Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
I wound up chatting up this woman I met while working the front desk at the gym…I’d been crushing on her for a while, and finally worked up the courage to converse with her. And of course, she’d assumed that I was straight, and was asking me to get info on another woman who worked there. Story of my life. Luckily, I’m satisfied with Q, and wasn’t really looking for another main partner.
Anyways, at one point, the conversation (we also went out for dinner a few nights later) to body hair. She had said something in passing about being a dirty hippy, and that one of her indicators *had* been having armpit hair. However, her ex-girlfriend, as a “christmas present” or something of the sort, had gotten her electrolysis/hair removal for said hair.
This pissed me off. I mean, it’s one thing if you *have* hair you don’t want, and want it removed. I understand that. F had that done to her face, although she wound up getting burned. I CHOOSE to shave my vulvar area, etc. I don’t care one way or another about hair – Q has grown out her leg hair, and I LOVE running my fingers through it. She shaves her arm pits (as do I), and sometimes her vulvar region. Regardless, I love her, and her body, and her choices.
I would NEVER even dream of telling a friend OR partner what to do with their body hair; either to shave it/wax it, or to grow it. I support people in their choices, whatever they may be. And it, while none of my business, really bothered me that someone would, knowing that their partner enjoyed having armpit hair, “gift” them something to take it away. To me, it’s similar to giving a non-anally oriented partner a butt plug, or tickets to Taylor Swift to someone who hates country music.
People are always shocked to find that I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t care if the person I’m with eats meat. No, I won’t cook it for them, but if we’re out and they order chicken salad, so be it. I refuse to tell people the choices they “should” make. And it frustrates me that other people think giving entirely selfish gifts that ask someone to change as an ok thing. I mean, yes, I gave Q vampire gloves (and a rainbow necklace that she’d wanted) for graduation, but she LIKED my pair, and I decided it would be brilliant to have a pair at her house too. Yes, I reaped the benefits, but I wasn’t asking her to enjoy something I knew she wouldn’t.
Gah. This is written badly, I know. I’m just at a loss. Why would you do that to someone you cared about?
-Essin’ Em
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I wouldn’t hand someone an underarm razor when I already know they’ve made a choice or have a preference. To me that’s ignoring their decision. However, if I prefer a partner (for instance) without underarm hair, I see nothing wrong with ASKING my partner about it, as long as I’m prepared to graciously accept an answer of “no, I’m not going to change that”.
I find it very rude to try to change someone. I would be insulted. There are a lot of selfish people out there.
Maybe the girl you went to dinner with forgot to mention that her partner just didn’t like to deal with it but really wanted it gone. If not, what an absolutely horrible thing to do. Jerry hit it on the nose. There’s nothing wrong with asking, but telling someone this is what you need to do is absolutely horrible. I would be afraid of someone like that because they might have too much control or need to be in too much control for that sort of thing. BTW, I love your blog! Thanks so much for writing it!!!
I…. just can’t imagine doing that. Yes, my personal aesthetic is hairless armpits, but so what? That means I shave my armpits. Anyone else’s armpits (or crotch, or legs, or where-the hell-ever) are theirs to do what they like with and I won’t be telling anyone to change that just because of what I like on myself.
I guess it’s a good thing the person who did this to that woman is an ex. Sheesh.
Because people suck and are mean to each other even when they are pretending they are not.
Was it clear from the conversation that the present was all her ex-girlfriend’s idea? The only way I could imagine this being even marginally okay would be if she had at some point said “you know, I’d really like my armpit hair totally removed eventually” and the ex-girlfriend thought “aha! present idea!” But it sounds like that wasn’t the case, in which case that’s a really terrible thing to do to a partner, or anyone for that matter.
This post is full of win. It’s one thing to admit that you are not attracted to your partner and are not compatible for some reason or another, but it’s another to try and underhandedly imply that your partner should fit themselves more to your ’standards.’ Especially if it’s something as silly as body hair.
I mean, I don’t find underarm hair attractive at all, so I don’t date women with it; that doesn’t mean they’re bad or anything, that’s just my personal preference. But would I ever bitch about a woman having underarm hair? Um, no. It’s perfectly natural and it’s her choice, regardless of whether or not it gets my rocks off.
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I don’t think the post is badly written – I totally get what you mean and I agree with you! I know that I’m anal about a lot of things and am sometimes in the situation where I might put other people on the spot to do something (especially when it comes to cleaning), but I try really hard to avoid that. I would, however, never try to get someone to do something they don’t want to do – especially when I am very aware of the fact that they don’t want to do something or that they feel comfortable the way they are.