Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bridget and you're listening the stuff mom
Speaker 1: never told you. And on today's show, we're dealing with
Speaker 1: the topic you might have a little bit of firsthand
Speaker 1: info about, and that is Bush. No, not our former president.
Speaker 1: We're talking hubic hair. That's right, Buckle up. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be even more interesting, I think than if we were
Speaker 1: to do a podcast on George Bush, George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: both of the Bush, any of them were talking about
Speaker 1: a lot of different Bush to Bush in general, Sophia, George,
Speaker 1: all of them, all the Bushes. Um, So this is
Speaker 1: the topic that I have a lot of personal connection to. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen me in a tank top, you
Speaker 1: probably already know the drill. I don't really do a
Speaker 1: lot of body hair grooming, and I don't feel the
Speaker 1: need to apologize for that. Was that always the case
Speaker 1: for um? Yeah, It's interesting because a lot of people
Speaker 1: assume that I don't do a lot of body hair
Speaker 1: grooming because I'm a super ultra mega radical feminist. And
Speaker 1: I actually let them think this. So when people are like, man,
Speaker 1: you and those hairy armpits, you're such a radical feminist,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, I really, I really am. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is a continuation of the question is
Speaker 1: my hair a feminist statement? It is. This is like
Speaker 1: a part two of that episode of Ways body Hair Edition,
Speaker 1: Body Hair Edition. So we're talking about body hair down
Speaker 1: there and armpits, leg hair, you name it, you name it.
Speaker 1: And I think, for myself my body hair choices, I
Speaker 1: actually don't think of them as like political feminist choices.
Speaker 1: I oftentimes let people think that if it makes me
Speaker 1: seem cooler, but in actuality, I'm pretty lazy. Um. I
Speaker 1: have very sensitive skin. I grew up in a household
Speaker 1: where shaving just wasn't a huge part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Like my mom used to tell me that dark skin,
Speaker 1: you don't need to shave your body hair, and I
Speaker 1: just sort of took that as fact. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's one of those rules of life that I'm that
Speaker 1: I will absorb and make my own stuff your black mom. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I love it. Um. And Also I went to you know,
Speaker 1: I went to all girls high school where leg shaving
Speaker 1: and really just general hygiene was not a huge part
Speaker 1: of our day to day as we talked about on
Speaker 1: the school uniform exactly exactly, So all of those things
Speaker 1: kind of added up. And also I think I once
Speaker 1: thought about it. My thought, Gee, if I'm not that
Speaker 1: into shaving my arm pit, shading my legs, all of that,
Speaker 1: If it takes maybe ten minutes to do it and
Speaker 1: you do it every other day, that actually adds up.
Speaker 1: It's like, what a lot of time hour a week.
Speaker 1: I think about that every time I do my makeup,
Speaker 1: because how much time do you spend on it? Because
Speaker 1: like a lot of these personal grooming choices, you have
Speaker 1: to weigh the cost of the time you spend grooming
Speaker 1: yourself with you could be doing otherwise, how you could
Speaker 1: be learning or growing or growing your network or something
Speaker 1: in some other capacity, anything you could be doing with
Speaker 1: your time. But I feel like this issue, just like makeup,
Speaker 1: comes down to personal preference. When is it empowering versus
Speaker 1: one is it patriarchy? Absolutely could not agree more. For me,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh am I going to spend an
Speaker 1: hour a week to basically give myself a rash no
Speaker 1: thank you because my skin is very sensitive. But I
Speaker 1: actually have a lot of friends who for them like
Speaker 1: their makeup time in the morning. That is their favorite
Speaker 1: part of the day when they do where they can
Speaker 1: really express themselves. And all of that. And so if
Speaker 1: it's worth it for you, if you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: personal grooming thing, this hour a day it takes me
Speaker 1: actually makes me happy or fulfills me in some way,
Speaker 1: I should go for it. But I do think it's
Speaker 1: like it comes down to where you personally draw that line.
Speaker 1: I don't think society should be the thing that tells
Speaker 1: you know, you need to spend an hour a day
Speaker 1: shaving your legs doing your makeup. If that doesn't drive
Speaker 1: with what you want to actually be doing. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like who are you performing for? Right? And I
Speaker 1: only use makeup as an example here, knowing it's very
Speaker 1: different than body hair. But I also sometimes feel like
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling very sick, for instance, versus if Brad
Speaker 1: the Booze feeling very sick and looking terrible, I can
Speaker 1: put makeup all over my face and I can pretend
Speaker 1: like I'm not looking and feeling terrible, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I almost think of it as, oh, I
Speaker 1: can I can play with this stereotype is double standard
Speaker 1: and make it work for me. And when with body hair,
Speaker 1: tell me there was a time when someone said something
Speaker 1: to you like WHOA you don't shave. We're did like,
Speaker 1: you must have gotten some shade at some point in
Speaker 1: your life when when people pushed back on your personal choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have. That's that's real. Actually, in just preparing for
Speaker 1: this episode, I was sitting in my favorite bar, red Derby,
Speaker 1: typing away on my laptop and some chatty guy is like, oh,
Speaker 1: what are you working on? Like doing work in a bar?
Speaker 1: What you got there? And I said, oh, I'm researching
Speaker 1: for a podcast. And he said what's your podcast episode
Speaker 1: going to be about? And I said women and body hair.
Speaker 1: And in our conversation he basically revealed, oh, this was
Speaker 1: someone who I think was flirting with me. Just to
Speaker 1: be like clear in this conversation, he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I saw a girl who didn't shave, I would
Speaker 1: never date her. And I was wearing like a turtle
Speaker 1: mac and jeans, so I was like, oh, a little
Speaker 1: does he know under this turtleneck, I'm very hair. What
Speaker 1: do you think you were preparing to podcast about? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, what's great, ladies, let's all shave everything all
Speaker 1: the time. Just to align with this one dude's expectation, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you think you're going to keep talking about
Speaker 1: exactly that I've at other times, particularly when I'm wearing
Speaker 1: tank tops, where I'll lift my arms and I can
Speaker 1: Usually people don't say anything, but I've seen people. You've
Speaker 1: seen the I dart. Yeah, I've seen people see it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times when it's men, they don't
Speaker 1: know how to respond. They're like, I saw a hair
Speaker 1: on a nern armpit. Oh my god. Their eyes go
Speaker 1: they get very wide eyes. He's like, don't say anything,
Speaker 1: don't say anything, don't say I can tell they're trying
Speaker 1: not to look and they're trying not to think about it,
Speaker 1: but they definitely are women. Women amount of times will say,
Speaker 1: oh cool, you don't shave your pit. I've actually been
Speaker 1: complimented on my arm put hair by women. That's so funny.
