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SqueamishNerd's avatar
SqueamishNerd
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago

There's no average female body hair pattern

Note: When I write "female" or "male" in this post I'm solely talking about averages. I'm not talking about all women or all men unless I specifically state so in a specific case. When I say "female sim" or "male sim", on the other hand, I'm specifically referring to the genders (female and male rig) in the game, I'm not referring to averages or real people in any way in those cases. But, just "female" and just "male" will always refer to averages in humans.

Really, please remember that I talk about averages. Not all women, not all men.

Also, please don't read this post as angry. It's easy to think a text is filled with feelings that it's actually not filled with. I'm not angry, I'm just trying to describe a problem and being constructive about it.

I was very happy that we were going to get body hair in The Sims 4. But when we got it, it actually made me quite sad.

The thing is that when we look at the body hair in the game it feels like they made body hair with only men in mind, and then enabled the body hair for female sims as an afterthought. It feels like they forgot about half of the population.

This is actually sexist.

I'm not saying that they made it like this with any ill intent. People can have the best intent and it still ends up sexist. I'm sure that they had the best intent.

So, let me explain why this is sexist.

First off, this is what a female body hair pattern looks like:


Observe that this picture doesn't show how thick or long the body hair would be, it only shows where the body hair would be and roughly how far it reaches in each direction. I'm sorry that it doesn't look very good, I used Paint. And here's an alt text for those who need it: There's a strip of hair between the breasts. There's a strip of hair from the navel down to the underpants. There's hair on the outer side of the forearm. There's hair from right below the knees down to right above the ankles.

Just wanted to also mention that having hair on both between the breasts and on the tummy, or having hair only between the breasts, or having hair only on the tummy, are probably all similarly common.

This is what the base game body hair pattern looks like:


This is a male (still talking average, there are many women with this type of body hair pattern too, and it's natural, I'm just referring to average) body hair pattern. Female (still average, just want to make it super clear) body hair pattern doesn't go this high up on the legs, arms, tummy, and chest, and it isn't this wide and thick on the tummy and chest.

And this is what the body hair pattern with the least amount of hair (except for hairless, of course) looks like, which is in the High School Years expansion pack:


The hair on the arms looks okay, just a tad bit too wavy (since females on average have thinner body hair than males on average, female arm hair usually lies a bit flatter and therefore looks more straight). But... Still too high on the legs. Still too high, wide and thick on the tummy. And no hair between the breasts at all (note again that a little strip of hair between the breasts and no hair between the breasts could probably both be considered average).

Also, this is the option that looks closest to female body hair pattern, not like actual average female body hair pattern, just the closest. And it's in a pack. So, not only isn't there an actual female body hair pattern, the only one that resemblances female body hair pattern the most is behind a paywall.

Male body hair pattern is in the base game. The somewhat female-looking body hair pattern is an extra that we have to pay for.

The two things I'm glad for with the body hair update is that body hair IS enabled to female sims (unlike in The Sims 3 where it was only enabled on female werewolves...), and that women who have more body hair than average (for example, but not exclusively, women with PCOS) can give their simselves a body hair pattern that looks similar to their real-life body hair pattern. Women who keep their body hair in general, and women with more body hair than average in particular, are often shunned, shamed, bullied, and otherwise disapproved of because of their body hair. I personally have far less hair than average on legs and arms, and a tiiiny bit more than average on tummy and between the breasts, I've even compared with friends. Even so, I have been told by medical doctors that I have an "androgenic" body hair pattern, when my body hair is around female average. I guess it's just that doctors don't see AFABs who don't remove their body hair very often. It's 12 years since I decided that I want to keep my body hair because I don't feel like I look "right" without it. And because I'm read as a woman people will stare, with horror or disgust in their eyes, at my legs if I wear shorts, and at my tummy or chest if I'm wearing beachwear. And this is in Sweden, which, according to studies, is supposed to be the fifth most equal country in the world. This is what it's like to live as a woman or to be perceived as a woman, if you don't remove your body hair. And to not even be able to add body hair that actually looks like average female body hair, to my sims, feels like the body hair was only made with men in mind.

