So The Angry Black Woman got me thinking about my body hair.
Body hair, in general, I have always been on the same page with. Women have body hair. We choose to manipulate it or get rid of it or bleach it or dye it different colors. But pure and simple, WE HAVE IT. And I have always been of the opinion that we should be able to simply HAVE it, and should not feel obligated to do anything about that.
However... My relationship with my OWN body hair? That has been complicated. I am currently in a transitioning place with it, and have been ever since I met my husband.
He really doesn’t care about body hair. I could have hairy legs and pits and it wouldn’t matter to him. This was new for me, as other guys I’d been with made a big deal out of their preference (as little hair as possible). At this point, I’ve stopped shaving my legs except for occasionally, thanks to my husband’s attitude and feminism leading me to seriously re-evaluate my attitude. And yes there's a whole other post to be had in examining the role men have played in my personal development, but that's for another time.
I have always and continue to envy women who will let their hair grow and not care. I recently came across the “porn” site hippiegoddess.com and am seriously enamored with it. It’s not perfect as far as diversity goes (where are the “fatties” and dark skin??) but I love looking at all the different ways body hair can grow and distribute. I have a real fascination with what a natural, hairy, woman looks like. And I am white and thin, so they reflect my own reality fairly well, which makes it more powerful for me I think. I even found (NSFW!) a Chicana who's body hair color and distribution matches my own, with the exception of the hair on her upper lip, which is darker, and her eyebrows, which are fabulous and seriously enviable to me.
However, I am still bound to shaving my armpits every few days. I just can’t get used to having hair under there, and it’s harder to cover up than leg hair and I feel generally cleaner without it. I have also noticed that my perceived opinion of others strongly influences my feelings on this. I feel stupid and guilty for not being strong enough to truly NOT CARE what they think (what business is it of their’s anyway?!) but I guess the constant reinforcement of the beauty standard (and probably the fact that I was bullied mercilessly when I was a kid) just isn’t shrugged off easily.
When we were living in Seattle I would occasionally go out of the house with unshaved legs in basketball shorts to exercise and stuff. I felt like people up there were generally less judgmental than here in CA where I grew up and live again now. Living as close to Berkeley (the bastion of bra burning hairy lesbian hippie feminists) as I do, that is a surprising revelation for me. Perhaps if I was living IN Berkeley itself, or even San Francisco, this would not be so. Of course I recognize that this is probably largely a projection on my part.
Another element of this is, I do like smooth skin. But the thing is, shaving your legs, you don’t get smooth skin! Or at least I don’t… There’s always some spot where you’re running your hand over your leg where you will feel stubbles. So, Jesus, what's the point then?! It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. But I do wish my hair grew more evenly. If you didn't look at the pic, I’m one of those women who’s hair basically gets darker and darker the lower it goes on my legs, and I have pale skin and dark hair, so it’s really noticeable around my ankles. I don’t think I’d care half so much if it was just the same light brown color everywhere.
As for pubic hair, I can’t stand the way I look shaved. It’s weird looking, infantile, it’s uncomfortable when having sex and even just wearing underwear and just, overall ick. But I do trim, as maintenance and courtesy to my husband and myself (I’m SURE this is TMI but let's be real here, I prefer to wear underwear and if the pubes get too long they get stuck, and, just, ow, ow, ow ow!).
I think I'm sexy, hair and all. I think the women on HippieGoddess are sexy, some unbelievably hot. Ultimately, I do want to get to a place where other people's judgments and comforts don't influence my personal beauty standards. And I think that is a feminist goal, and something we as a movement should work towards again, not letting ourselves get scared off by the stigma so thoroughly attached to it.
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I'm with you. Even though I shave my legs (sometimes, more on that later) and my underarms I always wondered why women were singled out for this task and not men. On one hand it would seem that it was a better way to separate the sexes: men have hair, therefore women shouldn't. On the other I read somewhere that American women started shaving their legs after WWII started, because the material used for panty hose went to the war effort so women stopped wearing hose but they still had to present "smooth" legs, thus the shaving. Have no idea why underarm hair though.
I know for me it's something that I was taught to do and now I've done it so much it's a hard habit to break, and also underarm hair tends to trap in the musk (which is technically what it's supposed to do) and makes me feel a bit more fragrant when I'm sweaty.
As for the leg hair, I shave occasionally but my mom has this thing where the more she shaved her legs the more it just stopped growing and eventually she shaved so much there's no more hair growing on her legs. I've discovered she passed this gene on to me and there are now patches on both legs where hair just doesn't grow anymore and the more I shave the few spots on my legs where I have hair. For the most part I'll just let it grow, it doesn't feel that bad to me when I touch it though I will admit whenever I meet a new guy I will shave.
I was groomed at a young age by my peers and my mother to pluck my eyebrows, shave my legs and my underarms.
Today, I really only get visible hair on my lower legs so I shave them when I need to -- mostly in the summer.
The shape of my eyebrows is now part of who I see myself as when I look in the mirror, so they seem out of place when I let them grow out even a little bit.
