my shaving days

I was twelve years old when I first shaved my legs. I was told by one of my peers that my leg hair was affecting how likeable I was, and I believed them because I feared it was true.

I remember asking my Mum for permission to shave, and that seems strange to me now because I see the choice of whether or not to modify my body in any way as a choice that is primarily mine. But I was twelve and I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ears until I was thirteen because, as far as my parents were concerned, pressure to conform wasn’t a good enough reason to put holes in my ears. Why was pressure to conform a good enough reason when it came to hair removal?

Perhaps it was my age. I asked to pierce my ears when I was in my first few years of primary school.

Perhaps I made a good case for hair removal based on my feelings at that time.

I think I knew even then that Mum didn't subscribe to the hairless norm ...but I think she has felt very much like an ugly duckling or the lone black sheep at certain times in her life, so she took her experience of peer pressure and her dislike for the dark hairs on her own legs into account. She supported my perceived need to shave but insisted I didn’t shave my leg above the knee. It was an effective compromise.

By the time my armpit hair began to grow, shaving was a familiar ritual. As a consequence, I removed the first suggestion of armpit hair as soon as it appeared and without a thought. I didn’t let it grow so I didn’t even see what the hair was like. I felt so safe conforming to what I saw around me that I'd become unthinking, unthinking to the point where I was participating in a custom without considering the purpose of my participation.

Did I still have a reason for shaving or had it become a habit?

Did I want to shave?

Did shaving fulfil the same purpose it did when I started and if not, why hadn't I re-evaluated its role in my life?

When people as individuals or as a culture change, so too must the way they conduct themselves, so too must their traditions. Traditions, cultural practices, customs, and personal rituals all serve a purpose. They fulfil a need. People participate in them and make them part of their lives because they feel that they are a positive addition. But change can arrive silently, subtly, without you noticing. If you don’t re-evaluate the relevance of these customs and practices the need for them may disappear without you noticing, rendering the custom in question an empty, valueless, and potentially detrimental activity.

the transition

It was never my intention to stop shaving, to ‘become more natural’, or to challenge expectations. I didn’t realise the impact of hair removal nor the impact of choosing hair until after I stopped shaving and experienced what being fluffy is like. All the same, deciding to remove my hair and then deciding to stop doing so were two decisions very much entwined with my journey into adulthood.

Between the ages of twelve and fourteen I was observing and absorbing a variety of messages about how I, as a female, was to fit into the adult world. By age eleven I was under the impression that I had to wear a bra on the basis of my gender regardless of whether I had any breasts to fill the bra with (which I didn’t). By age twelve I was learning that I would be judged unfavourably if I had hair on my legs. By age fourteen I thought my breasts were not quite big enough and therefore not as acceptable as those of my peers, and hair removal had become an unquestioned grown-up practice that was expected because I am female. I did not, however feel uncomfortable enough to buy padded bras (besides, I’d feel silly on swimming excursions because you don’t get padded swimsuits), nor did I feel I had reason enough to inflict pain on myself in the name of fashion. My best friend did encourage me to wax my bikini line that year. She intended it to be an experimental affair, a bit of ‘fun’. I did apply the strips but when I realised how much it was going to hurt and I had to ask her to remove the strips for me.

In my fifteenth year I began to care less what the general public thought and consequently, my primary motivation for being hairless disappeared. I stopped shaving my legs. As I had never allowed my armpits to grow hair and had judged hairy pits to be unsightly from day one it took a while longer for me to grow my armpit hair out, and longer still for me to feel happy exposing them in public. If you consider that children have hair on their legs but not in their armpits though, my feelings and my journey begin to make sense.

Armpit hair can be sexual.

I remember very clearly the day I realised that. I was in a changing room of a shop. As I undressed I noticed that hairy armpits did look a little strange with a sleeveless shirt, but as soon as I removed the shirt the hair looked natural and right. It made me wonder: if hair is a mark of a person’s sexual maturity, why do we eliminate it? Are we, as a society, uncomfortable with female sexuality and mature female bodies?

Looking at the relationships we have with our own bodies in this way makes me wonder if someone who spends their life shaving, plucking and waxing their body religiously will feel differently about hair when they grow old enough for the hair to stop growing and start falling out. I imagine it would be a bit like wishing you weren’t having your period but then wishing it would arrive when you fear you’re pregnant. What I mean is, what if a woman spent her adult life hiding evidence of her physical maturity and prime, only to find she wants the evidence back when she fears she’s old? What a saddening thought! If you can imagine yourself feeling this way, consider this: if you get rid of the desire to stay hairless then you might get rid of the desire to look young, making your fear of old age recede.

The realisation that hair can be sexual also explains why women who ordinarily feel comfortable exposing their armpit hair in public feel it is inappropriate to do so in professional work environments where formal attire is necessary.

It creates an even bigger question mark, however, over our individual and cultural attitudes towards hair and hairlessness. If hair can be sexual why is the main motivation of hair removal the desire to appear sexually appealing? (see Part 2: The Constructed Body – why hairless?

living with hair

Getting to the point where I was able to allow my body be how it wanted to be was the beginning of my journey towards physical, mental and sexual maturity. Accepting my hair involved accepting my body and the day I stopped shaving completely was the day I became secure and happy with myself as an adult.

Since that day living with my natural body, hairy as it is, has become a joy for me, not an embarrassment. At age twenty, I haven’t removed my body hair for four or five years, armpit hair is my favourite, and the difference between my calf and thigh hair is a testament to my Mum’s good advice. I am happily hairy and I'd like to see more women exploring the questions that surround hair removal. I'd like to hear more women talking about the affect hairlessness or hairiness has on the way they view their bodies, their sexuality, their femininity and their individuality. That is the reason I have created this website. I hope you find it useful and interesting, if not supportive or challenging.

the joy of hair

The unexpected glimpse of an unfamiliar body comes as a sweet shock. My eyes delight in the individuality of the form in question.

The sight of hair is pleasing – the funnel of it that leads ones gaze down from a man’s bellybutton to his waistline where it disappears into his trousers; the way hair creates a sense of shadow and softness in the secretive hollow of a female armpit.

Airbrushed models in magazines and bare limbed women on the street appear slightly blank to me, lacking their individuality as though the character of their body has been repressed. So there is a certain thrill to discovering the existence of women who are prepared to resist the pressure to conform to the uniformity of hairless femininity, and instead help us become aware of hairy femininity, an equally valid experience of womanliness. I think a hair-blessed female body is beautiful in a raw, natural way that is akin to the passion of flamenco dance.

Likewise, there is a raw beauty and delightfulness in people who are naturally, bravely, and unconcernedly timeworn. Aged women who allow the white whiskers that sprout from their cheeks and chin to lie every which way across the soft folds of their intricately lined faces are a joy and an inspiration to me.