My Personal Haircut

by Lynne Schmidt

I’m seven years old and naked in the shower. To my right is the typical things you’d find: shampoo, conditioner, soap. But there is also a pink single razor staring back at me. My sisters are both old enough to shave, and they ask my mother for new razors when theirs rust. Two years behind my older sister, I haven’t begun the rite of passage.

I know two things at this moment: I’m a girl, and because I’m a girl, I’m supposed to shave. But…what exactly am I supposed to shave? I look down at my prepubescent body. My leg hair is fairly stubby, but mostly invisible thanks to the blond hairs. I look to my arms, which kind of resemble a hairy monster. It’s like my body is telling me what’s right. For the next six months, I shave my arms because that’s what girls do.

Later, I was informed women shave their legs, so I left my arms alone and began doing what girls actually do. It wasn’t until late into middle school when my formerly blond pubic and armpit hair began to darken. I knew to shave my armpits, but no one ever said anything about my crotch hairs, so I left them alone.

Adventures and sexual escapes in high school never told me otherwise. Plus, I figured that if a guy had his hand down my pants, perhaps that should be the last thing to worry about. Adventures and sexual escapades in college would have guys tell me, “No one will ever go down on you if you have pubes,” yet their advice was wrong. The few guys who did give me oral sex never complained about my pubic hair cut, or lack thereof.

As a sophomore, I dated a timid yet beautiful blue eyed, dark haired boy. He’d never had a girlfriend before. As his hands began to dive into my pants, and mine into his, he stopped short. “Does my hair bother you?”

My hand stopped moving. I chuckled, surprised by the question. “No. Does mine bother you?”

“No.”

And like that, we continued along.

After feminists raved about The Vagina Monologues, I dragged a different significant other to a show. In the audience, I listened to a woman recount another woman’s story. Her husband was cheating, because “if she’d shaved down there, I’d find her more attractive.” Their couple’s therapist suggested shaving the wife, together. They did, and she bled. She recounted pieces of herself falling into her hands. It hurt her, but they continued despite when the razor would slip and injure her private area more.

In the end, she was shaved.

In the end, her husband still cheated.

Sitting in the audience as I heard this story, I made a promise to myself that I would never shave anything for a guy.

Still, when my body would be explored, and underwear would be moved to the side, my little black hairs would get caught, and tug, and hurt. So I began to experiment with my hair style, eventually settling on a “landing strip” and barely (but still there if I’m lazy) there under area. I didn’t look or feel like the seven year old girl lost and confused in the shower. Instead, I felt like the twenty-something-emerging-woman taking control of what I wanted my body to look like.

Adventures post-college would have guys hovering above me, mid thrust asking, “So, next time we do this, can you trim up a little bit?”

“Sure,” I’d answer, but I would remember The Vagina Monologues. I’d remember the promise I’d made to myself. If he’s still able to get off, my pubic hair should not be a big deal.

I have met and been with guys who have told me with and without clothes on I’m beautiful. I have been with guys who have manscaped themselves, and guys who’ve been hairy. I have been in unhealthy relationships where my significant other and I emotionally destroyed each other, and I have been in healthy relationships where we’ve pushed each other to do great things with our writing, our careers, our lives.

In the years since my pubic hair has grown in, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on whether or not I want to keep them there. I’ve continued to shave my legs, and my armpits, and from time to time chop my head-hair very short. I make these decisions. I decide if and when I want to shave or cut anything.

In the end, after I’ve had several men disparage me from keeping my little black hairs on my otherwise blond body, I’ve determined that it’s no one else’s decision to make but my own. If I am with a man who prefers me to look like an eleven year old girl, chances are I don’t actually want to be with him. If I’m with a man who truly values me, not just my body, he’ll accept all of my bodily hair styles, not try to push me into a hair cut I’m not comfortable with.

Unless, you know, he’s willing to get all of his hair waxed.