hairy women (au naturel)

I am hairy. Big time. It’s in my genes. I’m half Macedonian and my mother’s Scottish ancestry saw her growing a better goatee on her knee than her seventeen-year-old brother could grow on his face in a bet. The hair that grows on me is thick and dark and quite contrasting to my pale skin. I never had much issue with this as a child, but when my mother sat me on the veranda aged twelve and waxed my legs for the first time I learnt to believe hairy legs were something to be ashamed of.

Over the years I have come to accept and love my hairy armpits and monobrow, but feeling the freedom to let my leg hairs be seen wild and bushy is not quite something I have overcome socially, yet. I let my leg hair grow in the wintertime, cause seriously as if I could be bothered, and I have been able to produce a generous covering of thick dark and soft hair from toes to upper thigh. But then come springtime I’ve always taken myself to the salon to rid myself of my fur. One such time the trainer even noted to the student that was waxing me that she liked how you could see the difference in my freshly waxed “clean” legs compared to my hairy “dirty” legs. Which was very offensive, for obvious reasons.

This year I treated myself to a holiday in Far North Queensland to celebrate my birthday and the end of winter. By this point I had grown my leg hairs out to their full glory and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do an experiment in radical self love and see what it would be like to get around with my hairy ass legs on display in hot pants and short skirts for five days in the tropics.

Before I went away I felt some very real anxiety. Wanting to pack a long skirt in case I felt too ashamed to have my legs out. I started rehearsing comebacks to the judgmental comments that I was sure that I was going to receive, from “Mind your own business” to “Because I do not feel shame about my body’s natural state”. So when I went to Cairns I didn’t cover my legs once and you know what? No one gave a single fuck. I did notice people staring at my legs momentarily before looking up at my face, and I did have paranoid thoughts of them talking about me when I was out of earshot. But no one treated me any differently, or made me feel uncomfortable. Although I admit this experiment seemed easier because I was in another city where I didn’t know anyone, but I realised that it was the silent judgement of strangers that I did really care about. My friends and lovers don’t give a shit and this experiment suggested that the general public didn’t either.

I do like the look and feel of my smooth hairless legs, shining bronze in the summer time. But when I end up with a five o’clock shadow after shaving and waxing is time consuming, expensive and painful I have to wonder why I actually feel like I need to do it. I believe the only reason that we’re conditioned to think hair free legs are more desirable is due to marketing and capitalism but really there is no reason why we can’t also see the beauty in furry pins. In fact I have had numerous compliments about my hairy legs, and I too think they look sexy in a way that is unique to smooth legs.

I’ve done a couple of photo shoots recently that I haven’t waxed my legs for and it has felt very liberating. Seeing myself as a beautiful womyn with dark fuzz noticeable from the knees down has opened my eyes to a different genre of feminine beauty. I do believe I will wax my legs again in the future sometime, because I have that choice if I desire it, but for now I might let these ladies see a bit more of the sunshine.

Photo by Simon Russell

9 Reasons You Have To Stop Shaving Your Legs

I had a choice. And I made the choice to shave to save myself from all of the hostile, cruel, and intrusive comments I’ve had the pleasure of enduring for my entire life. And even when I did shave, the fact that my body could produce body hair was enough cause to say something to me. 

You’re right, society hasn’t bound my wrists or replaced my hands with razors. But when you’re faced with shaving versus the alternative, sometimes it’s really fucking hard not to give in, even if you really don’t want to.