to shave or not to shave…..
April 18th, 2008 Sassafras <div class=\"postavatar\">
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In sixth grade I stole my mother’s cheap pink plastic razor from the oak cabinet under her bathroom sink, quickly before she could notice i locked myself in the bathroom and promptly shaved off all my body hair. this was the first time I’d shaved, prior to this date I’d never really thought much about it but that afternoon a group of girls had cornered me in the field just beyond the swings and told me that girls did n’t have hairy legs. defensively i pulled down the edges of my shorts to cover what I had just learned were my inappropriately furry legs. As a middle school high femme bordering on bio queen I kept shaving before giving it up to embrace androgyny in high school. After coming out as a dyke I would periodically pick up an old razer from the medicine cabinet, carefully stashed behind aftershave, cologne, and cold meds. fondly i would hold the little piece of pink plastic and think about despite knowing that it was a tool of the patriarchy I couldn’t help but long for it. It would be years before I would be able ot come to terms with my own queered femininity, and it would be years before I could embrace the idea that I wanted to shave my legs.
I have found that the shaving is something that nearly every femme I know has grappled with at one time or another. Read the rest of this entry »
