Fuzzy Lady coming to terms with my hairy self by Steph Levi "You have hair between your tits." Thirteen years old. I am sitting on the beach at summer camp in Wisconsin when I hear these words giggled from a boy, thirteen years old himself. He has taken the liberty of looking down my swimsuit top and, out of a desire to perform some perverse social service, feels the need to report his findings. "Hey Adam, Stephanie has HAIR between her BIG TITS!" I get up, stalk off. This is not the first time this has happened to me and, as future years would demonstrate, certainly not the last. This time it stuck with me, and I was determined to do whatever I could to ensure that it didn't happen as often. Shortly thereafter, I developed a regimen of shaving, tweezing, bleaching, waxing, and electrocuting any and all "unwanted" hairs on my body. I felt triumphant after a hair removal session, confident that my legs, belly, feet, face, arms, and chin could stand up to the kind of scrutiny that the Adams of this world unwaveringly delivered. The beauty magazines that I read at the time contained neat charts with names of the parts of a woman's body on the Y-axis and various methods of hair removal on the X-axis, delineating which method was right for which part. Never did you see a "just leave yourself alone and go play volleyball on the beach, honey" column. No, there was no choice in the matter. To be a bona fide hottie, I had to spend three hours locked in the john, working on the Body Hair Removal project. The different methods for different parts were different weapons designed to treat each unwanted section as the blight it was. Juxtaposed with this a few pages later were the articles with lists of "What He Finds Sexy." I remember reading a quote from some guy who claimed he loved it when a woman had had blond hair on her legs and didn't shave them. Bullshit. I looked at my own legs, knowing that this was impossible, lamenting the fact that if I had blond hair I wouldn't have to shave and it would wind up being sexy. As usual, an entire industry depended on my insecurity and fabricated shortcomings. They were doing a good job. I started getting angry and thinking about body hair more. I listened to the terminology being used to describe body hair on women. "Excess." Think about it. "Excess," too much, too big. Sounds a lot like the approach mainstream culture takes with body size to me. Cut it back, pare it down, get rid of it so we can stand to look at you. Through reading and talking with friends, I came to understand the correlation between urging women to remove their body hair (a sign of physical and sexual maturity) and casting women in the creepy role of little girls. To top it off, personal deforestation was expensive, time-consuming, uncomfortable and exhausting. So that was it. I decided I wasn't going to spend three hours (!) in the bathroom anymore, trying to battle my Mediterranean heritage with a razor. I was going to get dressed and enjoy life. It was not a clean break, and I still can't say that complete self-acceptance is my thing, but I'm getting there. I like the way my legs look and feel when they're smooth, so I still shave them. I still don't want to kiss a guy with a rough upper lip, so I wax it. But I have made these decisions, and I'll be damned if I do these things for anyone other than myself. I see that I have a choice, that we all do. Look at my belly, touch my arms; I'm getting closer and closer to the point where I don't really care what anyone thinks. If you see yourself in here, dear reader, I hope that you are getting closer to this point too. And if your name happens to be Adam, and you happen to recognize yourself here, I've got a bottle of Nair with your name all over it, and I'll see you in hell. |
Fuzzy Lady coming to terms with my hairy self by Steph Levi "You have hair between your tits." Thirteen years old. I am sitting on the beach at summer camp in Wisconsin when I hear these words giggled from a boy, thirteen years old himself. He has taken the liberty of looking down my swimsuit top and, out of a desire to perform some perverse social service, feels the need to report his findings. "Hey Adam, Stephanie has HAIR between her BIG TITS!" I get up, stalk off. This is not the first time this has happened to me and, as future years would demonstrate, certainly not the last. This time it stuck with me, and I was determined to do whatever I could to ensure that it didn't happen as often. Shortly thereafter, I developed a regimen of shaving, tweezing, bleaching, waxing, and electrocuting any and all "unwanted" hairs on my body. I felt triumphant after a hair removal session, confident that my legs, belly, feet, face, arms, and chin could stand up to the kind of scrutiny that the Adams of this world unwaveringly delivered. The beauty magazines that I read at the time contained neat charts with names of the parts of a woman's body on the Y-axis and various methods of hair removal on the X-axis, delineating which method was right for which part. Never did you see a "just leave yourself alone and go play volleyball on the beach, honey" column. No, there was no choice in the matter. To be a bona fide hottie, I had to spend three hours locked in the john, working on the Body Hair Removal project. The different methods for different parts were different weapons designed to treat each unwanted section as the blight it was. Juxtaposed with this a few pages later were the articles with lists of "What He Finds Sexy." I remember reading a quote from some guy who claimed he loved it when a woman had had blond hair on her legs and didn't shave them. Bullshit. I looked at my own legs, knowing that this was impossible, lamenting the fact that if I had blond hair I wouldn't have to shave and it would wind up being sexy. As usual, an entire industry depended on my insecurity and fabricated shortcomings. They were doing a good job. I started getting angry and thinking about body hair more. I listened to the terminology being used to describe body hair on women. "Excess." Think about it. "Excess," too much, too big. Sounds a lot like the approach mainstream culture takes with body size to me. Cut it back, pare it down, get rid of it so we can stand to look at you. Through reading and talking with friends, I came to understand the correlation between urging women to remove their body hair (a sign of physical and sexual maturity) and casting women in the creepy role of little girls. To top it off, personal deforestation was expensive, time-consuming, uncomfortable and exhausting. So that was it. I decided I wasn't going to spend three hours (!) in the bathroom anymore, trying to battle my Mediterranean heritage with a razor. I was going to get dressed and enjoy life. It was not a clean break, and I still can't say that complete self-acceptance is my thing, but I'm getting there. I like the way my legs look and feel when they're smooth, so I still shave them. I still don't want to kiss a guy with a rough upper lip, so I wax it. But I have made these decisions, and I'll be damned if I do these things for anyone other than myself. I see that I have a choice, that we all do. Look at my belly, touch my arms; I'm getting closer and closer to the point where I don't really care what anyone thinks. If you see yourself in here, dear reader, I hope that you are getting closer to this point too. And if your name happens to be Adam, and you happen to recognize yourself here, I've got a bottle of Nair with your name all over it, and I'll see you in hell. |
