We had a lockdown and my hair were going crazy long.
One of my close friends is a fierce beautiful red head amazon who wear her body hairy, all the way.
I decided to follow her bold shameless way of being, because why the fuck not. Why shave, wax? Who for? I first asked my husband whether it was a deal breaker, he just looked at me as if I was nuts. Ok then, off I went.
I remember the look of other women, when they caught a glimpse of my legs in the summer. It was hilarious, especially on one occasion when I was meeting a couple of people I was falling out of friendship with. Their panicked eye brow routine, which followed my hairiness reveal, was worth every crippling thought I had about it.
It is not easy to wear your hair on your legs. Arm pits is ok, I mean the models do it, Madonna’s daughter does, that’s ok.
Pubic hair, unless you are on the dating scene…well yes you can manage that easily.
Now the legs, in the summer, wow, that is a tough one. I am fair but very hairy, So I look at my freckled legs and I see my brothers! It is hard, still after 2 years. I don’t wear shorts unless I am in a safe environment. I am fearful and uncomfortable still of other people’s look, of some of my friends. Most of my friends have accepted it straight away, or haven’t mentioned/noticed it.
I dread a couple of my French old friends who I know will be horrified.
The thing is …it feels so good not to do it. Who is saying I should? Who is telling us it is not feminine? It should be fine with or without.
So why is body hair considered unattractive on women? This cultural concept polarizes gender. Masculine is hairy and feminine is hairless. Right ok. Thanks Internet.
Removing female body hair can be traced back to ancient Rome and Egypt. I have read that ‘some of the first razors, made of copper, were used in Egypt and India around 3000 BCE. Egyptian women removed their head hair and considered pubic hair uncivilized. Upper-class Roman women of the sixth century BCE used tweezers, pumice stones and depilatories to achieve the desired degree of hairlessness, while Egyptians of Cleopatra’s time used a sugar mixture in a method similar to waxing. Elizabethan women removed their eyebrows and hair from their foreheads to give themselves a longer brow.’
During the war, nylon stockings being in short supply, women going bare-legged started to shave more commonly. Before that, the sleeveless dresses of early 1920’s made the armpits the first hairless targets.
The 80’s brought the Brazilian waxing as the norm.
Some ladies get a lot of traumatic experience from their bodily hair. So I feel a bit of a fraud talking about it. But let’s face it, hairy legs are taboo. Whether it is from men or women and it shouldn’t be.
The same way we all got used to look at each other with surgical masks doing our shopping, accepting hair on a woman ‘s body is a process. I do hope it will become natural. As natural as hair growth actually is.
Oh and yes I am still thinking of shaving them, and might well still do it.