Speaker 1: So last summer I spent just about a month up
Speaker 1: on Brad's family farm, which is the most secluded place
Speaker 1: I could think of going, which is internet free. They
Speaker 1: don't even have the option of having internet. That's how
Speaker 1: like out in the middle of nowhere. This place is
Speaker 1: in upstate New York. Because I was writing my book,
Speaker 1: which more news on that front later. But so I
Speaker 1: spent about two weeks up on the farm just getting
Speaker 1: this book out of my head, which was quite the
Speaker 1: intellectual binge of writing. I put everything else in my
Speaker 1: business on hold for two weeks. It was awesome. And
Speaker 1: then I took my little sister Isabelle on her week
Speaker 1: long backpacking trip that I had had organized for her
Speaker 1: as her gift for high school graduation. So she and
Speaker 1: I did a whole section of the Long Trail in Vermont.
Speaker 1: We went Hut to Hut. We carried a tent with us,
Speaker 1: but we never had to use is it because we
Speaker 1: crushed all of our daily mileage goals and got to
Speaker 1: these like shelters, these pretty rustic lodgings in the woods,
Speaker 1: hours ahead of our schedule, and so we never had
Speaker 1: to pitch attend. But throughout the course of that entire month,
Speaker 1: I was just me and my dog and my little sister.
Speaker 1: Like that was it in terms of exposure to human beings.
Speaker 1: Um sometime with the booze parents and sometime with strangers
Speaker 1: on the trail who did not give about what you
Speaker 1: were shaving or not shaving. So I took that opportunity
Speaker 1: to just not shave anything for a month. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, only when I stopped shaving everything for
Speaker 1: a month, did I realize, Wow, it has been well
Speaker 1: over a decade since I've ever gone this long without shaving,
Speaker 1: Because I had basically started shaving after one summer camp
Speaker 1: experience when all the girls were shaving and I was
Speaker 1: like the only girl that hadn't shaved anything. And I
Speaker 1: came home from camp with no hair on my leg
Speaker 1: and like, hit it. I hit it from my mom.
Speaker 1: How old were you when? And I hit it from
Speaker 1: my mom who would like definitely would not have approved.
Speaker 1: And then one day she found out, like she noticed
Speaker 1: while she was like forcing me into like slathering on
Speaker 1: lotion after a bath or something, She's like, you have
Speaker 1: to lotion up. You don't want dry skin, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I remember feeling like I've done
Speaker 1: something really bad, and I like secretly started shaving. And
Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh my god, I'm almost thirty years old.
Speaker 1: I've never gone a month without shaving since I was fourteen. Wow,
Speaker 1: that could not be more different from my own experience.
Speaker 1: The last time I shaved my legs was literally the
Speaker 1: White House Correspondence Center of the Obama administration. That's the
Speaker 1: last time it's happened. Well, to be fair, there was
Speaker 1: another time, because I remember this came up when we
Speaker 1: were first starting to serve as co host for Stuff
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You, which was a super exciting time.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, the network sent us on a little
Speaker 1: like tour of DC with that video team and the photographers,
Speaker 1: and you were talking about, oh my god, I can't
Speaker 1: believe I'm not going to like not shave for a
Speaker 1: photo shoot because it was summer and arms were going
Speaker 1: to be out and legs are gonna be out, and
Speaker 1: you made the call then well, I shaved my pits
Speaker 1: not my legs, all right? Yeah? Were you feeling? Was it? Then?
Speaker 1: Maybe there was a conversation about, like I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little like should I have shaved? I felt like I
Speaker 1: was happy that I shaved my arm pits, but I
Speaker 1: regretted not shaving my legs. Yes, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: So why So that's the discordance that I'm curious about
Speaker 1: because there seems like there definitely is pressure for all
Speaker 1: women to shave, for sure, and you feel that I
Speaker 1: feel it when it comes to my physical the way
Speaker 1: that I physically present. I think I've just gotten to
Speaker 1: a place where I just do what I want right,
Speaker 1: Like I know there's pressure. I get it. It's tough
Speaker 1: to navigate, but I think I've just sort of taken
Speaker 1: myself out of that. And I will also say that
Speaker 1: I have my eye when I was waxed and my chin,
Speaker 1: basically my entire face waxed, right because I of PCOS.
Speaker 1: And if you know what that is, it means that
Speaker 1: you oftentimes have a hairy face. And so if I
Speaker 1: didn't get my eyebrows wax, I would look like free
Speaker 1: to Carlo, that's not that that's a bad thing, right,
Speaker 1: she was pretty bomb, she was pretty great. This is
Speaker 1: polycystical variance, right, Yeah, which where I mean Warren's an
Speaker 1: episode of itself because so many women I know are
Speaker 1: dealing with PCOS. I saw you tweet about this on
Speaker 1: your hilarious twitter feed. What did you say that soliciting
Speaker 1: When you go to s salant and you're there to
Speaker 1: get your eyebrows done, and the woman I swear every
Speaker 1: song they do this, they say mustache to question, like
Speaker 1: like it's a question, and it's not a question of
Speaker 1: do you want your upper lip wax? It's that mustache
Speaker 1: that you have you want me to take care of that.
Speaker 1: I swear one day, I'm gonna say no, I'd like
Speaker 1: the mustache styled please. I mean, that's just I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're like immediate response was like mustache, Like what mustache?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? But that's like purposefully I
Speaker 1: think they do it. I think it's good marketing. Really
Speaker 1: make you think that you have a mustache, whether you
Speaker 1: do or don't, to see how okay you want me
Speaker 1: to take care of that mustache for you. For the record,
Speaker 1: I might have a little bit of a mustache. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. That's the thing. If there's one thing
Speaker 1: that I want this episode to underscore is that bodies
Speaker 1: are hairy, and body hair is okay. Why do we
Speaker 1: live in a society where even an advertisement for razors
Speaker 1: for women, they shave an already shaved leg. They don't
Speaker 1: shave a hairy leg, even an advertisement for razors. Think
Speaker 1: about horror movies where the scenario is that it's the
Speaker 1: end of the world. They're being you know, tailed by,
Speaker 1: zombies are living out in the woods. Whatever, Where are
Speaker 1: these women finding time to shave their bits? You just
Speaker 1: think about my mind. We live in a world that
Speaker 1: doesn't even illustrate that body hair for feminine identified folks
Speaker 1: is a thing, and that's wild bonkers. It's really it
Speaker 1: really is. It's when you start seeing it. It's rewear.
