Body Hair

This summer, I decided not to shave. 

Or wax. Or Veet. Or bleach.

I’m at a slightly formal event, and I notice a friend who hasn’t removed any of her armpit or leg hair. She looks amazing in her dress. Effortlessly cool, too. I find myself thinking, ah, maybe this is a perk of being a woman in a relationship with a woman (as she is). I’m a bi/pan woman, and currently dating a man. And then I think, well, that shouldn’t stop me. It’s not like I’ve usually been particularly meticulous about being ‘clean’ shaven anyway. In fact, I’ve always had a somewhat relaxed (disorganised) approach to body hair. My partner wasn’t the reason I shaved – like a lot of women*, I’d let my body hair grow back a little in winter, telling myself it was warmer, cosy even… But maybe knowing that–most importantly–I could keep it hidden from the rest of the world in the colder seasons. 

A day of picnicking and swimming in the heat. The conversation with the two women I’m chatting to turns to body hair. One is saying how she’s “tidied up down there” for the day (I had too). She hadn’t last week, you see, and she felt like people were looking. Another friend has a different approach: unshaved legs, unshaved armpits. No ‘tidying up’. “I kind of like it,” she says. “I think it’s sorta cute.” 

Like it?

I’d been quite easily convinced in my early teenage years that it was quite possible to both be a feminist and to shave. Of course you can: the important thing with feminism is always about choice. 

And it was a choice, right?

I mean sure, it kind of started, for me, after some comments in the PE changing rooms. They were nothing direct, nothing prolonged. Just off-hand. I’m light-skinned with dark hair, you see: wearing the spidery dark pattern of my Irish roots on my legs. 

Like it?

Sure, my friend looked good. Some body hair definitely didn’t change that. Maybe even added to it? She reckoned that back home (Greece for her), people were a little more relaxed about body hair. 

It seems so obvious that there is cultural variation in something like this, but at the reminder is nonetheless a little freeing. There is nothing pre-determined, inescapable, about the pressure to shave. 

…Like it?

Perhaps liking it is a skill I can learn, I think. Maybe I just need to get used to my hair – like a new pair of glasses. Normalise it, live in it, gaze at it. This natural, beautiful state of my body. I’m a little taken aback by how hard the choice feels. As a slim, 20-something, cis, white girl I I’m protected from the full weight of societal pressure surrounding many conventional beauty standards. Knowing that I come from such a position of privilege, it feels frustrating and even embarrassing to be having a hard time with this when I’m likely getting an easier ride with my choice compared to so many other people.

I’m a little taken aback by how hard the choice feels. As a slim, 20-something, cis, white girl, I’m protected from the full weight of societal pressure surrounding many conventional beauty standards. Knowing that I come from such a position of privilege, it feels frustrating and even embarrassing to be having a hard time with this when I’m likely getting an easier ride with my choice compared to so many other people.

I’ve had a few wobbles. Presenting at a conference – will I seem less professional if I’m wearing a skirt and someone can see my unshaved legs? Yet another sunny day. What do people think of me? Is that what I want them to think? Will they think I’m gross, (even though they wouldn’t think that of an unshaved man)? A spa day with friends. Will someone judge me? Respect me less? (I don’t make it to the day without some “tidying up”). A date with my partner. Does it bother him? Even though he assures me it doesn’t? (And he supports me, celebrates me, promises he always will, either way, any way).  

But I think I’m learning to like my unshaved legs. Getting used to them. Sometimes I look at the way the hairs grow in contours, streamlining them, and they don’t look so bad, so out of place. It reminds me of the grain in a beautifully polished piece of wood. 

Then I learn that I have PCOS, and that causes the biggest wobble of all. Hirsutism or ‘hairiness’ is a common symptom – all part of a set of symptoms than can be grouped together as “more androgynous traits”. “Do I suffer from that?” my doctor asks, over the phone. 

“Not sure,” I say. And I think about those changing-room comments, or that helpfully-intentioned facebook commenter in a discussion thread about the age women were when they started shaving, who said that “noticeably hairy” legs could be a sign of PCOS. 

And I realise how little I have to compare it to: two friends who don’t shave at all, some others who were unzealous converts at best. The diagnosis starts a new wave of doubt. Maybe I’m *too* hairy. 

Like it?

September is here now. Maybe I’ll shave this week. Is that less exhausting? I don’t know if I can get used to this. And part of me missed that feeling of smooth, freshly shaved legs. On the other hand, shaving, and doing it properly, especially with sensitive skin, is a lot of effort too. And that’s without thinking of the environmental impact (even though I have a subscription to a company that recycles the blades, and I use bars of shaving cream instead of bottles). 

So, I have a choice. But neither feels like a great option. 

As I write this, I’m sitting on the train. It’s been sunny again, the last few days. Shorts and skirts everywhere, but the only women’s* leg hair I think I’ve seen is my own. 

But it is a choice, right?