Bearded Lady by Mara Altman Read Free Book Online

signals of continued fertility.
    Got that?
    And isn’t that the driving force of humans and all animals, really? We’re all in this, theoretically, to reproduce, right? So maybe, from a strictly academic perspective, I’d been getting rid of my face hairs all this time so that men would see me as a qualified baby maker before I’d even really consciously thought about if I wanted to make babies myself.
    Now I was hopelessly confused.
     
    ***
     
    The next day, I was talking to my friend Erin. I was finding that as I researched hair, I was becoming desensitized to the taboo and could speak more freely about my own hair issues, so I ended up telling her about my latest chin hair.
    Erin, much to my delight, admitted to having some chin hairs, too. “I discovered back in high school while I was in math class,” she said, bringing her hand to her chin. “I was just thumbing my chin like this and then there was this little thing.”
    She had discussed the hair with two of her friends who also had chin hair and they had employed one another to be emergency pluckers if one ever fell into a coma or became otherwise incapacitated.
    “Seriously?” I said.
    I was somewhat astonished, but also pleased to know that I wasn’t alone — in the chin hairs or even more unexpectedly, in the ongoing fear-of-coma scenario.
    Over the next couple weeks, I interviewed close to twenty women about their body hair, of whom more than a few also had a plan in place for their strays if they ever were not able to pluck on their own. For some, the surrogate plucker was their mother. For others, it was a sister or a friend. So far, I haven’t heard of the position being filled by a husband or boyfriend.
    It felt good to know that I wasn’t alone, but it also bothered me to know that so many of us lived in such fear that our biological side would show. It was bad enough that we occasionally had to be seen in natural sunlight.
     
    ***
     
    So on November 14th, I began growing out my body hair. I contemplated growing the chin hairs, too, but I figured that I would probably incur some minor to medium psychological damage as a result. I wasn’t substantially practiced in the Zen arts of shrugging off contemptuous remarks. Even a friend, Ali, warned me, “Don’t do it for your own mental health.” Ali and I actually had a lot in common. She was so freaked out about her own hair that her husband didn’t know she uses Nair on her face or bleaches her arms. Her biggest fear is that when she has a baby, her husband will probably see her breastfeeding in daylight. “He’ll see my boobs and they are going to be so sore so I don’t know if I’ll be able to pluck,” she said, “and does it bother your child if there are weird hairs there?”
    Nothing really dramatic occurred as the hair grew in. It was sparser than I’d expected. My legs were not particularly hirsute, popping up with fine dark hair about a quarter to a half-inch long. They looked the way a wood floor at a salon would look after a stylist had trimmed a balding man. The armpits, however, came in fuller. They developed a brown fuzz, which was surprisingly soft. Sometimes when I reached my arms upward, I thought I’d spotted something — like a rodent — out of the periphery, but then when I swung my head back to look, I’d remember that it had actually been my new armpit locks.
    I felt some anxiety about going to yoga and the gym — where my legs and underarms would most be on display — wondering what people were going to think of me. But mostly I felt like a rebel. I wanted someone to say something and I wanted to defend my choice, but no one even seemed to look in my direction. Only once did I see two girls laugh and point at my armpits. I was self-conscious about it, but I also felt a little relieved. All these years of hair angst haven’t been for nothing. People actually can be judgmental schmucks!
    The absolute coolest thing — and it wasn’t actually that cool —