MR Round Table: Wax On, Wax Off

Leandra Medine: Something that comes up a lot in this office is body hair and the removal of it. Some of us shave, wax, laser. Some of us don’t do anything at all.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I get waxed if I hate it so much. I know that I feel more comfortable in a bathing suit if I don’t have hair “down there,” but I’m not comfortable with the fact that I’m more comfortable waxed, if that makes sense. But whatever the preference — or mindset — because it’s summer, I thought we’d talk about it.

Krista Lewis: I remember the first time I shaved. I shaved my legs and my armpits and I didn’t tell my mom.

Amelia Diamond: It totally starts as this thing that you somehow know (or feel like) you have to ask permission for. Or something you keep secret, as though you could get in trouble for it.

I think it’s because it’s embarrassing when you’re awkward and young: it’s one of the first things that shows up when you’re going through puberty — or the first thing someone else will point out. I get my arms waxed, which I think goes back to this kid who was like, “Why do you have hairy arms?” I don’t think I ever knew that I had hairy arms before he said that.

Hadley Mendelsohn: This one guy used to call me “Wolverine Arms” in middle school.

LM: When I was in kindergarten my friend and I were playing without our shoes. She fell, landed next to my feet and was like, “Oh my god, you have hair on your foot where my dad has hair — I’ve never seen that on a girl before!”

And I was like, yeah, I do. And I still do! It’s ok. I am who I am. But my relationship with shaving and waxing is very strange. The reason I don’t do anything to my arms is because I really don’t mind the hair on them. Sometimes my husband asks me to shave it or to wax it and that really bothers me. I’m not asking him to, like, wax his balls. So why should he tell me what to wax or what to shave? Right?

AD: Leandra and I had a conversation with a Bliss Spa hair removal specialist named Zakia Abouzina. She said that when it came to motive, women tended to get rid of the hair on “exposed areas” for themselves. So armpits, legs, forearms. But when it came to their genitals, Zakia said most women did it for their partners.

I was just reading an NY Mag article about sex and how there are certain acts that people find degrading. Others found those same acts empowering if they turned their partners on, believing that consensual acts and reciprocation and pleasuring both parties are all part of the sexual experience. In a similar way, this is like waxing. And isn’t getting waxed because your boyfriend prefers it just one of the many compromises you make in a relationship in general? Like: I know you hate doing the dishes, but can you please do them for me because it will make me happy. Or: hey, I brought you flowers because I know you love them even though I’m allergic.

LM: But he’s not waxing for me, and I’ve asked him to. (Zakia did say, though, that while more of her clients are women, a lot of men come in. She said they’re self conscious about their backs so that’s primarily what men get waxed, but that they do their crotches waxed, too.)

Still, I think that my problem with bikini waxing in particular is that I am uncomfortable with having hair there, and I’m uncomfortable about being uncomfortable. I almost want to remove my hair to take back being a woman, and have that be my feminist statement.

AD: I guess that’s sort of what I tell myself. Making yourself feel comfortable is the most empowering thing someone can do. At the same time, waxing hurts. But so does going to the gym!

LM: I definitely go to the gym for me. Or for my clothes, but I guess if I am doing it for my clothes then I am doing it for some sort of outward gaze. Maybe a female gaze, which I guess is better than doing it for the male gaze…but in the end it is kind of the same.

AD: Yeah, and I guess if we did’t care, then we would’t run and get waxed. Still, if I could be a seal with eyebrows, eyelashes and head hair, I’d be happy.

LM: Why do you think that is?

AD: I don’t know, I just don’t like hair! What’s weird is I don’t mind it on my legs — I’ll walk around with prickly legs, but I prefer to be like a seal. However, I never look and someone and think: they’re hairy. Sometimes I’m curious as to why, but I don’t care. Go for it.

KL: I have a 70s bush. I used to trim it, but then I realized it was pointless because I like wearing full coverage bottoms at the beach.

AD: So was it an aesthetic choice — you like the look?

KL: It was a choice to not wax, and laziness. It started as a mix of self-consciousness and awareness that it was the “norm” to shave, and then not really knowing what to do with that. The idea of getting a wax terrified me, and then having pubic hair became normal. I’d feel weird without it.

LM: I don’t think that my leaving hair on my body is a feminist choice so much as it is a matter of laziness, very similar to my relationship with makeup.

AD: Is that why you don’t wax your arms?

LM: I just really don’t mind how they look. My motto is really: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. …But how do you really know if it’s broken if you don’t try to fix it?

I don’t mind how this looks, though, so I’m not changing it. However, I do laser my mustache!

Emma Hager: Waxing wasn’t a part of the culture surrounding me where I grew up. Women and my mother were very much natural. There wasn’t any primping, even when it came to coloring the hair on their heads. It didn’t occur to me that waxing was something people did until I went out into the world and found out that there are all sorts of manicuring techniques that I was so not in tune to.

I let my armpit hair grow out, which was probably a function of winter, but I think it’s also very much a specific time in my life, too. At my college there are so many steadfast and confident young women who don’t shave, and I think being in that culture has made me not feel like a fish out of water.

Hannah Kellner: I shave my armpits because it’s not a hassle, but I really only shave my legs for special occasions and occasionally for my boyfriend. We have kind of a weird agreement. He’s very hairy and can grow an awesome beard. I love when he lets it grow long, but according to him it gets annoying. So the compromise is, “I like it when you’re fuzzy, you like it when I’m un-fuzzy. So if you let your beard grow out, then I’ll shave my legs.”

HM: I think it’s unfair that there’s this assumption that you need to sort of have a reason behind being waxed, shaved or hairy.

EH: Right. Exactly. The fact that a woman with hair requires some sort of motive or a message — whether you’re a hardcore feminist or lazy or forgot to shave doesn’t really matter.

HM: Your body isn’t always trying to send a message.

LM: That is very much how I feel like the fourth wave of feminism should conduct itself — as a state of existence. Let’s not talk about hair anymore, let’s just have it.

Disclaimer: Zakia Abouzina’s views are personal. To do not necessarily reflect the views and and don’t necessarily reflect the views of Bliss Spa.

GIF by Hannah Kellner.

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