I have a confession to make. I do not shave my arm pits. Hell, I only shave my legs if I’m feeling saucy and have clean sheets because nothing is better than smooth legs in clean sheets. (That’s a lie, a lot of things are better than that.)
While I like to think of myself as a badass feminist who says fuck you to anyone and everyone who tries to tell me what to do with my body – especially in regards to body hair—I am not. That’s my second confession. I wish it was that simple.
I don’t think it’s ever that simple.
When I was 14 I had my first consensual sexual experience. He was a raging douche canoe and misogynist ass hat. He told me that my vagina (vulva) was disgusting because it was hairy. I shaved every inch of my body after that. Things that I did not even think about, like my arms, came under constant attack from my razor. I started to shave obsessively, it got to the point that my parents had to tell me that I was taking too long in the shower.
That stuck with me for years.
I have always had extreme anxiety towards my body. From my weight, looks, body hair, scars from self-harm and stretch marks. Body hair was something that could be tamed, I could shave, Nair and wax it off. I would deal with angry red bumps, cuts from the razor and the time I wasted shaving. I could control the hair when I could not control anything else in my life.
It wasn’t until my second year in community college that I happened across the notion that people could not shave. More specifically, that women could not shave. It was like someone cracked the door open and whispered, “Hey. Bodies are hairy sometimes. It’s cool dude.”
I decided to test this notion out. I stopped shaving.
At first it was weird, I felt extreme anxiety that someone would pull my arm up and point out the dark, baby hairs that were sprouting from my skin. I shaved after two weeks.
I let my pit hair grow back out after that. The duration between my shavings increased. I openly told some friends about it, I felt support from some of them, each of us delving into the world of feminism in new ways. Someone else told me she would throw up if she ever saw my pits.
“Good.” I responded.
It was then I realized that my hair was mine, and if someone else could potentially be sick at the sight of it, then they don’t deserve to see it.
It is hard sometimes. In classes that are not Gender and Women’s Study I always have a moment of panic before I raise my hand, I get anxious in certain company about the state of my hairy pits. It’s not easy to actively go against what society is forcing you to do. It’s a process, a difficult one that is learning to recognize that my body is okay, hairy or not. It’s a way to say fuck you to people who think they can tell me what to do with my body. It’s a middle finger to all the people who have told me I was disgusting because of my hair. It is me owning my body, hair and all.
Unruly Bodies 
I have always been a very hairy person, when I was little my sisters would call me over to their friends and get me to lift up my shirt and show them my back hair. They’d all look at and laugh in amazement, it was something I was used to so it never really bothered me. When I got older most of my friends would shave their arms and legs, although shaving was never something I enjoyed I’d shave too just because I felt as if it were something I was supposed to do as a “young lady”. I hated the extra time I had to stay in the shower shaving and the amount of shaving sticks I had to go through (because of all my body hair) but I did it anyways just so I could feel comfortable wearing short skirts and tank tops around my friends. It wasn’t until after a couple of years that I realized that the amount of hair on my body had nothing to do with how much of a lady I was. I feel way more comfortable now not only with my body hair but with myself because I am able to do what I prefer to do (or not to do).
Ahh! I love the Natalie Perkins graphic. Someday I will order one of her “fat” necklaces, some day.
First thing first! Good for you for doing what you want to do and not what society and people are telling you to do. As we talked about this in class shaving and also the way you represent your body is different in each culture and for each gender. And is important to remember that “there is never the right way of doing it”.
I shave my hands! I don’t remember exactly but I either started shaving my hands before I shaved my legs or both at the same time. Shaving your hands in my culture/country is seeming so normal. You might not shave your arm pit or legs, but you always shave your hands! Because our hands are usually shown the most. When I moved here first this was something strange to my friends here and friends who are from my country. I would get questioned about it and they would call me wired! It defiantly was wired to see they don’t shave their hands because I thought this was” normal” and the “right way of it”. But now I know there is never the “right way of it”, and I treat my body hair the way I like it and the way it make me comfortable and not the society!
I think your post is a really interesting example of the personal being political. The body is the site where so many of our interactions happen. To be able to take control over something as ‘simple’ as body hair can be extremely empowering. It’s a way to declare how much you don’t care about what society is telling you to do.
I think I have always had issues with whether or not I should shave. I never really grow a lot of hair on my legs (yeah it’s weird) so I always skip shaving because I’m too lazy to dedicate my time to one or two hairs. But at the same time, I feel as though people are looking at my legs like “how dare she show up here with those things!!!” But mostly I’ve felt pressure from boyfriends to shave in other places and its never made me happy (Insert traumatic Brazilian wax story here). It’s really hard to embrace all of the things about you when society is screaming at you all day and night to do the opposite.
Pingback: Men’s Body Hair Dos And Don’ts | Health Host UK
I love this post so much. When all my friends started shaving in middle school, I was still really reluctant to start. I guess I had always had a “what’s the big deal” mentality about it. At some point I was successfully convinced by my parents that shaving is just what I’m supposed to do. I became really obsessed with it for a year or two; I wouldn’t leave the house if I hadn’t shaved my legs that day, etc. I can’t really remember where or why, but a few years ago it clicked that shaving isn’t what I’m supposed to do. What I’m supposed to do is what I want to do. I can shave if I want to, but I don’t have to if I don’t want to. Becoming aware of this control that I had over my body was like this mindblowing realization.
I can definitely relate to feeling anxiety about body hair still, but a part of me feels really powerful when people are visibly disapproving of I what I choose to do with my body.
Thank you for this! I can absolutely relate to having the same “AHA!” moment when I finally realized that it was okay to have some degree of control over my body hair. I guess for me, I had never been exposed other women who weren’t so obsessed with the what the world wanted them to be.
I feel pretty blessed to have SOME degree of self-awareness especially being submerged in an environment that promotes and perpetuates conformity.
I stopped shaving my leg and armpit hair around May of 2012. I also remember the feelings of anxiety that resulted when I raised my hand in a non-GWST class or went to a group fitness class, but eventually, I fell in love with the fluff that grows from my legs and pits.
At one point, I dyed my armpit hair to match the blue hair on my head. That was a really fun time. When I showed my friends, their jaws dropped, not because I was a woman with pit hair and how dare I let my body do its natural thing, but because they couldn’t believe that I owned something as awesome as turquoise body hair! One acquaintance even said that I was “a real mermaid now.” I allowed a picture of myself, smiling and arms raised to display the blue pits in question, to make the rounds on Tumblr. Watching the number of notes grow into the hundreds was self-assuring, and made me feel beautiful because so many other bloggers thought that my decision to not shave was admirable.
Receiving these messages of acceptance was quite relieving. I have not yet received a negative comment about my body hair; in fact, people who may not have liked women who, to quote OkCupid, “let [their armpit hair] grow, wild and free!” found the appearance of body hair on an extremely feminine body like mine to be cute. Surrounding myself with people who encourage me to have complete control over how I present my body to the world is the best thing I could have done for my self-esteem.