Just wanting to normalize a little body hair
I received about 10 women’s magazines/month as a teenager. All of them talked about shaving or waxing or using creams – getting rid of hair on the bikini line especially was seen as tidy, and necessary.
As a teenager, I could not figure out for the life of me what to do with my hair in this area.
Did men like hair? Did they like it waxed? Should I trim it, or get it lasered off entirely?
When I googled it, there were too many different answers.
I got waxes for a while, but my hair is so curly that it left me with the worst ingrown hairs ever, that scarred.
So I shaved, getting constantly annoyed at my skin for being so sensitive. I freaked out before dates, trying to make it as smooth as possible – even when my skin bled.
It wasn’t until within the last two years (!!) that I discovered 1. The wonders of an electric trimmer, and 2. That *I* actually do not care at all if the sides of my bikini line are bare.
My gym shorts are basically this short and if I haven’t recently trimmed it my hair pokes out like this around them. One time somebody looked at it and went, “Gross.”
It’s not gross. It’s hair.
I’ve gone through periods of not shaving anything just to see what it was like – could I love my leg hair? Could I love my underarm hair?
It turned out that I totally could – and I also decided that I just prefer shaving those places (I actually rather enjoy the look of underarm hair but I also rarely put on deodorant sooooo it just made it too sweaty and smelly for my liking)
It also turned out that my partners might have had their own preferences but all of them were a lot more interested in having sex with me than in what my hair was like.
It’s hair. It’s normal. It is okay that your hair exists and it is okay if it cascades out of your bathing suit down your legs and it’s okay if you never ever want to shave and it’s okay if you do.
Your body is yours. And you can do whatever you want with it
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– They will tell you you are unclean
– How to love your period even when it’s painful