Hippie Feminist here, though not a lesbian lol. You should make a bingo card.
I like to think of Beauty practices as "Pretty-ing" or "De-Uglifying."
Putting on an extra nice dress, doing your hair up fun, maybe some red lipstick or something fun, jewelry- Few people do this to cover up some ugly part of themselves, and the cultural messaging matches it. No one says someone is ugly without a pretty dress and a necklace, just that they look extra beautiful with it on. Most people dont feel ashamed to be seen without a special pair of earrings. These are beauty practices I consider "Pretty-ing" and I indulge in them with no strange mixed feelings. They seek to elevate the already naturally beautiful woman.
However, there are beauty practices, like shaving, that are not like this. They are to remove or conceal some unsavory part of the natural female form- shaving, concealer, unhealthy diets. A woman in public not wearing her Sunday Best is rarely held in disdain- But she will be ridiculed if she also happens to be hairy, have uneven skin, or a few extra pounds. Shaving does not elevate from an already lovely state. Its pulling yourself out of the ugliness that is your natural body. The removal of something shameful. It starts with an entirely different assumption than putting on the nice dress. I call these "De-Uglification" and avoid them usually. Im not perfect. Still pluck the face.
I think for different people, different practices can end up in different categories. Maybe in some communities nice clothes are deuglification.
I will say trimming up the hair makes tick checks easier, but I dont think this is why most people do it these days haha.
Im intrigued by your comments on spiritual anorexia. What got me to quit struggling with food was growing frustrated by the experience of the "calorie voice" always in my head. I woke up and the first thing my brain did was divide the calories in a banana in half, by three, in quarters. How many calories in a pound of fat, how quickly Id lose a pound if I ate a half banana every day instead of a whole. It was incessant, a constantly rattling calculator. And I didnt want that to be my brain, I didnt want to be that boring. Yet God calls his followers to pray without ceasing- perhaps the frantic calorie chatter is a misfiring of wiring that could become constant prayer chatter? hmmm
Anyway, hope youre doing well. Stay warm, dont get buried in snow.
Hahah a bingo card would be fun to do! Maybe one of these days!!
I love how you broke this into two categories: prettifying vs de-uglification, and I think that's so astute and true.
I also agree on what you say about the frantic calorie chatter being a misfiring of wiring toward constant prayer. If you haven't stumbled across Birdie Hall's Substack, you'd love it ... she just wrote something on this. Wish I'd thought to include it in my post! She commented here so it should be easy to find her essay on "Starving Yourself for God."
Hi Keturah! I've been reading your substack since its inception (and your blog before that!) but I don't comment often, partially because I often have mixed feelings about your thoughts. I always find them fascinating--but I don't always agree. :)
Anyhow...about this, I just wanted to say that I find it absolutely appalling that there are groups of Christians that a) are proponents of the view that women need to make themselves 'attractive' for their husband *in any way that he wants* and b) are 'honest' with each other to the point of the husband saying that the wife looks ugly when she's pregnant. That's not love!
I was definitely not brought up with that (praise God) and reading about it reminded me of the polar opposite thing that our priest (I'm Catholic) always says to all of the engaged couples who come through marriage preparation at our parish: "Your wife should be the most beautiful woman in the world to you, because you know her heart the best". Not because she necessarily objectively is the most beautiful woman in the world, but because of her *heart*. And all of the time!
I grew up with a mom who was not at all interested in conforming to 'beauty norms' (which I am very grateful for!). She never wore makeup all throughout my childhood (and I don't either, although I do enjoy putting on a bit of mascara and lipstick for special occasions!), and she didn't *always* shave. I have a complex relationship with shaving...I didn't ever shave my legs before this past summer (and I'm in my twenties), partially because I didn't want to, and partially because it was too much work. This past summer, I was wearing dresses every day, and paradoxically perhaps, it made me want to shave because I didn't like the way my legs looked with hair on them. I'm not sure if I'm going to stop (although I don't do it in the winter for sure--way too much work!), but I will certainly put thought into your point that it's a rejection of the love for the natural ways our bodies *are*.
Also, although I've only dated two different (Catholic) men in my life, I find that men are *generally* not interested in women doing weird body-modifying things. Neither of those men were/are interested in me wearing makeup, nor were/are they proponents of me shaving my legs. One of them even has (current boyfriend) a love/hate relationship with my earrings! Which suggests that in some ways, women do those things to show off to *fellow women*, not men, at least some of the time.
Interesting side-note: I've read that when artists started portraying (nude) women *with* pubic hair in I believe the early 20th century, they were accused of being pornographic in a way that portrayals of nude women *without* pubic hair were not. Not sure quite how that fits with your argument, although it might.