Speaker 1: You just blew my mind with the shaving commercial about it.
Speaker 1: They shave already shaven leg. And that's how unusual it
Speaker 1: is to see body hair in society that they shave
Speaker 1: already shaved leg. You can't even show a hairy leg
Speaker 1: and a goddamn razor. Well, it just goes to show
Speaker 1: you how uncomfortable the world is with hairy women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard out there for us, Harry ladies. Well, it's
Speaker 1: like so unpalatable. It's like they can't this isn't something
Speaker 1: that can be seen. Really deal with it, body hair,
Speaker 1: body hair, deal with it. But you'd actually be surprised,
Speaker 1: I mean, particularly when it comes to pubic hair. That
Speaker 1: attitude is a little bit of an anomaly saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just have my hair the way I wanted
Speaker 1: and people can just deal with it. We'll dive it
Speaker 1: more into the statistics on why that is after a
Speaker 1: quick break and we're back and we were just talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about how body hair is so unpalable
Speaker 1: in our culture. We really don't even really see it.
Speaker 1: So how did we get here? Well, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: bridget body hair removal wasn't really that big of a
Speaker 1: deal until the nineteen forties, at which time bathing suits
Speaker 1: started to get a little smaller instead of a complete coverage,
Speaker 1: as we know in the Nipples episode. Really men and
Speaker 1: women's bathing suit trends came up there too, As more
Speaker 1: of our bodies were on public display, hair removal not
Speaker 1: only on legs but along the bikini line became more
Speaker 1: of a concern, And we promised y'all at the top
Speaker 1: of this episode we're gonna be talking about bush Embrace
Speaker 1: yourselves because here it comes. That's when having no body
Speaker 1: hair on your bikini line became associated with femininity and
Speaker 1: being presentable in public on beaches. So that's when people
Speaker 1: really started to be concerned with the appearance of their
Speaker 1: bikini line. But really, not much was going on underneath
Speaker 1: a bikini in terms of hair removal until later on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: women tended to still have pretty full hair despite the
Speaker 1: fact that they trimmed their bikini lines to get into
Speaker 1: these much smaller bathing suits. Lady Escaping, Lady Escaping a
Speaker 1: little bit of that what's going on. And in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, if you've ever picked up and dusted off
Speaker 1: an old Playboy, you know that full Bush was king
Speaker 1: for a long queen, I should say, fuld Bush reigned strongly,
Speaker 1: especially in the seventies. By the time that ninety two
Speaker 1: iconic porno Deep Throat came out, women still tended to
Speaker 1: be as harry as men between their legs, which as
Speaker 1: someone who has seen that movie, I can't confirm, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of hair. There's also like mustaches and
Speaker 1: like curly froze, a lot of hair, a hair, and
Speaker 1: there's a very chest hair time. Like I feel like
Speaker 1: the seventies were all about, you know, hippie sheek. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the musical hair right like, this was
Speaker 1: a time when hair was celebrated, when oh natural makes
Speaker 1: Day's organic movement look really uptight exactly. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four that things changed a little bit. That
Speaker 1: years when you had Hustler magazine publishing their first quote
Speaker 1: unquote pink shop. Weird name. Never heard that term until
Speaker 1: this epode, I had never heard it either, But it's
Speaker 1: one of those terms that as soon as you hear
Speaker 1: it I knew exactly what they meant. Without even finishing
Speaker 1: the sentence, I said, pink shop, all right, get it.
Speaker 1: I get what they're insinuating there um. And in case
Speaker 1: you have not picked up on that, that was the
Speaker 1: first entirely pubic hair free woman in Hustler. Still today,
Speaker 1: pubic hair grooming is very much in in the United States,
Speaker 1: according to a study published by researchers from you See
Speaker 1: San Francisco's Department on Obstetrics and Ecology and Reproductive Sciences
Speaker 1: and Department of Urology. Women here in the United States
Speaker 1: increasingly are grooming their pubic hair for cosmetic purposes. But
Speaker 1: this trend seems to appear amongst specific demographics of women,
Speaker 1: in particular young white women. Yeah, so my mom was
Speaker 1: kind of right on this one way to go stuff.
Speaker 1: Your black mom ever told you right on the money.
Speaker 1: White women are more likely to remove their pubic hair,
Speaker 1: so are younger women and more educated women, and they're
Speaker 1: more likely to report that they were grooming if they
Speaker 1: feel that this is what their partner wants. What is
Speaker 1: your theory behind this, because I'm sure you have one
Speaker 1: like I have my own, But what do you think
Speaker 1: is the reason behind, younger, whiter, more educated. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I do think it has something
Speaker 1: to do with how we're raised. I think back to
Speaker 1: my mom just sort of casually saying, if you have
Speaker 1: dark skinned you don't need to shave anything. People really
Speaker 1: can't even see the hair. I think that's part of it.
Speaker 1: I also think that it has to do with peer groups.
Speaker 1: Like it didn't surprise me when you said that you
Speaker 1: first started shaving your legs when you went to summer
Speaker 1: camp being in a you know, a bunk or what
Speaker 1: happ you with a bunch of girls you're same age,
Speaker 1: and sort of picking up on the fact that, oh,
Speaker 1: fourteen year old girls shaved their legs. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: sort of is rite of passage. But instead of me
Speaker 1: having that moment with my mom, I was the weird girl,
Speaker 1: like in sixth grade who didn't have a sports bra
Speaker 1: on when you want to change the gym. You know,
Speaker 1: my mom was so latey fair, she was a total
Speaker 1: hippie about everything. But I never got the memo and
Speaker 1: I always felt like kind of left out, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was definitely a peer pressure situation when it
Speaker 1: came to shaving. But I think This has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with privilege, because a pubic hair maintenance is
Speaker 1: expensive as hell. Brazilian bikini waxing expensive as hell, right,
Speaker 1: and on top of that, like we know, we all know,
Speaker 1: shaving down there is not the best it's not the
Speaker 1: most advised situation with ingrown hairs and whatnot. So I
Speaker 1: just think that I don't know when I when I
Speaker 1: read younger, whiter, and more educated, it was like, those
Speaker 1: are the times in your life, like young, white, more
Speaker 1: educated women are the ones who are going to justify
Speaker 1: that kind of an expense, you know what I mean, Like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm young, I haven't thought about budgeting for my retirement yet.
Speaker 1: I'm more educated, so I might have more privilege going
Speaker 1: for me in terms of income. And I'm white, So
Speaker 1: all of the above times a bunch, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I just feel like there's a bit of
Speaker 1: performative privilege that goes into maintaining your pubic care as
Speaker 1: being an important thing. Yeah, I think that's probably right.