So, please, Maxis, make a female body hair pattern, and put it in the base game. Do not put it in a pack. We shouldn't need to pay to get something that is a part of the average woman's life when we don't have to pay for something that is a part of the average man's life.

gameplay issue

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  • daedaliavallis's avatar
    daedaliavallis
    3 years ago

    As a woman who used to swim, I can tell you that's rather rare to have thick/coarse hair between the breast, most of us just have the peach fuzz that is not noticable. You ought to look up the pattern on wikipedia because it's definitely not considered in the average pattern. I mean, I don't have any, nobody I ever came into contact with has any, and I have PCOS hirsutism. (And I looked up the mod mentioned earlier and I'm like, that is nowhere even near what people in the support group have, that's more extreme testosterone levels. It happens but it's far more rare and I didn't download it because I don't find it a good representative for my condition overall.)

    Red/blond women can definitely have thick stuff on the front and back of the thighs though. Coarse hair can be light in color, and still noticable.


    As for the rest I was pointing out what seemed to be an oversight, I mean devs consider this stuff even if they don't ship the content with it.

  • SqueamishNerd's avatar
    SqueamishNerd
    Seasoned Ace
    2 years ago

    @daedaliavallis  I'm not referring to thick or coarse hair between the breast, just thicker and coarser hair, as in not peach fuss.

    Since this is something I've seen, in changing rooms and such, I decided to create a poll about this in a facebook group that's exclusive for cis women, trans women, trans men, and non-binary people (so, no cis men). I gave them the options to pick if they have hair between the breasts (not only peach fuss) or no hair between the breasts (only peach fuss). The group has mainly members of Swedish or Middle Eastern descent. I also asked those who wanted to to share more information in the comment section. I'm not gonna share pictures of the comment section of that poll, since it was posted in a private group, but I told them, in the poll description, that I was going to share the result in an anonymous way and only as a summary, not what individual people said.

    170 people answered the poll, and 26 people left comments, which isn't much if we look at the big picture, especially since this group doesn't represent people from all around the world, but it can still give us some idea about this. Out of the 170 who answered the poll, 10% said that they had hair between the breasts. In the comment section some people clarified that they don't have hair exactly between the breasts, but somewhere on the sternum (breastbone) area, specifically above the breasts but still on the sternum area. The results of this poll means that it's not rare, at least not where I live, to have hair on the sternum area, but it's not average, as I previously thought, but that was pure anecdotal evidence and I should've thought that through. From what I've learned from studying biology at university, rare can be considered somewhere between 0.01% to 5%, depending on what we measure. I'm not sure what we should considered rare as in this case, but 10% is not rare. Still, keep in mind that it was a small sample group and mainly from two origins.

    People who gave the answer that they had hair on the sternum area and are of Swedish descent reported mostly that they had long hair strands there, often blonde, but some reported dark/black hair, and people of Middle Eastern descent reported mostly that they had relatively short hair strands there, but of a darker shade compared to the colour of the peach fuss. Both people with and without PCOS reported hair on the sternum area, and both people with and without PCOS reported that they only had peach fuss on the chest area. Some people reported having hair below the bellybutton but not on the chest area, some reported the opposite. Some reported that their mothers had hair between the breasts even though they themselves don't have it. Almost all people reported that they're cis women.

    So, as a summary, I think hair on the sternum area should be included as an option in The Sims 4. It shouldn't be like a lot of hair, but some hair. Also, since the chest area and belly are combined in the body hair category, I think three options would make sense, between breasts + below bellybutton, only between breasts, and only below bellybutton (less hair than the current between bellybutton option that goes up a little bit above the bellybutton and goes a bit far to the sides). This would give us more options for body hair for our female sims (just want to clarify that some of the current options can of course also make sense on female sims, I'm not saying that no women have more hair than what I propose in the thread start), and having more options would also be positive for our male sims, because not every man has a lot of body hair, and in some parts of the world it's common for men to have as little body hair as is common for women to have in other parts of the world.

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