Underarm hair.

You remember the astonishment when Hollywood A-lister Julia Roberts began waving to fans having not clearly shaved under there for, well, months.

‘Good on you, girl!’, I thought at the time, despite howls of protest from others -men, women marching to a patriarchal agenda– about how awful it looked. Wrong. It looked marvellous. A woman in command of her own body and body image, regardless of any stylist’s idea of how she should present herself.

Odd, isn’t it, how a little bit of underarm (or pubic) fluff can get some men so steamy under the collar! And, indeed, steamy in both ways. Most will loathe it. Some adore it.

Look, hair grows on women. On our legs. In our armpits. On our crotches!!!!!

Less than a year ago, the Daily Mail, Britain’s reactionary right-wing rag that passes for a newspaper, was chastising singer Pixie Lott for turning up for a premiere having ‘forgotten’ to shave under her arms.  Disappointingly, Pixie suggested it was an error, rather than fronting up and saying so what? Not that I’m about to criticise her for suggesting it was an error. It’s her body to present as she chooses. But I am ready, willing and able to criticise the odious Daily Mail for their fashion Nazi-ism and self-styled commentating and moral guardianship on the state of Britain (folks, if you’re reading this from outside the UK, be aware that all of Britain’s, and the world’s, ills may be laid firmly and squarely at the door of ‘foreigners’. Never mind that we, Brits, have had our culture broadened and deepened by exposure to other cultures, one of our favourite ‘British’ dishes being curry, something we appear to have got a taste for during the time of the Raj, with the word itself deriving from the Indian word ‘kari‘, Daily Mail correspondents can disregard the breadth of our culture, and where we got it all from, because it essentially comes down to the fault of ‘foreigners’).

Emer O’Toole, a graduate from Dublin, even had the ‘audacity’ to appear on morning television in the UK to admit that she hadn’t shaved under her arms for 18 months. Way to go, girl! Your body! Your choice! 🙂

(The interview is on youtube, here). Without decrying Emer’s ‘foil’ in the debate, Emer looks real, pale and lovely while her ‘foil’ looks ‘fake’ to a degree, an embodiment of women merely slavishly following fashion in terms of fake tan, fake hair colour. Again, it’s her choice, but from my own perspective I think it’s time we women stopped operating to a fashion industry’s demands and male expectations. Effectively, do we spend hours dying our hair, shaving our legs, armpits, genitals, applying fake tan for ourselves? Or others expectations of how we should look? I think many women might say ‘oh, I do it because I look good and feel good after the beauty process’. Wrong. We, or rather they, do it to feel good because a media and fashion industry are telling us that we can only look great by subscribing to the agenda they’re setting. Don’t know about you, but I feel good having rolled out of bed first thing in the morning with my hair all over the place and in desperate need of a shower and a good teeth cleaning. And I’m certainly happy enough to answer the door without having put a brush through my hair or had a shower.

Ella and I have had lengthy debates on this issue, both being interested in a soft feminism, a.k.a equal rights, while not being card-carrying militants. And I guess we’ve arrived at the conclusion that it’s not for others, in respect of matters like underarm (or pubic) hair to judge a person. Ella’s SL (and RL) preference is not to shave her pubic hair. I flip flop (in SL and RL) between a natural and shaved look. It’s not a major issue for us, ergo, it shouldn’t even be a minor issue for others.

Let’s get back to underarm hair.

Hop over to the marketplace, where you’ll find variants of it here.

Our model is wearing pnd underarm hair, purchased via the marketplace link provided, and a Nearly Tactile ‘man muff’.

I use the female variety of the ‘man muff’, but the male version is thicker and more…luxuriant. Diane is currently doing a photo shoot for a post I’ll probably entitle ‘you make me feel like a natural woman’ 🙂 which I hope to post next week, kind of Tuesday-Wednesday.

Pookes