Speaker 1: And I think that even this buying a razor if
Speaker 1: you're a woman can be more expensive than it is
Speaker 1: if you're a man, because it's pinks w has to
Speaker 1: costs x amount more. Um, I think there's something to that.
Speaker 1: I just think it's one of those things where from
Speaker 1: an early age I was not socialized that body hair
Speaker 1: grooming was an important thing to worry about in the
Speaker 1: scheme of things. And I think that it's interesting that
Speaker 1: a lot of my classmates, because we were all girls
Speaker 1: and an all girls school, also didn't shade. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if I had been in a public school, a
Speaker 1: co ed school, things would have been different. I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember in my public high school there was this like
Speaker 1: weird rumor that I don't know why any of us
Speaker 1: were talking about this, but somehow had gotten around. This
Speaker 1: is like back in the day when every sex act
Speaker 1: was so new to us, as like this was probably
Speaker 1: middle school actually not even high school, that like anytime
Speaker 1: anyone hooked up in any capacity, it like became the
Speaker 1: gossip fodder of the next Monday morning. And I remember
Speaker 1: hearing this story of this guy who was dating this
Speaker 1: girl in our public school asking her if she would
Speaker 1: take care of the hair because they were hooking up
Speaker 1: and he wasn't into like her bush. And that's something
Speaker 1: became like public knowledge in my high school that she
Speaker 1: had to clean it up. Down there, you know, for
Speaker 1: the sake of his preference. If that's you, when you're listening,
Speaker 1: please call into the show. I have so many questions.
Speaker 1: Don't don't. Don't so embarrassed that I ever heard that
Speaker 1: about you. But yes, I mean, that really does jive
Speaker 1: with the research that men are much more likely than
Speaker 1: women to ask their partner or expect their partner to
Speaker 1: do that kind of grooming. So her experience, as mortifying
Speaker 1: as that sounds, actually jives with some of the things
Speaker 1: that we've seen the research around this issue. According to
Speaker 1: the study from the Journal of Sexual Medicine, both men
Speaker 1: and women prefer a partner who does a little maintenance
Speaker 1: down there, but men are much more likely to prefer
Speaker 1: a partner who removes all body hair. Sixty percent of
Speaker 1: men prefer a partner that is hair free compared to
Speaker 1: women who prefer a hair free dude. Wow. And it's
Speaker 1: important for us to point out that this was a
Speaker 1: survey of a thousand people who were mostly heterosexual and
Speaker 1: mostly white, so you know, they're not really taking into
Speaker 1: considerations same sex couples experiences. But it's interesting that, first
Speaker 1: of all, of women prefer a dude that's fully shaved.
Speaker 1: Interesting all I have that I almost don't want to
Speaker 1: say this because I know that the all right, I
Speaker 1: almost don't want to say this because the person that
Speaker 1: I'm talking about listens to the show, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: that you will recognize himself in this anecdote. So sorry
Speaker 1: that I'm telling a bunch of people. But he told
Speaker 1: me that he grooms completely down there because he thinks
Speaker 1: it makes him look bigger. That's definitely a thing you think. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely assumption. Right. It's like a way
Speaker 1: to play um like visual tricks, like an optical illusion.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's no hair. It's huge, enormous exactly
Speaker 1: works every time I can really get the scope of
Speaker 1: how big it is about the hair. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I think this is a to do with porn. So basically,
Speaker 1: the authors of the study found that the prevalence of
Speaker 1: fully waxed women in pornography are linked to the prevalence
Speaker 1: of waxing amongst younger, white, or more educated women. In fact,
Speaker 1: they found that women younger than the age of twenty
Speaker 1: four were significantly more likely to have opted for a
Speaker 1: Brazilian or a full shave, particularly if they were white
Speaker 1: in college educated. That doesn't surprise me at all. And
Speaker 1: I've often wondered about the ways that porn is really
Speaker 1: influenced how we see how men and women are supposed
Speaker 1: to look down there. Yeah, I wonder if you think
Speaker 1: do you think it has anything to do with the
Speaker 1: recency of your pubic hair, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like when you're younger, the majority of your life was
Speaker 1: spent without hair down there, and now you're, like in
Speaker 1: your early twenties just getting used to it. Still are
Speaker 1: like later in your teens, are just getting used to
Speaker 1: it and haven't fully gotten to the point. Like you
Speaker 1: said at the top of this episode, I've just taken
Speaker 1: myself out of that, you know, public expectation. It's almost
Speaker 1: like you've gotten to know your own body better, right,
Speaker 1: You respect how your own body wants to show up
Speaker 1: in this world, you know, and you're not going to
Speaker 1: hold yourself up to a standard of what you see
Speaker 1: in porn for starters or some weird warped version of
Speaker 1: a youthful girl who doesn't have any hair down there.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I wonder if that's length as well. Well. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's a perfect segue into something that I found really
Speaker 1: fascinating from this topic, which is shame. According to the research,
Speaker 1: shane can sometimes have a lot to do with why
Speaker 1: a woman chooses to groom down there or not. According
Speaker 1: to something called the Female Genital Self Image Scale or
Speaker 1: the f g S I S, which is a scale
Speaker 1: put together by researchers from the University of Indiana and
Speaker 1: the University of Texas, the drive to groom once the
Speaker 1: pubic area can be linked to shame for women. According
Speaker 1: to one of the researchers from the University of Indiana,
Speaker 1: she writes, there's this very real sense of shame if
Speaker 1: you don't have your genitals prepared. I get that. I
Speaker 1: totally get that. Would I'm on the road for a
Speaker 1: week at a time, I don't shave at all, and
Speaker 1: then the night before I come home, I'll shave my body,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's definitely performative still, so
Speaker 1: I just want to make it clear that I don't
Speaker 1: think that makes me a bad feminist. But there's also
Speaker 1: an angle to this, which is like fully aware that
Speaker 1: there's a performative component to body hair. As women, I
Speaker 1: think that we are taught to be ashamed about a
Speaker 1: lot of our body to smells, hairs, moles, freckles, like
Speaker 1: all kinds, all kinds of things we are taught to
Speaker 1: be ashamed of, and so I almost wonder if it's
Speaker 1: this internal thing where when you don't when you aren't groomed,
Speaker 1: it's just internalized that there has to be some sort
Speaker 1: of shame linked with that. Yeah, definitely, I mean to
Speaker 1: be fair, I kind of was amazed with my own
Speaker 1: body after that month on the farm. I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: check this out, Brad and I met up with him
Speaker 1: after really being apart for like four weeks, and I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, look at the hair under my arm
Speaker 1: fits right now, Like, look at my legs. I was
Speaker 1: sort of like fascinated, which I'm sure is not the
Speaker 1: intent if that's like your default, So I hope that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound I'm knowing. I was just amazed at my
Speaker 1: own body, and I was like, check this out, dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you let stuff grow, it's kind of surprising how
Speaker 1: how my how your garden grows exactly exactly. Something I
Speaker 1: found really sad from the research that they did at
Speaker 1: the University of Indiana on what they call the Genital
Speaker 1: Self Image Scale. One of the researchers were called that
Speaker 1: she was talking about body hair with a group of
Speaker 1: students and during one of her class discussions, a male
Speaker 1: students said he had never seen a pubic hair on
Speaker 1: a woman in real life and that if he ever
Speaker 1: came across it, he would walk out the door. So again,
Speaker 1: I think this idea of what we see in porn,
Speaker 1: what you see in media shame, it all kind of
Speaker 1: gets into one kind of untanglable ball that leads to
Speaker 1: having people not even sort of recognized body hair as
Speaker 1: a thing that grows on our bodies. Yea for women,
Speaker 1: for women, and it's so gendered. Yeah, that sucks. The
Speaker 1: other thing that was really sad about that scale is
Speaker 1: the link that researchers found between women's feelings about their
Speaker 1: own genitals, that sort of self image in that region
Speaker 1: of our bodies being directly linked to their enjoyment of sex.
