Body hair, woo!

[sorcyress]

ETA: At any rate, I have this working camera, and this working webcam, and this flickr pro account, and I really *should* be using those things to make a lot more posts with pictures attached. Because pictures are pretty awesome.

So here, have a snap of me showing off my hair, and making a hand gesture that I also made at least twice and possibly as many as four times in my senior yearbook. Sorry, mom.



So, I swear this isn't turning into an angry-feminist-blog. There are some very good ones of those already, and I'm too shy to compete. But everything that's been clicking in as actual posts has been all angry and feministy lately, so that's what you get.

At any rate, I was bored, and wandered into Amanda Palmer's blog, which I really should read regularly. Her most recent entry talks about going to the Golden Globes with her fiancee, Neil Gaiman, and how she wore this cute little dress, and didn't shave her armpits.

And how she wound up on all these fashion sites, and OH MY GOD SHE WENT THE THE GOLDEN GLOBES WITHOUT SHAVING FIRST!

Perhaps I haven't made the grave seriousness of this situation clear enough.

OH.
MY.
GOD!

Like, how dare she not shave her armpits!

And, so, apparently this chica Mo'nique showed up to the GGs with unshaven legs, which she brazenly showed off¹. I'm reading an article about Mo'nique and her legs, which includes the incredibly awesome line:

During a 2006 appearance on U.S. talk show The View, she told host Barbara Walters:
'I must show America what a real leg looks like … because it's too much in the morning, every morning, to shave, to cut, you got Band-aids baby.'²

And so I keep reading, smiling that someone famous gets that you don't have to be hairless to be gorgeous, and I get to *this* line in the article:

Thankfully though she did admit to shaving her armpit hair to avoid what she called "stink".

...thankfully?
...thankfully

Yes, thank *fucking* god she gets rid of the hair under her arms. Anything else would be freaky! And definitely stinky, because there is no way to make your armpits not stink except by shaving off all the hair, nu-uh, nope, no way. Which is why every boy in the history of ever³ smells like a stinky thing every time they raise their hands above their head.

...hang on. That can't possibly be right, now can it?

At any rate, this is about when I take to the twitters, with loud angry-feminist tweets. Most importantly, I be all "dear world, there are things called showers and deodorant that make your armpits not smell, OHMYGOD SHOCKING I KNOW!" Unfortunately, I don't think the people who read my twitter are the ones who need to be hit with the cluebat, but there we go.

So yeah. Morals of this story are!

• Amanda Palmer is awesome, hot, and is comfortable with her body, which is superdoubleplushot


• I am awesome, hot, and sometimes comfortable with my body, but
  certainly comfortable with my body hair, which I suppose gets me a whatever, depending on your stances on such.


• If you have a sense of basic hygiene, your armpits shouldn't smell


• Body hair on people is not the end of the world oh shit oh my god.


• If such and such is not your type, don't bitch about everything you consider wrong with them and how they're not pretty enough for you. Just stop looking at them and move on. (ohmygod, how revolutionary)


• This Mo'nique⁵ person warrants further research, because seriously, I love her forever based off two lines in an interview (and okay maybe because she has kickass curves and I'm jealous)


• This is not actually a particularly coherent angry feminist post, but that's okay. Sometimes I just need to be ranty.

YAY!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY FUCKING YAY I AM SO HAPPY THAT SOMEONE LIKE THAT WINS AWARDS! I LOVE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WHO BEAUTIFUL IN SOME OF THE SAME WAYS I AM BEAUTIFUL

2: SERIOUSLY SO HAPPY HERE!

3: Yes, I'm well aware some boys shave their body hair. That's cool, if it's what they want to do. Which behooves me to note that, whatever you want to do with your body hair is okay by me; this is one of those things I am really quite mellow about. Do whatever makes you happy, or, if you roll that way⁴, your SO(s) happy. Don't bother anyone else about their choice and everyone will just be fine.

4: Which is to say, if you honestly don't have an opinion, and your SO does, and you're willing to do it for them. Not because they demand it of you. Demand is not generally cool.

5: *GLEE AND HAPPY!*

Comments

[erikakaiser.livejournal.com]

I actually have to agree with the armpit hair thing -- I don't shave, but I do shave my armpits every now and then because I work out, box, and go to spin class, and clean-shaven armpits get rid of sweat easier. So, yeah, hairy armpits do smell worse.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Okay, and sure, maybe shaved does tend to equal less stinky than unshaved.

But just because hairy can small worse, doesn't mean that they necessarily one hundred percent smell bad. I seem to get by fairly well with regular showers and good deodorant. If I shaved, maybe I wouldn't have to use the deodorant every day or something. *shrugs*

~Sor

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is the double standard. Men aren't supposed to shave their armpits; women are. Does that mean unshaved men stink less than unshaved women? Men are allowed to stink, so it's okay that they don't shave? We should start scolding men for not shaving as well?

Showers and deodorant generally do the job of odor control for both genders, regardless of hairiness. The real reason for the norm is aesthetic, and anyone who wants to buck societal standards of beauty should be allowed to without being made to feel that they're going to start stinking up the place.