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Tati’s Journey, Part 2: Armpit Hair
Written by Tati
Today I experienced the highs and lows I often feel when I’m scooting around on the internet discovering the kind of cool people and things that just don’t give a damn if someone calls them fugly.
I emailed a whole bunch of my favourite feminist bloggers about my album, embarrassing youtube channel and my mission. I saw a lot of awesome stuff on the way, although I didn’t linger. I found an article on Nicki Minaj that, when I give it a good look later, I hope will help me realise what the girl is about, because I get these half formed opinions about whether she’s really boring and pretending not to be, really well, or if she’s a righteous ladybro and I just keep not noticing because some of her tunes are a bit meh and she uses misogynistic language.
http://www.racialicious.com/2012/02/23/nicki-minaj-the-flyest-feminist/
On one blog, the homepage had some free downloads going, which is when I came across Alix Olson, an American beat poet. She wrote a song called ‘Armpit Hair’, which I was drawn to because I have recently stopped shaving 100%. Not to make a statement or anything, just because I don’t really want to, can’t really be bothered, don’t really have a problem with body hair. And I thought I’d try it. The fact that it took Boyfriend asking me why I bother made it seem all the more pointless to do it in order to be attractive. And what are the other reasons? Hygiene? There’s a lot of this getting batted around at the moment – pop culture and media directed at women say that body hair is unhygienic. So those men we spend our lives chasing (because in most popular magazines, lesbians don’t exist)? Yeah, they’re disgusting. Win! After an appearance on This Morning, Emer O’Toole, a super awesome lady, was lampooned by the Daily Fail’s robo-women, who proclaimed loud and clear that she was disgusting, hard to stomach. Her appearance was because she hadn’t shaved in 18 months; she had a bit of leg hair on show and revealed her ‘armpit kittens’ when asked. She very reasonably said that she wanted to have the same kind of relationship with shaving that she had with make up – being able to if she wanted, not having to if she didn’t. And she just kept not shaving because she didn’t want to. Emer O’Toole is bodacious.
So I watched the Alix Olson video; it wasn’t made by her, it was made by a fan. And this fan of hers – who made a great picture slideshow to go with the song – then added a disclaimer at the end saying they found googling the pictures of women with armpit hair to put in the slideshow ‘hard to stomach’.
I don’t get it! Why would armpit hair be so revolting to a person that they’d actually feel like vomiting? We see armpit hair all the time! LOADS of guys have it! And before we get onto the but-no-one-likes-a-guy-with-a-hairy-back,-that’s-the-equivalent thing, can I just point out that, no matter what a person’s body-hair-orientation may be, they do not exist purely for the satisfaction of our boners. No. That is not how people work. You don’t have to fancy everyone, and someone making you not fancy them by choosing not to shave their back (or armpits. Or arms, which is apparently a thing now) is your problem.
Just pointing out that that was aimed at the hair police, who probably aren’t reading this blog because they’re busy shaving people against their will, not the Abubilla community, who, I’m sure, are aware that they don’t have to fancy everybody.
So that was a low of today’s Internet journey. I haven’t got any replies back yet, but Rosie emailed me a lovely one from a man named Andy who has a tumblr blog called Songs for my Daughter. It’s heartening. That was a high, except it doesn’t really count as a proper high because that was the first email I got this morning and I was already in a pretty good mood because we had bagels in, and because I’ve been getting loads of head-rushes lately, I’ve gone back on my ALL THE CARBOHYDRATE EVER diet. Which is not so much a diet as just ceasing to bother with vegetables again.
Rosie and I also skyped last night and made changes to our remix plan for B.I.G. Breasts. Watch this space. And if you can make remixes, do let us know because my homeboy, West Country Joe, is working at Build A Bear again and he’s partying too hard to help us out there. Even though I offered to buy him dinner. Some people, ‘eh.
I spent way too long writing this blog and getting mad about hair again. I feel a song coming on.
Oh and Willow Smith’s new song ‘I’m Me’ or something is terrible, but very sweet. And she looks JUST LIKE WILL. Which I suppose isn’t surprising.