1 History of an Obsession

I decided not to shave anymore.

      The deciding part is important: from puberty until that day, I’d spent a large part of my life not shaving, but there was no conscious decision to challenge anything behind it. Like so many women, I felt obliged to do so if my legs, armpits or groin were going to be on show in public, and I didn’t feel obliged to if nothing was going to be on show. After showering, I would play with the hair on my legs (always prickly from shaving them so often) and I’d think, ‘One of these days I have to shave’, and leave it until the hot weather came.

As a teenager, I would stare fascinated at the impeccable and seemingly smooth legs of friends and wonder how they did it. My hair was rebellious, abundant, black. Waxing wouldn’t pull it all out, and if I brushed my hand over the tender skin, still hot from the wax, I’d still be stubbly and not at all sensual. Within a few days, it would be the same as ever. Every time, the beautician promised that with this new technique I wouldn’t have to come back for a month, and every time it was a lie. When it was already undeniable that, yes, once again my legs were hairy, I’d don my trousers and avoid the beach until I ended up going back there: the torture of hot wax; red, sensitive skin; hair peeping out, threatening.

      Hair removal creams did leave my skin smooth, but it was an illusion that lasted barely a few hours. The hair grew even faster than with waxing and was more stubborn, as if enraged by the aggression. The other option, shaving my legs, was a long, tedious task. I would often cut myself and the itchy nicks would be with me until the itch of newly sprouting hair turned up.

My absolute failure when it came to keeping my hair in line was more than a practical failure condemning me to trousers and beach-less days: it was a clear failure of my femininity. I already felt like an impostor in the role of a girl: I performed the best I could for fear of becoming lost and finding myself even more alone than I already was, but I knew that the long locks and dresses were a lie that I was painfully sustaining. The fact that hair persisted in climbing up my legs, sprouting uncontrollably and ever more plentiful, and my inability to tame its stubborn bushiness were unequivocal signs that, no, I wasn’t a real woman.

      My mother said it was my fault. I wasn’t disciplined enough with waxing; I gave in too early to the razor. Actually, waxing was expensive; and my means as an adolescent, precarious. She had fine, light hair, and very little of it, and she only shaved once a year. Maybe if I had inherited that attribute from her, I wouldn’t have seen the need for questioning hair removal, seeking to free myself from it. The easier it is for us to conform to the canon, the less violent what it imposes on us seems. But conforming has never been my strong suit.

It took me a long time to realize that the ads for shaving products, in which a hairless woman shaves to remain hairless, were a farce, and what was happening to me happened to many other women. In fact, I discovered this when I was 17 or 18 and I began going to bed with women more liberated than me, who invited me to caress them without worrying whether they looked ‘presentable’ or not, who offered me their open cunts without even considering what I would say about their bikini line. I was upset by such a lack of concern; I was a little irritated that they didn’t play the game; I loved knowing they existed. I was profoundly shocked by the possibility of bodies that feel and vibrate and live beyond the norm, and I desired the strength to be one of them too. But while it was an important revelation, I didn’t stop trying to appear ‘normal’. Just if I was wearing a swimsuit or shorts. Just if I was wearing a dress. Just if I was undressing in front of someone for the first time. And so on, for many years, until the age of almost 40. Then, one day, I decided not to shave anymore.

Outwardly, practically nothing changed. The people with whom I shared a bed and intimacy were used to the bushiness of my groin, as intense and extensive and fragrant as desire itself. But I knew I’d decided not to shave, and this hair wasn’t circumstantial. It wasn’t an accident that had to be corrected as soon as possible, nor was it squatting on my skin. I’d labelled it a legitimate resident of my body, and I planned to allow it to accompany me in sickness and in health, to the swimming pool and to the beach, until death (ideally, not mine) us do part.

      The first day I left home in shorts with hair (lots of very long hair) on my legs, I felt absolutely vulnerable, yet euphoric. I didn’t know what would happen, but I was breaking a very rigid norm. A norm which I had invested time, money, sweat and tears in to uphold. I felt proud of my decision and, at the same time, ridiculous for the undeniable slightness of the gesture. Thousands of women every day fighting for noble causes – extremely noble, extremely important – and yet here I was, proud of showing a bit of hair.

      In the fluorescent light of the metro, my legs seemed even uglier than under the brilliant sun that June morning. I ran my hand over them, as if I wanted to smooth the hair. The woman sitting opposite stared at my legs, hypnotized. She pulled a face of surprise, or shame, when she noticed me looking at her, as if I’d caught her doing something bad. I pulled my legs back under the seat, hiding them as much as I could.

I’d left home thinking that, in that moment, finally, I was escaping gender norms and definitively stating my freedom to be who I was. But, rather than feeling euphoric and happy, I felt ugly and ashamed. The most important path, that of truly accepting myself as I am – not as a draft of the optimal version of myself, not in inverted commas, not accidentally because tomorrow I’ll shave – was just getting started. And the hair on my legs was only the tip of the iceberg.