Chatty Cathy and the Hairy Pits - or, Now it Gets Real

There's a lot in the media these days about young women, how we sexualize them, how we encourage them to embrace a confusing saint/slut dichotomy, how they're being stalked by creepers from Reddit, how they're committing suicide due to online bullying, etc.  These things are part of a larger theme I've been exploring for well over a year now: my body, my rights, how society views these things, the puritanical nature of our culture.

I have a new man in my life.  He's amazing.  I feel very happy - blessed even - to have met him.  I found myself having a discussion with him this week about body hair.  I would like to apologize in advance to my more conservative readers here, not because I actually need to, but because my culturally implanted hangups tell me I should:  I'm about to be real.  I'm going to talk about an adult relationship in the 21st century.  Anyway, I found myself talking to my lover about body hair; telling him that I swing between the hemispheres of hippy with unshaven legs versus well-groomed and totally depilated lady.  Being the understanding person he is, my lover replied, "I know that bodies grow hair."

Hair distribution of a woman versus a man...
Why isn't waxing being sold to dudes?
Economically it seems a lot more profitable...

This conversation has continued to float around my head though.  Honestly it wasn't really a necessary talk; I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who would maintain crazy expectations about how I choose to style my body hair.  But that doesn't change the fact that the thought was there.  Just the fact of the thought's existence is quite interesting to me.  And then I read an article that stirred things around further; about the expectation of young women to be sexy but not sexual (known as The Paris Paradox).

My relationship with my body is a rocky thing.  My gluten intolerance causes a constant awareness of what I'm putting into my body and how it makes my belly feel.  My industry constantly reminds me to think about my size.  Every day as I look through casting breakdowns series of figures run through my head: my sizes, the sizes they want from actresses and models, height/weight ratios, bra sizes, ass/hips/waist/bust measurements, jean sizes, etc.  Every day I look through casting notices that specify body types and stereotypes, and I try to figure out where I fit into those stereotypes based on how I look and how that reflects who I am.

There were a few years when I didn't shave my armpits.  Even today, it's common for me to go a few weeks without shaving in the winter months.  What's the point?  No one's going to see my bare legs or armpits in January.  But for two years in the middle of college I didn't shave my pits at all  (I did shave my legs -because I liked it). Honestly, it never even occurred to me that not shaving was an option until I met one of my dearest college friends.  She was a women's studies major, and the first real feminist I ever knew.  She had hairy armpits when we met in our freshman year in New Orleans.  She worked as a camp counselor in the summer, and she described how she'd answer the questions of the girls in her group by telling them that they had a choice in the matter, that they didn't have to shave if they didn't want to.  She said she liked serving as an alternative example for them.  This idea blew my mind.  Seriously.  The only thought process I remember having about body hair was after an incident in sixth grade, when I was probably just starting puberty (and so awkward and unsure), and this jerky boy made fun of me for having hairy legs.  I don't think I'd even gotten my period at that point, but what conclusions do you think I reached?

My pits were less hairy than Julia's.  And everyone LOVES her, right?

So I grew my pit hair.  And I liked it.  I found my armpit hair sexy.  I'm not a super hairy person; my hair is sort of a light brown, and I can go a few days without shaving my legs without it being a big deal.  My armpit hair was mild compared to some women.  Nevertheless, I cannot tell you how many times it was suggested that I was lesbian or bi because I chose not to conform to society's idea of how I should groom my body hair.  In fairness, I also got a lot of positive comments and support, but those aren't the ones that stand out, unfortunately.

I'm didn't feel insulted at being called lesbian or bi, I felt insulted that those qualities should be considered insults, or okay to use to tease me and put me down.  Here's the thing.  Once you know me, I'm pretty open about my sexuality (I'm really hanging it all out tonight).   If you know me at all, you won't be surprised to hear that I am very comfortable with the idea of fluid sexuality.  Yes - I'm with a man.  Yes - I will probably end up with a man for my life partner.  But that doesn't change the fact that I'm also attracted to women.  And to have this tender, shy part of myself ridiculed felt bad, even if it was done unknowingly.

I sometimes do things that other people consider far out.  I know that putting myself out here, exposed for the world, I need to be prepared to defend my differences.  Nevertheless, being made fun of for a choice I made for myself about my body, having that choice be construed as homosexual, which was in turn construed as either negative or okay to poke fun at - made me feel bad.  It upset me.  And it continues to do so.

When I go to the grocery store I am bombarded with images of women on magazine covers, enticing me learn Giada's secret to staying trim.  The only thing I ever thought about Giada De Laurentis' looks before was that her smile was frighteningly wide, but suddenly I find myself wondering how indeed she stays so skinny.  And there's that word: skinny.  Just look at what we're selling women with that word: SkinnyGirl cocktails - so you can get drunk but not fat,  skinny margaritas - order this in an actual bar, where they don't sell those bullshit mixers, skinny jeans - they make you feel so fat you need to get drunk on "low-fat" cocktails.  All around me I feel pressure from society to conform to a perfect image of perfect woman.  It's bad in LA.  I don't think I worried this much about how I look before moving here.  But that doesn't change the fact that these issues and worries are everywhere.  And no matter what you may say, I just don't see the same strictures about external looks being placed on men.

