I grew my arm put hair. When I’d find myself alone in a rest room, I’d look in the mirror and lift my shirt see the fuzz, a shock of hair that felt luxuriously soft and foreign.
Arm-pit hair serves an evolutionary purpose, so I have read, that is why we have it. It helps waft our scent to the noses of would-be lovers, helping us sniff out compatible men, or for men, ladies who are ovulating. New research shows couples even smell each other’s emotions.
When I wasn’t shaving I can attest that there was more of a smell. Not B.O. as I usually knew it, but something human, and uniquely mine. And something about all of this was sexy.
I don’t expect au natural armpits to ever catch on in mainstream America, where we like our teeth white as picket fences, breasts majestically mountainous and our lady pits waxed as apples.But just once, I’d like to see an American Apparel billboard showcasing the usual lithe model, her arms dangled above her head to reveal furry pits.
In America, shaving underarms has been a fad since around 1915 with the ubiquity of the safety razor.
A marketing campaign spread, suggesting that women shave their pits. This campaign warned that underarm hair was “unhygienic” and “unfeminine.” Strangely, that hygiene thing didn’t hold up for men. In the next two years, razor sales doubled.
Shaving my underarms has been around since about 1996, when I was 12. The moment light hair appeared under my arms, I began a shaving regime, almost robotically. But I find it interesting that women don’t even grow full armpit hair until about age 18.
This year, Amanda Palmer and Mo ‘nique attended the Golden Globes with, respectively, armpit and leg hair. A collective “ewwwww” spread ’round the Internet. It reminds me of this friend in highschool who once recounted “I was at McDonalds, in line, when the woman in front of me raised her arms to pay or whatever…and she had hairy pits.“ His face contorted with disgust. My response then was an “ew” too. Aside from the icky phrasing of “hairy pits”, why was that so gross?
There was a moment, when I decided to grow my pit hair. I stood in the shower, letting the warm water wash over my face and thought “it’s weird that I’ve never actually seen my own pit hair.” When I didn’t pick up my razor, I also thought “it’s worth questioning”.
It wasn’t exactly a feminist calculation, or a “statement”. It was a self-exploration, more “I wonder what this is like.” And it was interesting, sexy and a little sweaty.
When we don’t feel beautiful inside, we often tell ourselves we aren’t beautiful outside either. While growing out pit hair adds nothing to actual substance or beauty, for me, it was loving myself as a whole, another way of negating self attack. But it can also be an attack on the conformance machine of media and peers.
A few months later, I was getting ready for a Christmas party. I stood in front of the mirror in a black satin cocktail dress; face and hair carefully made-up. I lifted my arms to secure my up-do and was greeted with the dichotomy of starlet face/boyish pits. I thought, “tonight is a night to shave.”
Now, when I stand in the shower, rinsing in hot water, I raise my arms with a conscious choice. Do I want to shave today?
8 Comments
I love the hairy armpit! the hair grows softly and in little swirls and is light and springy to the touch. My partner finds it very sexy and I can absolutely relate to the ability of hair to magically waft out the smell of my lover to me.
remember the unholy outrage that screamed around the world when julia roberts turned up to some awards show and waved to the crowd revealing hair hair hair? you would have thought she’d denounced religion.
More broadly, I can’t help but feel uneasy with the condemnation heaped on airpit hair as an extension of the whole woman-should-be-fuzz-free nonsense. I’m inherently wary about any societal dictate that I should look like a 13 year old girl and I’m not really down with men who only want to have sex with women who look like 13 year old girls. I know this is probably a debate best entered into elsewhere but the correlation between the two topics is strong enough me make me stand behind the Yah for Armpit Hair banner on ideological as well as aesthetic grounds.
Also, I really dig your blog <3
Yeah, I found the Julia Roberts pics when researching this and it just seemed so silly. I think you really bring an interesting argument up with the infantilization of the shaved look. It seems to be an issue no one wants to touch. Thanks!
I only occasionally shave my arm pits. I am wearing a t-shirt right now btw. I have a friend who hates it when I lift up my arms but I just laugh. I will most likely shave in a week or two. It doesn’t feel urgent at the moment.
I let the hair under my arms grow. It’s sexy, silky, liberating. I love when my man caresses and nuzzles them. They smell less of BO this way. They’re like having two more crotches, which is a good thing in my book. I’m a hippie goddess. I love body hair. I’d rather be an animal than a mannequin.
TBK, lol at two more crotches. Maybe the best thing ever?
Ah, I love this post so much I decided to carry on the topic to my own blog: http://temp0rubato.blogspot.com/2010/06/lingering-lessons.html.
Thanks for sharing this in a logical format without extremes & with real priorities as the purpose. Refreshing!
xx jaci
The Beautiful Kind, I love your line about being an animal, not a mannequin – please may I quote you? (With credit, of course).
I tend to shave my pits if they’re going to be on show in public, because I’m not brave enough to go against society conventions so publicly, and I’m the same with my other body hair. Mostly I get around this by just not showing hairy parts of me to people who aren’t close friends or family.
I’m not 100% sure about the infantilisation argument about hair removal. I think it’s true to a certain extent but I’ve also heard cases where when a woman shaved she certainly did not feel that her hairless mons pubis and labia were childlike (e.g. http://52seductions.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/seduction-22-razzle-jazzle-em/)
i love this!!!!!!!
while i was in the ultimate height of my self-absorbed transformation into what i thought would be the closest thing to perfection ever,i was an avid pit shaver. i was 16 and newly thin (thanks to a diet of 500 calories a day and an insane work out regimen) and relatively hairless. i was long, lean, toned, tan, thin and spending obscene amounts of time on my hygiene. i picked, plucked, primed, applied make-up as if i worked at m.a.c. daily (hourly), waxed, and shaved – everything. i was studying at a coffee shop when a man began talking to me about the subject matter i was pouring over. he eventually talked me into moving to a corner table with him where we began to talk about everything under the sun. he was living on a school bus, he had it set up for sleeping, cooking, and storing his possessions and tools for work; work being odd jobs. anyway pit hair came up inevitably and he acted horrified that i took painstaking time to be sure nary a hair would be anywhere near my underarm. he said that he used to be involved with a woman who was a non-shaver and he loved her underarms the most, with her hair reminding him of a more delicate place on the female form. he described passionate love making and running his teeth through the thick bush of european born and bred arm pit hair. i remember feeling surprised and delighted and hopeful. he knew what it was to enjoy something that is uniquely human. he made me think that maybe the guys i knew who found even the mention of body hair on ladies offense were not the only kind of guys out there.
while my pits to this day remain bare i am no longer waxed into a shiny barbie-like woman. and again i have found myself enjoying the company of a man who enjoys hair. closer in age, not residing on a bus, and not just for a four hour chat in a coffee shop, so i guess the feeling of hopefulness that bearded hippie instilled in me was there for good reason.