Do you shave, wax or use a nasty, smelly cream?
I’ll wager that if you are an adult woman, you are bound to do one of them. And have done hundreds of times since you first reached the shores of puberty.
I know some of us are inclined to be somewhat lax in this regard during the winter months when our oxters are only exposed for the briefest time between pyjamas and clothes and never, ever outside in public. As soon as the sun shines, or the occasion demands less garment in the sleeve area, it’s bald pit time.
Me too.
But I didn’t always. There was a time, some 15 years ago, when I let the follicles of my underarms do their worst. And I loved it. At the time I had lost weight and enjoyed my new shape. I was confident and really enjoyed the little gasp sight of my furry armpits would cause. People were shocked and I was having fun.
I let all my body hair grow and it was also a damn sight easier not to have to bother with the whole painful, expensive rigmarole. And tufts of soft underarm hair was far nicer than stubble.
I can’t remember exactly what prompted me to return to the razor – perhaps my confidence began to buckle under pressure, or maybe the need to conform was too strong. After a while I found it hard to keep up an air of I don’t care in the face of other people’s disgust.
The sight of Emer O’Toole on This Morning looking beautiful as she displayed her bushy pits brought it all back.
Back then, though, women were still allowed a healthy triangle of pubic hair, they were just supposed to make sure it stopped before the leg of their knickers did. It was in the days before the Brazilian.
Now, I gather, it’s normal, preferred even, to get every bit of your body hair whipped off leaving – optionally – an improbably skinny strip of pubes. I am delighted to be too old and too married to have to bother with this nonsensical practice.
But where will it end? Will girl children now grow up expecting that they must remove every single sprout from everywhere in order to pass muster?
Consider this. Women are hairy. Some more than others. We have hairy labia, hairy mons pubis, hairy stomachs, breasts and armpits. Our pubes don’t know they’re supposed to stop before they get to leg or buttock, but we pretend they do.
But because women are so efficient and automatic about the removal of currently unwanted hair, girls are growing up not knowing that we’re all at it. I remember as a teenager feeling bewildered and mystified that I had all this hair and, as far as I could see, no one else had it. What was wrong with me?
And in the face of balder bodies visible in more places, surely this must be getting worse and worse. At least then it was possible to sneak a reassuring peep at the ubiquitous copy of The Joy of Sex hidden somewhere in the house.
How about it then? Let’s leave off the Bic, the Immac and the wax. We’ve nothing to lose but our shaving rash and ingrowing hairs.
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Oh it all just does my head in. I too am not strong enough to resist the pressure to keep my arm-pits hair free in the summer, but I draw the line at having hot wax smeared onto my lady-bits and my pubic hair ripped out at the roots. I just won't do it – it's madness!
It is madness. I'd love to cast my razor to the winds.
I too worry about what my poor daughters will grow up to imagine is normal. I hope there's a massive backlash against the Brazilian, I really do.
So do I. It would be marvellous.
Swimming shorts = best invention ever.
Oh they sound good. Must find some.
Debenhams have the same ones as I bought last year, which are great for going in the pool with the kids but not ideal for aquaerobics – I bought a not-entirely-flattering but practical Speedo all-on-one from John Lewis online for that. Triathlon/surfing/serious swimwear sites are a good bet online.
I've just been reading Caitlin Moran's book and I'm very much in agreement with her – keep the pubic hair, remove the other stuff if you feel like it (and it should be less unacceptable if you don't).
Hairs are to humans what plants, bushes and trees are to mother Earth. Women are earth's reps who procreate and promote human species of both genders. Hence it is all the more necessary that their work with delivering physical human bodies be carried out unhampered with all accessories including adult body hairs as nature provides with some intent hither to unexplored fully by science. Trees grow around water spots above terrain as well as tabled under crust layers. so do thick textured terminal hairs similar to plant bushes are programmed into matrices under arm pits and pubic areas of both gendered human bodies where water is more accumulated though pit sweat glands under arms and urine bladder as well as added uterine fluid filled bladder in females under pregnancy under the pubic region below navel. Thus thick bushy hairs grow to cater for some biological needs under adulthood. Noting the scientific forensic revelations we can surmise that these matrixes of hair suck toxic matter out and cleanse the system as well as provide covered protection against toxic exposure.
Loving Nature endorses democratically in both gender with a common minimum program of hairy protection but hatred to which women are more prone to appreciate physical beauty and who are proper human body producers, are easily influenced by the genius big business psychology to spend money in the upkeep of false aesthetics. This is obvious and yet the spell of ‘hate’ influence drags away from the fact that all beauty clinics endorse luxurious hair on head and defeat its purpose of discretion by instilling ‘hatred’ against adult body hairs that grow in different textures and lengths –be it eyebrows, nasal filters, vellum general body or thick matrixed terminal hairs. This ugly and unwanted hair removal is the propriety of big business beauty promotion but the same resulting in great environmental pollution and ecological imbalance we are presently experiencing on earth is a common peril of nobody’s concern but an experience of common suffering.
This is the result of human scientific and technological progress of men folk who feel nauseated and shocked by the pit and pubic hair of their womenfolk who lovingly suffer all ordeals to conceive, deliver and bring them up to their bread winning status.