Hairless & Insecure
Image: Unsplash
Like most Tamil women, my relationship with body hair is entirely non-consensual. One day I was a prepubescent child, and as quickly as I became excited about developing my feminine curves, I was crushed by the onset of my thick, black, unwanted body hair. Dealing with Eurocentric beauty standards as a pre-teen girl is challenging enough. However, being South Asian, body hair creates an other-worldly level of embarrassment that’s rather difficult to hide as a child. As one of the few South Asians in my class, I remember rushing to the corner of the changerooms and switching outfits as quickly as possible to hide my sprouting stomach hair. However, I don’t need to delve into my childhood tales of trauma about getting bullied for my body or facial hair because, frankly, most Tamil women have been through the same thing. Building self-confidence is a turbulent journey that every woman can relate to, but visible body and facial hair combined with deeper complexions, as a young girl, truly made it feel impossible. Thus, the second I had any autonomy over my teenage body, I got rid of every last hair imaginable, every single opportunity I had.
This resulted in lots of experimentation with removing body hair from a young age, whether it was attempting to shave my own back for summer trips to the beach or accidentally burning my upper lip before my middle school dance. By the time I became sexually active in my later teen years, I was a certified professional at shaving and waxing my own body hair from my neck down to my toes. Like many South Asian households, my Tamil mother did not approve of removing body hair on intimate parts of the body, let alone intercourse. Thus, my sister and I became accustomed to learning and teaching each other ways to remove body hair in intimate and hard-to-reach places. Slowly but surely, my hair removal became almost obsessive. I felt like I couldn’t be around someone of the opposite sex without being completely rid of my body hair, as if someone would mistake me for anything other than a woman if I didn’t have my eyebrows done. My understanding of femininity was completely distorted.
“Building self-confidence is a turbulent journey that every woman can relate to, but visible body and facial hair combined with deeper complexions, as a young girl, truly made it feel impossible. Thus, the second I had any autonomy over my teenage body, I got rid of every last hair imaginable, every single opportunity I had. ”
While I wish this unnecessary insecurity was left behind in my teen years, little has changed as a woman in my mid-twenties. I remember being naked, laying down next to a man I was falling in love with, after being intimate, and found myself wondering what he was thinking. I could see him examining my body when he asked, ‘how do you do that? Is your entire body naturally hairless?’ I could feel my face heating up from embarrassment How did I manage to fool someone into thinking my smooth skin was somehow, natural? I suppose that was my intention but, what was I to do now? Would my meticulous body hair removal lead to me keeping up this charade as we get more serious about our intimate relationship? It seems ridiculous, but my juvenile insecurities about facial and body hair had now managed to become a part of my adult intimate relationships as well.
“I felt like I couldn’t be around someone of the opposite sex without being completely rid of my body hair, as if someone would mistake me for anything other than a woman if I didn’t have my eyebrows done. My understanding of femininity was completely distorted. ”
Insecurities in relation to beauty standards created by the West, are often common sources of trauma for women of colour. Brown women are forced to deal with harsh criticisms about body hair, despite all grown women having said body hair. Scientifically, most women grow body hair when reaching puberty or experiencing hormone fluctuations from events such as pregnancy or menopause, so why are we shamed for the natural cycle of our bodies? If anything, body hair is inherently apart of femininity. South Asian women are ridiculed openly for having dark or black body hair, while blond body hair is never mentioned. Yet another unsurprising Eurocentric bias among mainstream beauty standards. However, we’ve begun to see the emergence of women of colour on Instagram brazenly modelling their bare skin with its discolouration, body hair and scars in all their glory. I truly could not be more excited about this movement. I am personally still on this journey and not comfortable enough to show off the parts of my body that defy traditional beauty standards, but I desperately want to be, and these women are my heroes.
The reality is that we don’t know we should be insecure about something until someone tells us to be. I didn’t know body hair was considered unattractive until I was ridiculed for it. We are now living in an era where women of colour are no longer willing to accept or conform to the beauty standards that they are told they do not adhere to. I’m not telling anyone that hair removal is bad in practice or an unattainable beauty standard for that matter. I just want women to remember, particularly brown women to remember, that it’s your choice. You get to decide if your body hair is beautiful or something you want to remove. Don’t put your body through the labour of body hair removal unless it’s for you, and you only.