Speaker 1: So if you're not feeling good about how you're presenting
Speaker 1: down there based on all of these unrealistic expectations in
Speaker 1: porn or wherever, then you're going to enjoy sex less.
Speaker 1: And that's because even when I don't feel like the
Speaker 1: sexiest version of myself, you don't want that to get
Speaker 1: in the way of your enjoyment of the act itself.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it definitely does. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: guess that's to be expected, because even as someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't really do a lot of body hair grooming, if
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling my best in other ways, I can
Speaker 1: see that getting in the way. So how did you
Speaker 1: shake off the hair expectations? I'm so curious like that.
Speaker 1: Never I think beef free. Yeah, it never really was
Speaker 1: a beef for me. I think I think a big
Speaker 1: part of it is that the kinds of people who
Speaker 1: end up being near my body in an intimate way
Speaker 1: have never brought it up. So I honestly this sounds
Speaker 1: I've told people, listen, it sounds wild. I don't think,
Speaker 1: particularly with my legs, I don't think anyone's even ever
Speaker 1: really noticed that I don't shave my legs. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's ever even come up in that way. And
Speaker 1: so I think one, I think my mom is kind
Speaker 1: of right that I do have dark skin and I
Speaker 1: have dark hair. You really you have to get very
Speaker 1: up close and personal to see, oh, that person has
Speaker 1: hairy legs. My arm pits is a little clearer, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I just, really, that's such a good question.
Speaker 1: That's such a good question. I just think it's pretty
Speaker 1: inspiring that you are like, I don't care the deal.
Speaker 1: I think at a certain point I realized I have
Speaker 1: a actually I know exactly what it is. If you
Speaker 1: go back. I bring her up on the podcast Act.
Speaker 1: She's one of my idols. But Solange Knowles has this
Speaker 1: great thing that she did when she shaved her head
Speaker 1: and people were like, you had such beautiful hair, why
Speaker 1: did you shave it? Blah blah blah, And she just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I have so much stuff that I care
Speaker 1: about in my life, and I have a finite amount
Speaker 1: of energy that I can devote to things, and I
Speaker 1: want to devote that energy to things that are not
Speaker 1: my hair. And that's just the way it is. And
Speaker 1: I think that for me, that thing was body hair.
Speaker 1: You know, I already cared so little about it, and
Speaker 1: I already knew that the act of shaving is physically
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for me, like I get a ash, My skin
Speaker 1: is already very sensitive, and I just thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dedicate my finite energy into giving
Speaker 1: a fit. When anybody thinks about this and the kind
Speaker 1: of people who would be touching my legs and touching
Speaker 1: my body in an intimate way. Those are the kind
Speaker 1: of people who probably wouldn't give a shit either. So
Speaker 1: it just sort of worked out that the kind of
Speaker 1: people who I would want to present my body in
Speaker 1: a particular kind of way that we tend to be
Speaker 1: on the same page about. It's kind of a prerequisite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if you're like, if you're, if you're. The guy
Speaker 1: who I met at red Derby was actually I told
Speaker 1: him to listen to the podcast. You gonna listen and
Speaker 1: be like, what the hell you were never going to
Speaker 1: get there, dude, you were not eligible. He was like
Speaker 1: barking up the wrong tree in so many different ways,
Speaker 1: Like a total waste of time. But thanks for the drink, though,
Speaker 1: this is making me sound so awful. Um, it was
Speaker 1: for research. It was for researchers, for research. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think it was one of those things where
Speaker 1: I said, it just isn't worth investing the energy in.
Speaker 1: And I already have so many things that I want
Speaker 1: to be investing my energy into, and whether or not
Speaker 1: my legs or shaped is not one of them. I
Speaker 1: honestly think that's why The research points out that younger
Speaker 1: women who have a little bit more privileged in some
Speaker 1: ways are more likely to be removing all hair because
Speaker 1: in that conclusion alone is something that takes a little
Speaker 1: while to come to. So I haven't always been a
Speaker 1: hairy feminist. In college, I would shave from time to time.
Speaker 1: Even in college, I think I was more likely to
Speaker 1: sort of feel like I needed a shave in order
Speaker 1: to compete with the girls who were my age who
Speaker 1: were shaving. Like that was the first time that I
Speaker 1: was around a lot of white women who were my
Speaker 1: same age. That was the first time that I realized
Speaker 1: it was unusual to not shave. This is also my
Speaker 1: first year of college wasn't awakening for me in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and that I had mostly been around
Speaker 1: women the entire time, and so I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: people wore things other than pajamas in public. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that, you know, you're supposed to shave your legs.
Speaker 1: I and realize, and I didn't realize that that was
Speaker 1: I just all of this was new to me, and
Speaker 1: so I was for the first time kind of grappling
Speaker 1: with how you presented as a woman or how you
Speaker 1: were expected to present as a feminine person, and so
Speaker 1: college I did feel a little bit weird about it.
