Hirsutia

Yesterday afternoon, I shaved my legs.

Lest you begin trembling at this statement, thinking "Oh My God -- she said she was going to blog every day! Does this mean we are going to have to read every mundane detail of her life from here on out? Is this the torture that I'm in for?", let me just restate that opening line:

Yesterday afternoon, I shaved my legs -- for the first time in more than 15 years.

I honestly can't remember for sure the last time that I shaved my legs, but I'm fairly certain that it was sometime in the very early 1990s.

In the last millenium -- as Carruch would say -- do you see?

I also can't remember exactly when or why I stopped shaving my legs in the first place. I do know that this first occurred sometime in the late 1970's (although I was an intermittent shaver between 1978 and 1991).

I am aware that my original foray into the ranks of the hairy-leggeds was both socially and politically motivated. After all -- I was a dyke, I was a feminist, and I had very hairy legs. (I still do, if I don't shave them.)

As a budding young butch in 1978, my hairy legs were at least partly a form of lesbian machismo -- they, along with my cravenly bushy armpits, signaled both my rebellion and my sexual orientation (it was way more unusual then than now to see an unshaven woman), my status as a butch (along with my wide, studded, black leather belt), and my commitment to the spiritual freedom of all women everywhere from the controlling stereotypes of patriarchal notions of "beauty" and "femininity".

With the added bonus that it really freaked my mom out.

Then, in the early 80's, I met and fell in love with a woman who was a full-on "preppie" type -- izod shirts with the collar turned up, etc. -- and I started shaving my legs again.

Then, in the mid-80's, I met and fell in love with a woman who was a full-on politically active lesbian, and I threw my razor away forever -- I thought.

By 1988, I think the whole leg-shaving thing wasn't really a lesbian-identifying issue for me anymore -- too many high femmes had complained that their right to shave their legs, if they liked the way it looked and felt, must be upheld by their sapphic sisters lest the whole lesbian subculture simply become a reactionary mirror-image of the status-quo -- if we were not to sink into a reverse fascism as ugly, repressive, and deplorable as the system which we were striving to escape, those who wanted to shave must be free to shave without fear of castigation by their compatriots in the struggle. Ditto on wearing bright red lipstick.

By this time, around 1988, my leg hair was really long. "To shave or not to shave" was, for me, no longer a matter of politics, sexual identity, feminism, girl-friend pleasing, or subtle harrassment of my mother -- the concept of shaving my legs just seemed daunting altogether -- like felling a mighty forest with a pocket knife.

Plus, not shaving meant one less daily ritual, one less appliance to pack when traveling, and less detritus to rinse from the bathtub.

So, I remained hirsute of leg because it was easier. There. I admit it.

Before I tell you why I shaved my legs at this juncture, I'm going to regale you with a few of my favorite "hairy leg" stories -- very similar to shaggy dog stories, but shorter (hopefully), and about my legs and hair.

Hairy Leg Story #1 -- The Mennonite Lunch Ladies -- 1965

When I was growing up, we lived ten miles from a primarily mennonite community. Some of the wives of the mennonite farmers took jobs working as lunch-ladies at our elementary school. I was particularly impressed by these women because their forearms were the size of my dad's thigh, and they did not shave their legs.

To me, this seemed exotic and strange. However, it was hard to get a glimpse of their legs, because, although they always wore skirts, they were mostly behind the chrome lunch counter where they doled out beanie-weinies, canned brussel sprouts, and bierocks (if you don't know what bierocks are, you probably don't need, or perhaps even want, to ask -- for the google-maniacal, check here).

I relished the times that we traveled the whole ten miles to Hillsboro, the town center for this community, so that I could examine the hairy legs of these women. I'm not sure that I knew that women had hair on their legs until this time (see story #3 below), because all the women I had seen up till then shaved their legs. I think this is true for me. However, I admit that I never examined, say -- my grandmother's -- legs close up. Suffice it to say that I did notice that these women had hair growing out of their legs, and I think I remember asking about it aloud as a small child in public, and being "shushed", which means that it was probably out of the ordinary.

Hairy Leg Story #2 -- My Grandfather's Funeral -- 1980

I had returned home (hmmm -- my mate recently pointed out that when I talk about going to Kansas, I refer to it as "going home", and I just did that again) from Portland for my grandfather's funeral. He had died three days after being diagnosed with cancer of the liver, and I wasn't exactly prepared for this event -- I was at my folks' house and was trying on a skirt for the funeral which was still in my closet back home, because I no longer owned a skirt in my "Portland wardrobe". Mom was going to hem it up for me.