And, I am a habitual underarm shaver.
More recently, I've started to shave my pubic area. I tried it a few times when I was single and not seeing anyone, and it just seemed like a lot of work. But now, since I've been seeing my boyfriend for almost two years and having sex almost every day, I love to have it shaved. He likes it, yes, but more importantly I like it. For some reason the exposed skin is very sensitive and contributes a lot to my sexual pleasure.
I don't feel ashamed for shaving. I can be a feminist and still shave. Maybe my opinion will change as I grow older, or maybe having body hair isn't for everyone. I would never shame someone having it, and I don't expect to be shamed for getting rid of it.
I'm all in favor of being able to just HAVE IT.
we are all affected by our surroundings and don't want people to be mean to us, so it's understandable to be worried about what others think.
It's good to pick our battles but push the limits when it's possible:) especially if you are considered good looking by today's standards, then you can push the limits even more.
My pubic hair grows like crazy, and gets caught in the elastic of my underwear, the zippers of my jeans, it gets ludicrously long and it's really, really wiry. So I wax, because I prefer it. There's no tugging or yanking or any of the tons of issues I had with it.
Also, last year, after watching me shave my armpits, my husband asked me why women did that. I told him a lot of women feel it helps them to stink less, as you can get deodorant right on the skin. So, as he'd just started a job standing over 600 degree metal crucibles, he decided to give it a try. And yep, he was less stinky. So now he shaves his armpits, probably more frequently than I do.
I don't feel ashamed for shaving. I can be a feminist and still shave. Maybe my opinion will change as I grow older, or maybe having body hair isn't for everyone. I would never shame someone having it, and I don't expect to be shamed for getting rid of it.
I hope this was just a general comment and not a response to my piece. I am definitely not for shaming women who shave. It's more that I think as a feminist movement one thing that's important for us to work against is the beauty standard, and shaving is a part of that. That doesn't mean we should all stop shaving in protest. For me it means we should be embracing those who do, and give some thought to why we conform to the standard when we choose to. If, when one does that, they find (like me) that they are doing something not for themselves but as a result of societal conditioning and fear of chastisement...? Yah, then it's probably time to take a stand and stop doing it. But that's all part of our journey as individual people. I definitely not want and am not advocating a paradigm shift where people who shave are socially chastised by feminists.
It's good to pick our battles but push the limits when it's possible:) especially if you are considered good looking by today's standards, then you can push the limits even more.
I so agree. Being acceptable under the beauty standard to me feels like a privilege. Like white skin and heterosexuality, we can use it to benefit those who don't fit the standard. And as someone who is "acceptable" it feels to me like I have somewhat of a responsibility to buck the system, to make a choice not to fit because the fact is we shouldn't have to!
Geek Girl, I feel your pain. My pubes don't get that long, but like I said, if I stop trimming, oh yah, stuck to the panties they go. Gods that hurts!
UM, the armpit shaving came about when people started wearing sleeveless shirts alot, in the 60's I believe.
I am an ambivalent shaver, highly influenced by my surroundings. I am currently dating someone who doesn't care about hair anywhere, really, and so I don't shave unless I feel constrained by the social situation. I am also a law student, and am often asked to wear business clothing. Sometimes, that means a skirt and pantyhose, and I have found that my comfort level within the situation dictates whether or not I will shave my legs. Job interview: shave. Job fair at school: don't shave.
I am also quite a contrary person, and have found myself acting opposite to the societal norm in certain environments. Beach: don't shave, because it would be WAY too much trouble to get rid of everything I am supposed to.
I enjoy removing my body hair. If I had the money (my bf and I were just talking about this the other night) I'd get a Brazilian wax partly because I'm into pain, but mostly because it's more effective than shaving. For now, I shave. I even do it when I'm not going to see my boyfriend on the weekend, and did it when I was single, simply because I like it. I even take it to the point where it's ritualized for me: Friday night after work I go home, take a bath and shave from my ankles to my armpits.
I've definitely come to the conclusion that I'm not doing this for my boyfriend. He is covered in hair from head to toe. Seriously. And since I would not ask him to remove his body hair (as I have accepted that it is just part of him, and I like my furry Peter), he has no room to dictate what I do with mine. And we're both happy. He's got enough body hair for both of us, but that's still not why I ritually remove mine.
Ultimately, I think most people would agree that the ideal situation would be that women could choose to shave or not shave because of their own personal preference, and that no one would feel compelled to follow the dictates of society against their will. I have another angle to throw into the mix: I am a man who finds women's body hair to be very attractive and highly erotic. As for the hygiene issue, body hair only holds odors that are the result of not washing. Normal bathing and showering eliminate that issue. And there are far more men who feel as I do than most women realize. A completely hairless woman - especially in the pubic region - seems to me to smack of pedophilia, but I won't pass judgment on other's preferences. To me, an attractive woman is a grown-up with plenty of curves and adult body hair. Seems only natural.