Ambassador voices: A poem about body hair

Hasan volunteers with The Mix as one of our Young Ambassadors. He has written this poem to express how he feels about body hair.

Hairy Hair

Coarse, fine, black, blonde, straight, curly, thick, thin. Legs, arms, hands, back, groin, ass, feet, nipples, stomach. It’s normal, it’s natural, it’s hair.
“Oh my god, your hand is so hairy!”.
But it’s normal, it’s natural, it’s hair!
No.

It’s no longer hair. It’s hairy. And hairy is wrong.
But when does hair become hairy, and who decides it’s wrong?
It happened again.
“You would look better if you shaved your legs”
How so?
“More feminine. I like smooth”
Smooth. That word would come up again and again and again.
I could no longer be feminine without being smooth. To have hair, was to be manly. To be manly, was to be undesirable.
I wanted to be feminine. I wanted to be beautiful. I wanted to shave.
No. I didn’t want to shave. I needed to shave.
Who doesn’t want to be desired? Who doesn’t want to feel beautiful?
I had to shave for him.
And there it is. The problem. I was shaving for him.
My beauty. My femininity. My worth. Was tied to him.

He decides what’s feminine, what’s masculine, what’s hair, what’s hairy, what’s beautiful, what’s ugly.

I say Enough.
Because what comes next?
How far would I go for him?
For how long would I be attached to him? When does my life become his?
My life.
My hairy life.
No. Not hairy.
Just hair.

Hasan