Hair Scare

I'm hairy. Not as hairy as some other gals, but a lot hairier than I used to be. When I first got hair in my armpits, there were a few long strands and I was utterly disgusted. It looked like an old guy's comb-over under my arm. When we went on a vacation, my mother quietly told me it was time to shave. Now I was really disgusted. When had she seen my pits? Wasn't body hair a male thing? Didn't that stuff belong on my father's chest or my uncle's back? I can't say too much about hair before mentioning that mine - the stuff on my head - is curly and frizzy and it's the usual sob story of how weird-looking I was as a kid because I had this weird Jewish hair, and then of course, I grew to love it. Except only on my head.

The teen years were manageable - if you'll pardon the expression - in regard to hair. I could wear a bikini and reveal nothing; I could be groovy and shave or not shave my legs; my face was pristine, in regard to hair. The hair on my head became a matter of vanity. People complimented me for my natural curls, all long and wildish. I was a body hair virgin then. I thought I knew the meaning of the word hairy, but I hadn't a furry clue.

In my early twenties, a coupla hairs peeked out my bikini, but they were barely visible. At 27, I got pregnant. Coarse black hair sprouted all around what were once my thighs, and now, apparently, were a pair of brillo pad forests. Maybe small creatures would live in there. As my belly grew, so did the hair. Maybe I was going to give birth to a gorilla?

How ridiculous to be concerned about body hair. I went to a women's college. I had worn a menstruation bracelet to symbolize my oneness with womanhood. I had let the pit hair grow. (Never braided it.) Why could I not love my self in my natural state? Because my new self reminded me of a man, for crissake. A man named Larry! A man with hair on his stomach. Yes, it was on my belly, too, in a line from navel to crotch. I became a symbol of natural preganancy, womanhood, round and growing, yet dreading the sideburns and moustache that seemed like they might appear any day. I was utterly hair-phobic and pathetically acculturated. I was, truly, mortified. A man named Larry!

How are we supposed to accept this stuff if no one ever tells us? My mom told me a helluva lot more than her mom told her, but also - my mom is not hairy. My father is hairy. Hairy like Dad. Blech! Hairy like fucking Larry. Then comes the hair on my chin. I'm plucking wildly now. And the lowest point: hair on my otherwise lovely pale pink nipples. What an outrage. A humiliation, a shock. Every time I hear someone say 'that'll put hair on your chest,' I think don't bother, I've got it already. Of course I am so uptight about it I pluck those out. Because what if I forget and I go to the doctor or I remove my shirt in front of someone, and there, protruding from my nipple is a hair, a black, curly hair?! I'm shamed, I'm repressed, I shoulda been a fair-haired Swede. If you haven't figured it out yet, I am still, this very day, backwards in regard to my body hair. I'm luck a fucking Cosmo article, a Teen People, a guy named Larry.

About two years ago, the hair on my head started falling out. After a shower, I'd comb it, and there was this little swirly packet of hair. I panicked at some point, and my doctor told me I was peri-menopausal in my late thirties. I made a plan: save all waxed, shaved, plucked (oh the self-mutilation) and otherwise removed hair for later plastering on top of head. My hair's frizzy - some of it could definitelty pass for pubic hair. I knew of course that that would never work, but a girl can wish. A forty-year-old woman can wish.

I do, on rare occasion, accept all of my hairiness, in tiny philosophical winter all-covered moments of reflection on hirsutism. My hair does not fall out so much anymore, and I am an expert plucker. Besides, once my brothers became adults, they both got hairy too. So I can be hairy like my brothers instead of hairy like my dad. If my eyebrows meet I'll post it.