Existing as a Hairy Woman

And Why I Don't Shave Anymore

I’ve always had a lot of hair. In fact, I was born with a full head of it. When I was in preschool I remember sitting in the backseat of a car with my best friend Adam and noticing that I had more leg hair than he did (which was almost none). I pointed this out and he told me I had legs like a man. He didn’t say it in a mean way, but more so a matter-of-fact way.

As I got older, and noticed all the hairless women in my life, my insecurity over having body hair grew. On days when I wore dresses or shorts to school, I would pray that no one would look at my legs. In fourth grade, while wearing one of my favorite skirts at the time, I sat down on the rainbow-block rug for music class. A classmate sat next to me and, as if in slow motion, I noticed his gaze move down to my legs as he gasped, “you have hair on your legs!” I was mortified. With a red hot face I replied, “So what?” But I knew what.

Perhaps it was my Middle Eastern ancestry, but existing as a hairy woman felt like a curse. To make matters even worse, my mother refused to let me shave because I was “too young.” But one day, I couldn’t stand the stares of my classmates any longer and defied her. I took one of her razors and attempted to shave in the shower. I suffered a few minor cuts, but otherwise didn’t do too terribly. My mother was a bit horrified when she found out, and told me that she could help me another way.

That’s how I started regularly bleaching my legs and arms inside the family bathroom (because blonde hair blended in with my pale skin more.) The bleaching was awful. The treatment made my skin itch like crazy, but I had to leave it on long enough so that it would work. However, in some strange way, it was also an activity I came to cherish because my mother and I would do it together. I would do my arms and legs, and she would do her arms and upper lip.

In middle school it was finally appropriate for me to shave because, by this point, other girls had caught up to my plight. Middle school is awkward enough, and no girl wanted to be labeled as ugly or “gross.” I tried several hair removal methods during my middle and high school years. Shaving, waxing, epilating, Nair. The least painful strategies ensured hair would come back the fastest. The more painful methods guaranteed additional days of smoothness however, the sensations associated with these methods, to put it succinctly, fucking sucked. For years I would daydream about the day I made bucketful’s of money so that I could pay for permanent hair removal. If I got my wish, I would never have to think about this part of myself ever again.

When my pubic hair began to grow in, around 14, it seemed my problems with hair were only going to get worse. People (mostly boys) made crass jokes about girls who had big “bushes.” I knew that my friends, who were earlier bloomers than I, were already shaving themselves for their bare-faced boyfriends, and the pressure of that filled me with dread.

I blamed porn. The standard porn video almost always featured women with bare, or as they were titled, “pretty” pussies, and I quickly realized that one of the only ways to find the elusive hairy woman in porn was to look under fetish categories. It wasn’t just hetero porn that was the problem either. Even the lesbian porn I looked up (which was unfortunately often made under a male gaze) featured women without a drop of body hair. It made me feel like a disgusting goblin. It made me angry too. It seemed that my only hope to ever be sexually desired was to remove all my hair, or become an object to be fetishized (neither of which was very appealing).

At one point, I mentioned this beauty expectation to my mother, and her face scrunched in confusion. She said that in “her time” women didn’t shave their entire pubic mounds, only their bikini lines for bathing suits, and she found the new trend “very strange.” I was already aware that beauty standards had changed throughout the decades, but this one was new to me. Hearing this information was enlightening, but also increased my rage because why was it okay then, but not now? (And why did I have to suffer because of it?)

I tried removing my pubic hair a number of times, but was never a fan of the feeling. I would get painful, pus-filled, ingrown hairs, and my skin would itch and chafe as the hairs quickly grew back. I couldn’t understand how women in porn were achieving these bald, no irritation in sight, appearances. Whatever they were doing, I decided I didn’t want to be a part of it. Plus, the simple truth was that it didn’t even make sense for my teenage, virginal lifestyle at the time. As far as I could tell, the whole point of removing pubic hair was for sex, and I wasn’t having any of it, so I decided to give up on this horrendous task, and lean into my rage instead. I wore my refusal to shave my pubic hair proudly (though secretly I was terrified that nobody would ever want to touch me).

I must have gone to a fairly progressive high school because, during Sex Ed senior year, my health teacher showed our class a documentary about birth, and there was a real-life birth scene in it. We all knew it was coming because we’d heard upperclassmen in previous years tell tales about the film, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened when we watched it. The woman in the film was going through her contractions and pains and the camera eventually showed a head-on shot of her vulva as the baby’s head emerged into the world. The boys in the class snickered about her bush, and I heard one of them say that she should have shaved before the birth. I was disgusted. Not by the woman in the film, but by the brainwashed boys who already had expectations that a woman’s body look perfect for their comfort — even when she was giving fucking birth!

Over the years, as I got deeper into adulthood, I would often flirt with the idea of keeping my body hair. It was a non-stop pattern. Grow everything out for a couple months, eventually feel unable to deal with the discomfort and societal pressure to blend in, remove it, and then try again a few months later. A few times I actually felt triumphant. I told myself that maybe this time I would finally learn to accept this part of myself (but then I would cave again). Romantic relationships complicated things even further because, despite feeling so much anger over these societally enforced beauty standards for women, I was still at their mercy. I was terrified of becoming unattractive in the eyes of whomever I was sleeping with. I found that it was okay that I kept my pubic hair (as long as it was neatly trimmed of course), but my legs felt like an entirely different battle, so I continued to shave.

After a knee surgery, which left me weak and unable to properly groom myself for months, my hair grew with reckless abandon. My ex offered to help me shave. I know he offered this service as a kindness. Perhaps he thought that returning to his version of comfort would also promote my own. In any case, there was a lot of ground to cover. He used an electric razor that was usually reserved for his face and, after cutting down the forest on my legs, he asked if he could do my pubic hair too. Too tired and filled with shame over my ugliness to answer any other way, I said “okay.” As my curls fell onto the bathroom tiles, his excitement grew. At that moment I felt I had become what I had seen so many times in porn. Somehow, being bare meant I was ready for sex and I let that narrative play out.

I’m 28 now. Not a kid by any means, but not an elderly sage filled to the brim with wisdom either. Recently, I decided to commit to a new goal. I haven’t shaved in nearly a year, and I want to keep it going. It was easier in the wintertime when I was naturally covered up, but now it’s summer. I’ve experienced what it’s like to wear a mini skirt with shaggy legs. I now know the feeling of being at the beach and having my curly cues stick out of a swimsuit. At times I’ve felt uncomfortable by the stares of strangers but, for the most part, I’m okay.

Deciding to live as a hairy woman has not only been a liberating experience, but also a profoundly healing one. I made this choice for my younger self who was afraid and ashamed. I made this choice for all the people that need to see more examples of how to embrace the bodies they were born in. I’ve learned what it’s like to radically love this part of myself, and to share it with the world. My existence is hairy, and it is beautiful.

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