Speaker 1: And I also think it was more associated with being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a feminist, I'm like a radical person, and in
Speaker 1: college I was very radical and just in college I've
Speaker 1: always you know, you know, but I think in college
Speaker 1: it was much more part of my identity. I think
Speaker 1: these days for me, like, if you're not a little
Speaker 1: bit radical, I'm like, oh, like past. Yeah. In college
Speaker 1: it was much more like I was like the radical
Speaker 1: girl on campus, whereas these days, like everybody I think
Speaker 1: is like the radical person, whether you look it or not. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like you live in that bubble. Correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's thank you. That's that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: radical bubble dweller. I feel like I'm babbling, but you
Speaker 1: get what I'm saying. Right at the time, I was
Speaker 1: the radical feminist and so the fact that I didn't
Speaker 1: shave a ton was like part of my identity in
Speaker 1: a way that is not now. And again because it's
Speaker 1: because I am in a little bit of a lefty
Speaker 1: feminist bubble. It just means less, Yes, it's less salient,
Speaker 1: that's exactly. Yeah, that's interesting. And actually, now that you
Speaker 1: mentioned it, thinking about it, another reason why I probably
Speaker 1: didn't shave that much in college and it felt different.
Speaker 1: It is because I grew up hearing that not shaving
Speaker 1: and having a pubic hair was good for your sexual health.
Speaker 1: And this was a message that I internalized very early on,
Speaker 1: that you had pubic hair for a reason. My mom
Speaker 1: used to always say, you have hair for a reason,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to get rid of it if
Speaker 1: it's put there, you know, by nature, by God. Right,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, wait a minute, what is mama to
Speaker 1: actually saying, I think there's a god. The Biblical verse
Speaker 1: for this, my mom is, I'm telling you, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter the situation. My mom is a Bible versu that fits.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're made up, but I swear heard her quotes
Speaker 1: byer Man, and I'm like, that's not scripture, that's bier Man.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. But yeah, so I grew up thinking
Speaker 1: that not shaving was good for your sexual health. And
Speaker 1: actually there's some debate on whether or not that's true. Right,
Speaker 1: So what's interesting is Emily Gibson, a family physician who
Speaker 1: blogs at Barnstorming, says that removing pubic hair can come
Speaker 1: with sexual health risks because hair quote protects against friction
Speaker 1: that can cause skin abrasion and injury, protecting from bacteria
Speaker 1: and other unwanted pathogens. So that's exactly what I grew
Speaker 1: up thinking. I grew up thinking that your pubic hair
Speaker 1: was like the last line of defense from nasty is
Speaker 1: getting into your bage, right, the lack of a better friend.
Speaker 1: That's the medical term, if you look at a medical
Speaker 1: is the accepted medical non enclature. Not to mention. She
Speaker 1: goes on to say that like removing pubic hair irritates
Speaker 1: and inflames the hair falcon, which we all know when
Speaker 1: it comes to removing pubic hair. Even though a lot
Speaker 1: of people, according to the research, do opt to shave
Speaker 1: as opposed to waxing shaving, at least for me, it
Speaker 1: is not a very pleasant experience. It's not and I
Speaker 1: think that's where the whole waxing world gets its revenue stream. Frankly,
Speaker 1: but that's not pleasant either. Nothing about hair removal down
Speaker 1: there is pleasant. But you've got to know, you're like,
Speaker 1: you've got to keep your razors rotating. I'm a disposable
Speaker 1: razor person now. I used to have fancy razors, But
Speaker 1: now I'm like, I don't want any razor touching my body.
Speaker 1: That is not pretty new, because otherwise it's just gonna
Speaker 1: gather bacteria. You're going to get more grown hair, is
Speaker 1: more likelihood of infection, and all of that is just
Speaker 1: the worst. So the one time that I tried professional waxing,
Speaker 1: I had a group on and it was one of
Speaker 1: those things where I hemmed in. I was like, do
Speaker 1: I do it? It's half off, man, will try it?
Speaker 1: Why not budget wax I know, first of all, if
Speaker 1: you ever want to of all the things to not
Speaker 1: get cheap on, waxing is probably hot on the list.
Speaker 1: Probably waxing and like lace six eye surgery, two things
Speaker 1: you don't want to cheap out on. Pay the pay
Speaker 1: what it costs. I go to the salons my first time.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind I barely even ever shaved my first
Speaker 1: time doing it. Everyone is like, oh, it's not that bad,
Speaker 1: not that bad. This was when the trend was I'm
Speaker 1: dating myself a little bit. This is when the trend
Speaker 1: was those super low rise jeans. I've seen photos on
Speaker 1: you like throwback Thursday. I was oh, so sad, so sad.
Speaker 1: It's like why why did we think those jeans were good?
Speaker 1: There was like so much back showing. I was like,
Speaker 1: coming from you had to be out. Basically, your our
Speaker 1: vulvas were out in the early two houses go back
Speaker 1: in the look. It was the trend. And so I
Speaker 1: had a Christine Agulara, Yes, yeah it is. So I
Speaker 1: had a coupon for a spa salon to get waxed,
Speaker 1: and I've never done it before. I go in. I'm like,
Speaker 1: is this gonna hurt? She says, Oh, It's gonna feel
Speaker 1: like a quick pinch. I say, fine, live. She does
Speaker 1: the one side, I'm on fire? Did you like pass out?
Speaker 1: I like I have. It was a pain, a searing,
Speaker 1: red hot pain of a thousand sons, the likes of
Speaker 1: which I have never experienced ever in my life, and
Speaker 1: I hope never to experience again. Here's the kicker. She
Speaker 1: did one side. I was like done, I can't do this,
Speaker 1: and she was like, You're gonna be very hairy on
Speaker 1: one side and not harry on the other. And I
Speaker 1: said fine. So I was I left half done. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I couldn't go through with it. Oh I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I just realized something in the middle of
Speaker 1: the story. This is the second very specific story I've
Speaker 1: told him about my own body parts. So I'm sorry
Speaker 1: it's coming back back. It seems to come up a lot. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so the second time you've made me basically
Speaker 1: cry on air laughing about your vagina. It's like the
Speaker 1: third the third co host of this podcast, like third
Speaker 1: character who comes up sometimes. Um, Okay, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, behalf to finish
Speaker 1: talking to this medical research and whether or not shaving
Speaker 1: is actually good for your sexual health. And we're back.
Speaker 1: We were just getting into some of the medical research
Speaker 1: on whether or not shaving's good for you bad for you,
Speaker 1: talking about why waxing is the most painful thing I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced and why it should be avoided because it
Speaker 1: hurts like a mother. Um. Yeah, So, but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The medical community is a little bit divided on the
Speaker 1: health benefits or lack thereof, when it comes to hair removal.
