Tales From the Pits--Still Not Shaving

I’ve been surprised and had my need for immediate gratification disappointed by the slowness with which underarm grows! I think I’m getting about a millimeter a week. (No rulers were harmed in this estimation.) I’m struggling to come to terms with what that will mean for my summer. I assumed that, like my leg hair, my underarm hair would come in quickly and I would be shaving it off by swimsuit season. Au contraire. If I am going to stick to this little mission of mine—to see my armpit hair in all its glory, to know what I look like as a woman—then I’m going to have to manage through at least part of tank and bikini season.

This unexpected development got me to thinking about how far I’m willing or wanting to go with this armpit hair business. It is one thing to grow it out and not have anyone know—or see it, more accurately. It is another thing altogether to let the freak flag fly, as they say. To be open to staring and ridicule is not something I am generally comfortable with, at least not about my appearance. Believe it or not, after all my loud-mouthing about various issues on my blog, I don’t like to be looked at. I prefer to be in the corner or, better, under a rock when it’s a “see and be seen” situation. How am I going to feel strolling about in my summer tanktop with tufts of hair under my arms? I’ve determined to leave that decision for a later date.

Thus far, this little experiment/investigation of my natural self was not about making a stand or creating an issue. I have felt largely uncommitted to any idea of hairiness or hairlessness. As I said, I have leg hair, but no armpit hair (until now), plucked eyebrows and unplucked eyebrows depending on my mood. Then it happened. My oldest daughter told me she thought it was gross for women to not shave. Suddenly, this whole business became “about” something. I don’t want her to be disgusted by something so natural and mammalian as hair growth. The beginnings of hair in “strange places” was a sign of growing up that I looked forward to as a preteen. It meant that I was becoming a woman. I didn’t stop to ask myself why I was so excited to have it when I would just be shaving it off. I want my daughters to recognize that they have a choice and that there isn’t a right or wrong. Neither would they be more or less beautiful, at least not to me. So now I’m questioning whether or not I have an obligation to my girls to have armpit hair for awhile, simply to show them that they are not constrained by fashion or fear-based cultural conditioning. I’m going to have to think on that.

The upside of all of this fuzziness comes in two parts. The first is that I have been pleasantly surprised at how little my mate notices the hair. He really could care less. For me this goes to prove what other male friends of mine have said in the past, i.e. that men don’t care as much about those kinds of things as women do. And it’s true. Women, more so than men, are keeping women in check regarding the shaving rule. (This of course doesn’t count all of my awesome girlfriends who have been so supportive!)

The second is that I have been prompted to read more about the subject. One woman wrote that her parents didn’t allow her to shave because it was what separated the good girls from the prostitutes who, a hundred years ago, shaved to show that they didn’t have lice. So is that what we are doing by shaving, prostituting ourselves to the ideas we women have about desirability? Another question. No answers yet.

The only thing I know for sure is that this isn’t what I thought it would be when I set out to see myself au natural. The path that I’ve chosen here, however carelessly started, has become an opportunity to ask and answer questions that I never knew were there to be asked and answered. What fun.

P.S. Apparently I’m not the only one talking about this. See the link to an article in the NY Times this week.