I guess what I'm asking for here is for all of us to stop perpetuating this mindset.  We need to learn to see the beauty inside people even when they look different from us.  We need to applaud people for making healthy choices and being honest to their true selves.  We need to teach our daughters that what's inside their brains hearts is more important than the exterior of their bodies.  We need to allow a little more grace, to the people around us, and most of all to ourselves.

I want my choices about my body to be mine.  I want to be able to go out into the world and not worry about how I look, or that I'll be judged for it.  Call me naive, or call me weak-willed for allowing this psychic noise to disturb me.  Or, if you like, chastise me for being honest about the things that worry me, even when this means opening up a lot of extremely personal parts of myself to the potential judgments of others.  Or maybe you'll have a totally different reaction: if so, please share it respectfully.  But before you do so, I urge you to take on honest look at yourself, and make the brave choice.  I've put my heart out here on my sleeve; maybe you can too.

Science experiment

Yet again I'm taking one step further into weird.  I don't even know if we exist in the same reality any more...

Cleaning my desk last week I found this cryptic message at the bottom of a stack of papers, "Call for kombucha mothers" with a phone number.  Flashback to a Craigslist posting offering free kombucha mothers.  It gave a phone number and said absolutely no responses to emails.  I, of course, emailed, and sure enough no response.  But I came across the same listing a few months later, and actually took down the number (two0six 555 zero8 five ONE, or somesuch - anti-robot encryption, I presume?).  So when I found the listing I immediately thought, "Hey!  I gotta call this number!"  Obvi.

There was no answer when I called.  The voicemail greeting said, "Be creative today.  Leave message  please  please please."  Awesome.  I became awkwardly excited and left a message going something like this, "Hello, my name is Catherine, and I'm calling for information pertaining to, uh, kombucha mothers.  That is, I'd like to get one.  So you can call me back at blah blah blah.  I'll be around this afternoon and tomorrow morning.  And to you sir, I say: be magical today."  Yeah, that's right, I said that in a voicemail message to a stranger.  I think to some people I sound like a crazy person.  I'm learning not to care.

We played one round of phone tag, but soon enough I had my contact on the phone.  I missed his name when he mumbled it, and rather than asking him to repeat it I just never addressed him by name.  That only added to sense of furtiveness; I felt as though discretion was necessary, that we were involved in something shady.  My contact cryptically asked whether I wanted a one or two gallon.  Confused, I didn't know how to answer, "I've never done this before" I laughed nervously.  We agreed to meet the next morning at 10am.  He seemed cagey about having me meet him at his house, and gave vague directions to a 76 station in my neighborhood instead.  I agreed, and we hung up.  I mean, I guess that's understandable - Craigslist is full of weirdos.  But at the same time... was I missing something?  Are kombucha mothers a classified substance?  Is the free exchange of weird mushroom things frowned upon?  Oh wait......  Whatever.

So this brings me to Saturday morning, waiting in a gas station parking lot with dirty hair and no breakfast, looking for a man with a fungus.  When I called him he said his wife had the car, it was too far to walk, and could I come to his place?  It was a five minute drive to a residential neighborhood.  When I turned onto his small street he was waiting by the edge of his driveway, clearly looking for me.  We nodded in recognition and I parked.

Once I met my contact any sense of cloak-and-dagger illictness disappeared.  My contact was a charming gap-toothed man with a well-tended afro who introduced himself as Mario.  He apologized for being out of it, saying he just woke up.  "Gears are starting to turn," he threw out at one point, as he described how to brew kombucha.  He briefly outlined the steps involved, I acknowledged what he said, and promptly forgot it all.  I think he and I both knew that although I had no idea what to do with the bacteria thing he was about to give me, I would shortly know everything the internet had to tell me on the subject.  Nevertheless, I learned from him that the oils in soap can be harmful to the mother, so you should rinse your clean hands with vinegar before touching it, and that it would take at least five tea bags to make.  This exchange happened underneath Mario's carport; sitting on the hood of a faded black Mustang was a one gallon jar full of apple cider vinegar and bacon fat.  At least that's what it looked like.  In actually it was layers of these kombucha colonies floating in the fermented tea that is so excellent for you.

The tupperware container I brought was totally inadequate for the thick white waxy thing Mario gave me.  It was a yogurt container-sized takeout tub leftover from pho, and it turns out the lid I had didn't match it.  Thus was I was forced to drive home holding an open container of quite vinegary smelling starter tea with an awkwardly folded kombucha mother sticking out.  Luckily I never had to make any abrupt stops, and I made it home without incident.

I'm pretty excited about this.  I love drinking kombucha.  It makes my body feel really happy.  It's good for your digestive system and your skin and your hair and your appetite and your immune system.  It's totally weird.  And I'm totally into it.  I'll tell you more about this experience for sure.  In the meantime, try a bottle.  It's expensive (which is why I want to brew it myself), and it's different, but it will totally grow on you - literally (get it? Cause it's a living organism).  And just think, in a few short months, you'll have a new hookup for sweet little kombucha babies.