bikini season

[fallen_arazil]

So summer is on the way, and my sixty-something year old mother has been making noises that it's all well and good to have hairy legs in winter, but now that shorts season is coming, my legs look gross and I should shave them.

There's a part of me that really does think my hairy legs are gross, but that's exactly the reason I can't shave them,

Comments

[bironic]

I struggle with that every year, and inevitably I cave whenever I have to go out in public in shorts or a skirt. Sigh.

[psychedk]

*pokes head out* I... think the only thing that matters is how you feel about your hairy legs, instead of measuring them against what you ought to think or what some ideology dictates. If you feel bad that you want to shave your legs, then you're just as much a slave as if you shave because you think society demands it. Do what you what to do and don't give a damn about the rest. Even feminists are allowed to have different tastes, right? :)

[fallen_arazil]

Ah, I expressed myself badly. I don't really think my hairy legs are 'gross', but I am acutely aware that other people will look at me and think that, and it's that knowledge that makes me uncomfortable, and creates in me the desire to conform in order to avoid negative attention. While I know that no one whose opinion I actually value will care either way, somehow that idea that strangers will look at my legs and think badly of me because I don't shave them ... bothers me, and that realization bothers me even more.

[psychedk]

Ooh, it's an interesting paradox. I have to first say I'm not a feminist at all, so these kind of issues always leave me puzzled. But I do have many friends who are, and in so many other ways I don't fit into conventional boxes, nor do I wish to. So I can sympathize. I've spend a lot of time finding out what felt true to me, in many regards, and some will be close to conclusions drawn by the large majority, some will be very far from them

[recrudescence]

Shave one, leave the other alone, and do a compare-and-contrast exercise this spring!

Seriously, it's all up to you. My leg hair is blond, so I can get away with being a little lax in its upkeep, which is excellent, but it really comes down to what makes you comfortable.

[topaz_eyes]

Shaving legs is just another attempt by the razor conglomerate to increase their sales, don'tcha know?

And yet, I will be shaving mine too.

Can't win.

[empressaurelius]

Yeaaaaah, the idea of shaving the legs is so stupid when you think about. I refuse to do it during the winter. I got teased about not shaving my legs in middle school, though, so I will always do it during the spring/summer. Maybe not as often as I "should", but.