Speaker 1: And I wonder what you think about this, bridget because
Speaker 1: other medical professionals say that pubes can be a breeding
Speaker 1: ground for bacteria themselves. I've heard that before. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's a good question because I've heard it
Speaker 1: both ways, right, that you need pubes because it creates
Speaker 1: a barrier for things that could get into your vagina
Speaker 1: and making sick. I've heard that it can be a
Speaker 1: breeding ground for those very same things. Yeah. So Dr
Speaker 1: Wendy Eskew, who's quoted in the Women's Health piece on
Speaker 1: this as there's no question that being hair free in
Speaker 1: that area is cleaner simply because of the fact that
Speaker 1: hair does provide bacteria. But does cleaner mean better necessarily?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think fear of pubic lice or
Speaker 1: crabs is a good reason to shave all your body hair,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like real protection is better, right,
Speaker 1: Like actual protection, like wrap it up and use barriers.
Speaker 1: Your pubic hair does not count as a barrier that
Speaker 1: they're trying to talk about insects. Said so, I guess
Speaker 1: if we're if we're talking about if we're talking to
Speaker 1: the women who are you in high school right now,
Speaker 1: let's just go on the record, is saying there are
Speaker 1: real ways to protect yourselves, and that is condoms and
Speaker 1: dental damns and all of those things. But to me,
Speaker 1: it feels like there are risks to shaving. There are
Speaker 1: unpleasant trees associated with waxing and other ways of removing
Speaker 1: body Here we didn't even talk about nair and the
Speaker 1: toxic chemicals that people are basically putting on their body
Speaker 1: to remove body hair. But you know there are clear
Speaker 1: serious medical risks with those options that I think outweigh
Speaker 1: keeping your body hair. You think so, I think so? Yeah.
Speaker 1: And again I think I've said this earlier on the show.
Speaker 1: If this episode does anything, I hope that it underscores
Speaker 1: that it really should be a personal weighing of what
Speaker 1: you think is important versus what's not. And I think
Speaker 1: if you think that you know, well, what's what's what's
Speaker 1: comfortable exactly exactly, And it has to do with your
Speaker 1: own what is that scale, your self vaginal experience scale
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, right like your own self image
Speaker 1: of your body in terms of hair, like do you
Speaker 1: feel good having body hair, then great, keep it around.
Speaker 1: Do you feel better with some grooming or a whole
Speaker 1: lot of grooming, then that's on you too. Just make
Speaker 1: sure you're not performing for somebody else all the time.
Speaker 1: I think, no fun. Yeah, And I think for me
Speaker 1: as a as a Harry feminist, I think it's okay.
Speaker 1: It's okay, to be Harry. Choosing to not shave doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be some heavy choice. It certainly isn't for me. Um,
Speaker 1: And that's okay. I mean I think women to just
Speaker 1: own their grooming choices. I was going to say that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be making your personal grooming choices because of
Speaker 1: your partner, but I guess if that's how you get down,
Speaker 1: maybe that's okay. Yeah, I mean it kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the shoot we did together, Like you didn't
Speaker 1: want to deal with being the one with Harry Pitts
Speaker 1: on our photo shoot, right, and you you made that choice.
Speaker 1: You decided based on the audience and your own, you know,
Speaker 1: goals for that shoot to not have Harry Pitts. And
Speaker 1: I think that a this audience, and I would love
Speaker 1: you with Harry Pitts all the same digitally add hair
Speaker 1: those images region we'll get right on that. No, but
Speaker 1: I think it is it's a tricky one. And I
Speaker 1: think what you're saying, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is
Speaker 1: that nobody should feel feminist shame or like a bad
Speaker 1: feminist for you know, not keeping their body hair around. Yeah. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we live in a society where the choice to groom
Speaker 1: or not to groom has been made very hairy by
Speaker 1: this whole thing called the patriarchy, and so I just
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge even though for me, I don't think
Speaker 1: you think of it as like a feminist choice or
Speaker 1: a political choice. I think it's very clearly still an
Speaker 1: issue that is so gendered and so hot button. I mean,
Speaker 1: you had a Swedish model earlier this year who posed
Speaker 1: for Adidas with hairy legs, and she got rape and
Speaker 1: death threats on Instagram just for having hairy legs. She
Speaker 1: actually went on Instagram to address the firestorm that her
Speaker 1: bear hairy legs got from being in this image, and
Speaker 1: she writes me, being such an able old white cis body,
Speaker 1: but it's only non conforming feature being a little leg hair. Literally,
Speaker 1: I've been getting rape threats in my damn box. I
Speaker 1: can't even begin to imagine what it's like to not
Speaker 1: possess all these privileges and still try to exist in
Speaker 1: the world. And I think she's so right that even
Speaker 1: a little thing like a little bit of leg hair
Speaker 1: on someone who otherwise is totally genderal conformant is gets
Speaker 1: you rape and death threats. That should just go to
Speaker 1: show that this issue is as much as I tend
Speaker 1: to think of it as just a personal preference that
Speaker 1: I've made for myself, that isn't really this heavy political thing.
Speaker 1: It's still very clearly is politicized. Well, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's an issue men have with harry women. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds like something that men need to figure out, because
Speaker 1: I I think you and I have talked a lot
Speaker 1: on this episode about the other women in our lives
Speaker 1: who have influenced our shaving or not shaving, And I
Speaker 1: think really the pressure is on not just from the
Speaker 1: actresses in pornos, but from the guys in our lives
Speaker 1: who would walk out the door when you know they
Speaker 1: were confronted with a little pubic hair or leg hair
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, And honestly, reading her response on Instagram
Speaker 1: reminds me earlier this year, I took a car trip
Speaker 1: down to North Carolina to go to Okracoke, this island
Speaker 1: off the coast of eastern North Carolina. It wasn't a vacation,
Speaker 1: was for one day. I drove eight hours to spend
Speaker 1: one day, and then I drove it a vacation of sorts.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got a day on the beach. I
Speaker 1: got it there on the beach and when I drove
Speaker 1: when I drove down there, I was wearing my like basically,
Speaker 1: I was looking my most kind of like myself. I
Speaker 1: would say I had my hair was curly. I was
Speaker 1: wearing an oversized men's baseball hat that's a power on it.
