didn’t, until my mind was awakened to them.

Perhaps one day she’ll start shaving again, and the fetish will subside. Perhaps my brain will find some other detail of her body to lock onto. But for now, I’m going to enjoy them for as long as I can.