I was standing on a chair and when Mom raised the skirt line to the proper length to pin it, she said: "Your legs are as hairy as your father's".

Actually, I think she didn't really "say" this -- I recall it as a series of words mixed with a horrified, gasping, involuntary intake of breath.

Maybe it was the situation (although I confess that I might have weinied out in a similar fashion even if we were not in the somber midst of funereal preparations) -- I simply did not find myself prepared, at that very moment, to take my mother on in a debate about the oppressive and antiquated notion that women should be make themselves into hairless pre-pubescent girls so that they could be more easily controlled by patriarchal overlords.

So, instead, I said this:

"Mom, I'm just out of college, struggling to make ends meet by working two jobs." (which was true) "I don't have money to waste on a razor so that I can shave my legs." (which was not true, as I had plenty of money to waste on other things)

A couple of hours later, I found three dollars and 89 cents (exactly the price of a three-pack of bic disposable shavers at the time) on the dresser in my old room.

I shaved for the funeral.

Hairy Leg Story #3 -- The Little Girl Who Lived on the Corner -- 1987

I'm mowing the lawn. My step-sons are in the house with their mom.

The little girl who lives on the corner is fascinated by me, and has been fascinated by me all Summer since she and her family moved in a few houses down.

She has not spoken to me, but has spent many-an-afternoon examining me surrepticiously at every possible opportunity.

On the day in question, I am wearing a tank top and khaki shorts, cranking away at the push mower in order to get the front lawn of my house to appear "acceptable".

Slowly, she walks up the sidewalk toward me, while pretending not to be walking up the sidewalk toward me, and then stops a few feet away.

She eyes me carefully from the bottom of my Nike cross-trainers to the top of my baseball cap (on backwards, which was terribly chic and new at the time).

"Are you a boy or a girl?" she finally asks, narrowing her eyes slightly as she fixes me with a steely, accessing gaze.

For those of you who have not met me in the flesh, I actually have rather unmistakeable boobs -- they're big, and they've always been big -- and I can't imagine that they would be anything but impressive in that skimpy tank top. She was, however, of an age where the automatic link between breasts and gender might not have been so indelibly carved -- or maybe her grandpa had man titties -- who knows?

And I did have very short hair. And I was very butchy, both energetically and in terms of my physical mannerisms.

I stopped mowing and centered myself to have this conversation.

"I'm a girl."

She chews on this for a moment.

"You have hair on your legs."

This does not seem to be stated as an observation so much as a refutation of my last statement.

"Yes, I do have hair on my legs. So does your mom, but she might shave the hair on her legs off."

The little girl's eyes go wide in horror and disbelief. "No!" she gasps.

"Ask her," I say.

Her chin juts forward, and I sense that in this moment, the final judgment call has been made in her mind, which has been whirring away all through this hot summer, trying to determine who, or what, I was -- whether I was friend or foe, human or beast, male or female.

As she wheeled on her heel and headed for home without another word, I imagined that she had concluded that I was not only a gender-dysphoric alien from another planet, but a lying gender-dysphoric alien to boot. We never spoke again.

---------- End of Hairy Leg Stories ------------------

It seems strange to me now that my sense of "becoming a woman" was not tied, for me, to the beginning of my menses. For me, there were two essential rites of passage to becoming a woman -- #1 Getting Your First Bra, and #2 Shaving Your Legs. Not necessarily in that order. Actually, if you were a "slutty" type of girl, there was a third, equally-important rite -- Getting Your Ears Pierced.

But I was not a slutty type of girl. I was a regular kind of girl. (Aside from the fact that I was obviously a dyke from the moment I drew breath, as is clearly revealed in the various family photos of me with my cowboy holsters on.)

Still, as a physical female, I needed to grow up. I needed those rites of passage.

I think I was fortunate to have a big sister. She had already paved the way for me with my mother. She had braved the first discussions of bras and shaving with mom -- in essence, I think she trained mom for me in these delicate areas.

I remember asking my sister how she had wrangled her first bra out of my mom. This was something that many of my friends were having a difficult time with. They wanted a bra, but their moms kept telling them they didn't need a bra. Because my friends were getting bras, I figured I had better start working on my mom too, so as not to be left hopelessly behind on the maturity curve.