Speaker 1: I was wearing a sports braw and overalls. I was
Speaker 1: going to call that that was That's what I thought
Speaker 1: you were going to say overalls when you said oversized,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, I knew you. That's that's like,
Speaker 1: like I feel like myself and I am dressed in
Speaker 1: that kind of way. Were your July for Instagram pick? Yes,
Speaker 1: that was like bridget Todd one oh one. You were
Speaker 1: like exuding Bridget to thank you. I was, and I
Speaker 1: felt like myself and my pits were Harry right that trip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the same trip. Yeah, that was like me
Speaker 1: at my most like most, feeling like myself. I'll put
Speaker 1: the picture in the note so folks can like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? But so my like regular kind
Speaker 1: of like uniform which is a little bit gender non specific.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we'll say um and Harry armpits and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget driving down to North Carolina, stopping to get gas
Speaker 1: and things. The way that I felt when men at
Speaker 1: gas stations and rest stops and diners would see my
Speaker 1: hairy armpits. I almost felt unsafe. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to I almost cringe at saying that, because there are
Speaker 1: people whose gender presentation makes them very, very unsafe on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, and so I don't want to conflate
Speaker 1: the two. But the kind of responses I was getting from,
Speaker 1: you know, gas station owners and clerks on the road
Speaker 1: in eastern North Carolina was making me feel noticed in
Speaker 1: a way that I didn't like. And so I remember
Speaker 1: before getting in the car to go back to d C,
Speaker 1: I shaved almost because I was nervous. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't want to feel like that again. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to feel these eyes on me in this way that
Speaker 1: felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want to as a as
Speaker 1: a woman alone, I felt uneasy about attracting that kind
Speaker 1: of attention for my body hair, and so I shaved,
Speaker 1: and it was it was It felt like a totally
Speaker 1: performative thing. You know, I don't feel like myself and
Speaker 1: I but I shaved, and it just was a really
Speaker 1: strange consideration. Yeah. Well, it is a reminder that we
Speaker 1: can mistake what might look like a personal choice for
Speaker 1: what is very much a constrained choice. That's exactly it.
Speaker 1: That was when I realized, Oh, in my radical bubble,
Speaker 1: I can say, oh, I don't shake my armpits because
Speaker 1: if I do, I get a rash and I don't
Speaker 1: really care about it. I'm kind of lazy and have
Speaker 1: that be that. I'm very privileged to have that be
Speaker 1: the case for me in my life. That was I
Speaker 1: don't think I recognized until that trip that that being
Speaker 1: able to feel like that's just a you know, las
Speaker 1: a fair thing. I'm casual choice I'm making. I don't
Speaker 1: think I realized how privileged I am that that is
Speaker 1: the case for me, when it's not the case for everybody,
Speaker 1: and it really shouldn't be. It's I mean, it's body
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a privileged thing to choose. It should be
Speaker 1: a choice. It's such a nothing thing. I thought it
Speaker 1: here is such a it should be such a non issue.
Speaker 1: But here we are, and here we are. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the reason why it is
Speaker 1: often seen as radical, because you whether you realize it
Speaker 1: or not. By not shaving, because that's how you feel
Speaker 1: most you, you're really making it okay for other women
Speaker 1: to do the same. Like, I think the more women
Speaker 1: who choose not to groom body hair, even if it's
Speaker 1: just once every now and then on a farm or
Speaker 1: you know, if I were to like regularly not shave,
Speaker 1: make that a real choice that's more acceptable. And I
Speaker 1: think things like the H and M campaign it just
Speaker 1: came out last year, which featured models with armpit hair curves,
Speaker 1: and we're more sort of gender fluid. I think if
Speaker 1: we can get brands on board, how about let's start
Speaker 1: with Razor commercials. People, if you want to sell us
Speaker 1: on your razor show it taking off some actual body hair,
Speaker 1: don't shave and already shaved leg on a commercial, which
Speaker 1: I think is just such a mind blowing point you
Speaker 1: made earlier. We need to see in mainstream media on runaways,
Speaker 1: in magazines, and maybe if y'all could see us on
Speaker 1: this podcast, you would see it, but in more of
Speaker 1: a mainstream way. We need to see women with body
Speaker 1: hair to make that a more understandable normality. It's about normalizing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we should be normalizing that grooming of body
Speaker 1: hair is a choice and not It shouldn't. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: be normalizing that grooming of body hair is a given
Speaker 1: that if you don't groom your body you're in a
Speaker 1: specific kind of way, then you're abnormal, when in fact,
Speaker 1: groom it, don't groom it. It should be a choice
Speaker 1: and we should be living in a world that reflects that. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: even if it was just like fourteen year old me
Speaker 1: at summer camp, shouldn't be made to feel weird and mothered.
Speaker 1: Same thing for thirty year old me. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: if I feel like shaving this week, I will, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you? Yeah? I think as feminists it should be
Speaker 1: about choice, and I think that I choose not to
Speaker 1: shave that often. I do shave sometimes, So I don't
Speaker 1: want this to be like your vegan thing where you're
Speaker 1: mostly vegan and someone's gonna see you eating a hot
Speaker 1: dog and be like that a vegan Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw I saw a picture of Bridge on Instagram and
Speaker 1: her art bits were smooth. What gives? So it might happen,
Speaker 1: but that's not new. Yeah. I'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: our listeners how has this shown up in your life? Like,
Speaker 1: do you feel pressure to be well shaven or groomed
Speaker 1: in what capacity? Have you had an adventure with the
Speaker 1: waxing salon or budget wax. I've definitely had a group
Speaker 1: on wax myself, So I feel for you bridget um
Speaker 1: or shaving, Like, what are the pros and cons if
Speaker 1: you were to break it down, and how do you
Speaker 1: feel or how do you react when you see a
Speaker 1: hairy woman? You know, this is stuff that we're internalizing
Speaker 1: as women too, and most importantly, let's talk to men
Speaker 1: in our lives. Let's talk to the men who listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast. What is your actual reaction if you
Speaker 1: are finding hair down there that you were not expecting
Speaker 1: and why do you feel that way? I would want
Speaker 1: to know that. I'm curious. Yeah, well, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: hear from other hairy people. As a hairy person myself,
Speaker 1: I'm particularly interested in people who choose to be hairy
Speaker 1: for things like weddings and proms. What's that? Like? My
Speaker 1: mom always asked, So you're gonna not shave your armpits
Speaker 1: and you get married, And I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'll get married. I know this is a lot
Speaker 1: of questions. Sypassicna it's holidays, it always goes bad. But
Speaker 1: I'm just very curious to know for other folks what
Speaker 1: this looks like. Yeah, so hit us up on Twitter
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcast, Let's keep the conversation going over
Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff mom Never Told You, And as always,
Speaker 1: we love getting your emails at mom stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com