There’s this weird ass standard that requires women to keep hairless if they want to achieve an imaginary beauty standard. Otherwise if we don’t, we’re masculine, have issues figuring out our sexuality, and of course, we’re considered unhygienic and unattractive. It’s hella dumb.
This is probably the most personal I’ve ever gotten with my art work, to be quite honest. So here it goes…
Slowly but surely I’ve quit shaving and have been letting my body hair grow as nature intended it to. Mostly due to laziness and accepting the fact that it is purposeless.
This series started with a humorous drawing of my legs as cactuses and the prickles representing the hair on my legs. I then wrote “Peluda y Agresiva” over it, which translates to “Hairy and Aggressive”. Really, I was poking fun at the opinions beauty standards have us believing- that women with body hair are assumed to be masculine (and if some are, who gives a fuck), and or butch lesbians (and if some are, who gives a shit, again). All the reasons believed as to why we shouldn’t have body hair are all rooted from sexist, homophobic and even transphobic opinions. And this is why I chose to dedicate some pieces to my body hair, to say fuck you to beauty standards, and of course, to your unsolicited opinion.
There a few reasons as to why I chose cactuses to represent body hair. I’m Latina. My family is from Mexico, and pretty often, I see cactuses in art work and even pop culture as a way to represent Mexico. I also used cactuses to represent the sensation shaving leaves behind- Itchy and prickly once hair starts to grow back. Recently I’ve noticed a growing interest in cactuses and other desert plants. I see it more and more often as clothing/accessories patterns and in my hipster friends’ homes. I compared body hair to cactus plants- people are interested and fascinated in them, but also afraid of them in some sort of way. And finally, I used cactuses to represent the aggressiveness that people believe body hair comes with. Haha
Here’s a breakdown for each piece and body part. These pieces are titled after the date I last shaved that specific area.
The last time I shaved my legs was in November of 2012. I was at Wisconsin Dells and I was rushing to shave my legs cause we were basically on our way out to the indoor waterpark. I had gone some time without shaving. My insecurities kept me from showing my legs even during the summer, so it wasn’t too hard to not shave, I guess. But it was winter and we were going swimming and I was already super self-conscious and on top of that they were hairy. Hell naw. Not today. Once summer came along the next year, little by little, I started to give less of a shit. I was still pretty self-conscious but I had to get over it eventually. I was still worried about what people thought or would say to me. My mom and sisters would still judge me occasionally. But it was fine. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I realized that people don’t actually give a shit about women’s unshaved body parts like they did on the internet. So that went pretty ok.
Every so often I would shave my armpits. Like maybe once every month or so and the time between shavings got longer and longer till I said fuck it. March 2014, during my senior year of college, was the last time I shaved my pits. And 2 weeks after that, I made a GIF of my armpits with growing flames on them as a representation of the burning and irritating feeling left after shaving. It sucked, I hated it and I was like well, that’s the last time I ever do that. My mother really didn’t like this one, but I would just laugh off her comments till they finally stopped. Other than that people don’t really comment, as they shouldn’t. Except for that random guy who’s like “eww, you don’t shave? That’s weird” but will have bushes on his legs, pits and chest tryna talk shit. Anyway.
And last but not least, the cooch area.
The last time a razor visited the downstairs was July 2015… a year ago basically. Same story, I didn’t shave that area often at all, and my rule was to never ever shave for a guy if he asked you to cause fuck that. Men/sexual partners DO NOT have a say on anything that has to do with a woman’s body. Whether it’s about their weight, the way we dress, or our body hair. PERIOD.
Sooo there goes Yessica… breaking her golden rule. The last time I shaved this area was due to a partner that I was seeing at the time… who I then ended up pregnant by… which followed by a miscarriage and the worst emotional and physical pain I’ve ever experienced. I am almost ashamed to admit that the last time I shaved my bikini area was because a man asked me to. I’ve also never told this story to anyone, so It’s kinda weird and liberating to write about it.
This series is my way of celebrating the end of my insecurities when it came to my body hair. I wear tank tops more often than ever, I stopped wearing tights and leggings with every dress and, not once, has my partner, my soul bae, the bae of my life, my one true bae (lol) has EVER made me feel self-conscious about my hairiness. Learn to love yourself as you are. Being overweight, hairy and a person of color, it’s been quite the journey to get to this point of self-love. And if you’re an artist and are struggling with self-acceptance, use your craft to help you love yourself the way you deserve to.