My sister thought for a second, then recollected that she had told mom that her undershirt was itching her (remember undershirts?), and that mom had just looked at her sagely and taken her off to the local women's clothing store and gotten her a training bra.

Now there's a concept -- a "training" bra -- as if these dual beasts dangling under my collarbones must be trained -- tamed -- brought into submission! Weirdly, I actually agree with this concept now -- there are times when they seem feral and dangerous, especially just before my period. However, if my memory is at all correct, what served as my "training" bra in 1968 would now be known as a "sports bra" -- which kind of sucks all the adventure out of it for me.

When I went to mom and complained of itchy undershirts, I didn't get the sage look -- just the trip to the women's clothing store, where I was actually instructed personally by the saleswoman about how to try on a bra -- and if you don't think that there is a "correct" way to put on a bra, read here.

I can't remember when I started shaving my legs, or asking my mom about it, so I assume it probably wasn't a really big deal for either of us.

I do think that this whole thing is slightly weird. I believe now that I passed from girlhood to womanhood the moment I began to menstruate and became capable of reproducing, something over which my mother had no power whatsoever. But at 12 to 14 years of age, my rites of passage were all about mother-authorized titty capture and mother-authorized deforestation of my legs.

Back to shaving. What started out as a privilege and a badge of maturity became a political statement and finally, just a matter of convenience.

So why did I shave my legs yesterday?

It looked like fun. That was the whole reason.

My mate generally grows her leg-hairs out for the Winter, and shaves in the Summer. On Wednesday, she apparently determined that the weather had turned warm enough to warrant shaving, and I entered the bathroom while she was in the midst of this ritual.

It looked really fun.

I pondered over it for a day. For one thing, it is a commitment. After fifteen years, my leg hairs were long and silky, low-maintenance and pliable. Considering the possibilities of unsightly, and possibly, dangerous stubble (sleeping with a shaving woman who has not gotten around to it for a few days can be a very cactile experience).

I asked myself: Was I ready to take this responsibility up with verve? Could this seemingly experimental act lead to the "hard stuff" like panty-hose?

I didn't actually answer these questions. I just impulsively picked up the shaver and started.

For those of you who sometimes wonder where our technology is taking us, whether it is turning us into mindless beasts or evolving us into fantastic demi-gods, let me tell you this: If the improvements to the safety razor over the past 15 years are any indication of the benefits of technology for humankind, we are doing just fine.

My one real concern about shaving was that I would repeat the various bloody accidents of my youth -- knicked knees, shredded shin-bones, and razor burns galore -- but this magical little razor glazed over the contours of my gams without a hitch. And my legs were hairless.

It looks, and feels, a bit weird to me. I remember this sensation from when I shaved my head -- feeling air on a portion of your skin that wasn't accustomed to feeling the air so directly.

Yesterday, prior to shaving my legs, I had cut my mate's hair. Our cat, Little, came into the kitchen as I was doing this, and sat gazing at Kumatriel with a look of befuddlement, like "Why are you letting her cut your fur?"

I'm glad she didn't catch me shaving, as I don't think I could have given her any answer as to why I was using a tiny piece of viciously sharp metal to scrape the fur off my legs, except "I saw Kumatriel doing it. It looked fun."

I suspect that she would have given me some feline response like "If you saw Kumatriel jumping off a bridge and it looked like fun, would you do it too?"

Here is my erstwhile fur (razor sitting next to it to show scale):

Now see that, right there? I think that displaying this picture is perhaps an example of that lesbian-machismo aspect that I was talking about -- like "look how hairy my legs are!" -- er, were.

History has it that Julius Caesar had a body slave whose entire job was to pluck all of his body hair on a daily basis (to avoid body lice while on campaign).

I'm not ready to go that far, but this was an interesting experiment.

It actually feels fun, too. I mean at the tactile level.

I realized that I hadn't felt the slightest bit self-conscious about my leg-hair in many years, and that getting rid of it seemed equally casual.

One of the best parts was that I didn't have to ask anyone if I could.

Of course, I may be drummed out of the "true lesbian" corps. Which is probably already a done-deal, especially after I accidentally slept with that man for a year.

I'm looking for a wrap-up statement here, and it's hard to find. I tend to believe that I wouldn't spend all this time writing about such a mundane event if it really didn't have meaning for me, but that kernel is still eluding me.

So I'll just say: I didn't know how many times my mother would get mentioned in relationship to this event. I'll be looking into that further.

Okay, that's it. Yesterday afternoon, I shaved my legs.