Chinese Women Display Underarm Hair On Social Media: A Turn on, Or A Turnoff?

It has become the accepted norm — more or less — that people take “selfies” and post them on the internet.

Those selfies are not always full face or body — sometimes the pictured body parts are selective. Frequently, people regret having posted photos of their private parts in a moment of alcohol-fueled madness.

But women in China have no regrets about participating in the latest craze sweeping across Weibo — the Chinese version of Twitter. They are enthusiastically supporting a competition by photographing their underarm hair and posting it on the web.

The so called competition — for which there are no prizes as yet — is called ” Girls not plucking their armpit hair.” Maybe it sounds better in Chinese.

The intention is to challenge the social norms of what society wants its women to look like by encouraging them to retain their body hair. Presumably, no bikini waxing in Beijing!

According to the Daily Mail, thousands of pictures have been uploaded to the site; latest count is more than 28 million views.

While most of the images show women showing their real armpit hair — which, by European or American standards is fairly pathetic — some went so far as to tuck their ponytails under their arms. One can only assume they were attempting to emulate French women.

The hairy armpits trend follows closely after the Hairy Legs Club pics which were featured recently on Tumblr. The idea is for women to celebrate their ” Natural Beauty” — which doesn’t really help much if they are, actually, naturally ugly.

If you think the Chinese are a little strange — look at what happened in America last month.

Female students at an Arizona university were offered the possibility of earning extra credit for their grade if they didn’t shave their armpit hair for a whole semester. Professor Breanne Fahs, from the department of gender studies at Arizona State University, made the offer so that her students could also challenge social norms.

Maybe, for their final degree, the female students will be encouraged not to remove their facial hair, with the highest award going to the student who most closely resembles the winner of the 2014 Eurovision song contest — the “bearded lady,” Conchita Wurst.