The Shaving Experiment

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After reading The Vagenda's wonderfully brilliant article on female shaving (not necessarily the face, like Jessica Simpson), which gained national coverage (Emer O'Toole even featured on This Morning), I became both fascinated and intrigued by the whole topic.  As a student who has studied gender politics, I get all wrapped up in a complicated thought process when I'm divulging in said issues.  The most base argument that female shaving rests on though, is that women inherently believe that hairlessness is attractive, because society tells them so.  Most men seem to believe it too; although coming across men who believe that women shouldn't look like infant girls isn't unheard of!

As a woman who deals with the trials and tribulations of body hair on a (mostly) daily basis, what I'd read in the article really began to gnaw away at me.  I've mentioned before that I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) which means my hormones are crazy, and my body thinks I need excess hair, much like men do - although thankfully, mine isn't as bad as some, like The Bearded Lady who appeared on This Morning as well... So hair removal is something that plagues me, and always has done.

At 10 years old my body was embarking upon puberty, and I had the hairiest legs on a child I'd ever seen.  They bothered me that much that my mum let me shave them, and I've continued doing it for the past 11 years.  After reading the article, I realised that I'd always shaved/waxed/plucked and preened because I thought I should, not necessarily because I wanted to.  Which is exactly my point about the problem with female shaving; we all do it because we're told that attractive women aren't hairy women.  And this is what I have a serious problem with; I'm never one to shy away from going against the convention.  Brazenly stating I don't want to get married, have children or be an oppressed woman is just the tip of the iceberg.  Realising that shaving was just another thing that we women do to be 'sexy' for men really annoyed me, so I decided to tackle it head on.

So as an experiment, I decided to see how long I could last without shaving, but more importantly, how I felt about it.  All about my body, for me.  As my body hair grows quickly, it wasn't long before I was fighting off the urge to remove it all.  Every time I looked at my bare legs something in my brain immediately went, "Ew!  You've got some seriously unsexy legs!".  But every time it happened, I felt alarmed and genuinely sad that I couldn't look at my body in its most natural state without feeling disgust.  Surely looking at our own natural bodies should be the most acceptable way to see it?  I actually found it frightening that I am so mentally conditioned that my brain thinks culturally first - in other words, I think what I'm told I should think, rather than what I want to think.  And that's something I realised that The Shaving Experiment needed to tackle - in fact, the most important thing it needed to combat.

I lasted about a month without shaving my armpits; I was going to an event in London and couldn't bear the thought of wearing a vest top with hairy armpits.  It sounds crazy, but although I'm doing the shaving experiment for myself, I was unable to show it off to the general public.  There's this inherent fear that strangers will point, stare and laugh.  That you'll be mentally noted down in their list of Western hairy women, after Julia Roberts.  Who am I kidding - no one gives a crap about what I do!  Yet there's something that makes me consciously decide whether I'm brave enough.  The armpit hair is probably the hardest - I wear a lot of sleeveless tops, so I was continually reaching for jackets and cardigans, although it was always a conscious decision.  I also think its proximity to eye level (in comparison to legs) makes it much more of a brave statement to parade around.

Legs are less difficult.  I wear jeans most of the time, so I only ever get to flash my leg hair to my boyfriend, my (male) housemate or my family.  My boyfriend in particular has informed me he really couldn't care less, which is nice!  He found armpit hair a bit weird; he accidentally stroked it once and screamed.  Maybe he thought I was smuggling hamsters?  My mum, it turns out, is actually a beacon feminist - she hasn't shaved her legs in weeks and still wears skirts, but I wonder if her diminishing eye sight is more the cause than a feminist agenda...  My sister, on the other hand, is a tough cookie.  She got an epilator for her birthday and has been threatening to do us both in.  "I seriously hope your hairy legs aren't some feminist statement," she proclaimed.  Well, sister, it kind of is.

In the hot spell last week I even donned shorts.  And went out in them.  I'd be lying if I didn't say that sometimes I feel nervous when I think of someone pointing them out.  But at the same time, I also have a sense of smug nonchalance.  Like not caring, but pride in not caring, because they're my legs and I can do what I want with them.

Despite caving in early doors with the armpits, I am proud to say that my legs are still going strong.  Intriguingly, I've found the skin on my legs is much healthier sans shaving, which made me really question how damaging shaving is to our epidermis.  Yet we brush off scaly legs, thinking that smooth legs are too sexy to say 'no' to.  I'm not sure how much longer I'll manage to completely not shave for, but I'm the kind who loves a challenge - I complete challenges with a sense of gleeful determination.  The Shaving Experiment is almost a challenge with no end.

But I can definitely say the experiment has changed how I think and feel about my own body.  Mainly, that I do have choice.  I don't feel like as soon as hair grows, it needs to be removed; I'm comfortable with it being there, because whether people find it unsexy or repulsive, it's mine.  My body is for me.  I have such a relaxed attitude to body hair now that I almost don't believe how different I am.  My mum mentioned how fuzzy my pits were this week - I genuinely hadn't even noticed!  Ultimately, I'm much more comfortable in my body being in its natural state, and slowly, my culturally-washed brain is beginning to change.  So I'd say The Shaving Experiment has been a success, and I'm incredibly happy about it!

xx