Hello Samantha! Wow -- how crazy that you've been around since the old blog! Don't worry about not always agreeing ... blogging is like journaling, and my opinions tend to change over the year. It's just fun to share and discuss. Furthermore, I'll be converting to Catholicism in the near future, so I'm sure I'll be getting to your way of thinking on at least some things more and more.
Thank you for your thoughtful response and sharing your own journey -- love to hear it. And love what your Priest has to say about beauty. It's spot on.
I'm not sure what the reason for the pornographic art would be, except maybe it was considered less pornographic to depict prostitutes than natural, fertile women? Not really sure, just spitballing here!
Tragic that those evangelicals led you astray. They should be wary of Jesus’ warning about millstones being hung around necks. You were so innocent and fresh, and they stomped all over that. I liked your point about all women being trans these days. I’ve been thinking that too. How the “beautiful” women are only so named because they’ve dyed their hair, gotten surgery, wear fake eyelashes and a cake-face of makeup, and starve their bodies into unnatural shapes.
But I don’t think these things (including leg shaving) are child-bride mimicry. In moderation, they serve to heighten the already present bodily differences between men and women. Women, after all, do tend to have less body hair than men (usually our chest hair and arm hair is invisible, for example, and we don’t grow beards). Is enhancing those differences bad?
It’s true there’s certainly a line somewhere. If we don’t consciously draw that line, we’ll get sucked into the plastic porn land of our decadent culture and end up looking like Dolly Parton. But when I braid my hair, prune my brows, and apply lip balm, I think I’m still in the holy territory of tending the garden of my body in a peculiarly feminine way.
Yes, honestly it's hard to judge those who "misled" me since they were near my own age + a product of pornbrain culture which is unfortunately quite rampant in many, many Christian cultures. I have a theory that the reason it's more rampant than in say secular environments is mostly due to the fact that seculars are more open with sexual promiscuity -- they'll sleep around, therefore the hidden sins of porn and its effects are less insidious to a degree.
I completely agree with your analysis of the "trans" woman -- I tweeted recently that "beauty pageants are drag for straight women".
I think there certainly is a fine line between highlighting male and female differences and denouncing the pure feminine body. This line is blurred by current culture, and is really left up to us to figure out on our own. It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job yourself of discerning that line for you and your daughter.
I agree with your thoughts on the origin of women shaving, as well as "There's a line somewhere, but feminine hair habits probably isn't it." Somewhere, not sure where, I read that women started shaving their body hair when men started shaving their beards. Because men now had less body hair, women now needed to reduce their body hair too to look distinct from men.
Wow…this has given me a lot to think about. I’m 99% sure I know exactly who you’re talking about when you described the family with the grandmother at the center, and the woman who peddles the best-selling diet. I followed that diet for years until I married a good, kind, godly man. On our wedding day, I was bone-thin with digestive issues and orthorexia. After my husband (kindly!) told me that diet was INSANE, I stopped following it and I’m SO much healthier.
I’ve heard that shaving your private parts is a routine inspired by porn, but I never realized shaving your legs and armpits originates from the same source. I started shaving at 10 years old because my grandmother cruelly mocked my dark leg hair and said it looked “like a forest.” Definitely going to think long and hard about this. I have a little girl of my own now so the stakes are high.
Your story breaks my heart! So many girls start shaving around the same time that so many young boys begin to view porn. I don’t think this is a coincidence — society is truly trying to tear down both women and men by making them both equally dissatisfied with the female body. How wonderful you were blessed with such a kind and insightful husband!!!
Interesting reading about your experience in Germany. I studied there in college in the '70s and no German women shaved. Some girls in my study group quit shaving because the peer pressure just wasn't there.
I quit shaving my legs when I was in my 40s and found out about its connection to prostitution. I was helped by less hair production as I aged, and quit shaving my armpits, too. (Tried vinegar rinses, didn't work.) With you on eyebrows. Not surprised at all about the relationship to porn use. I grew up Catholic, then was an Evangelical for +30 years; I saw, being Ev. from the late '70s on, how the desire of Evangelicals to be "Biblical" about everything led some who wanted to be "traditional" to the unhealthy place you describe. My traditional Catholic parents didn't have those hang-ups, in spite of being supposedly so much less "Biblical"! (I'm Orthodox for the past 16 years and very much feel like I'm in a place that supports my desire for health and healing.)
Completely agree about female "beauty standards" destroying the beauty of everyone's natural features. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to do what I secretly wanted to do. God bless you & Andy and your little one.
I know what evangelical group you're talking about, and it's really sad to hear that their culture has bred disdain for women's natural body that God designed and an overemphasis on beauty/weight modification. Sad to hear what you and others experienced.
I read this essay last night and I woke up today still thinking about it. You've left us with very strong arguments with much to ponder and consider. I have never deeply thought about how the act of women shaving can be tied to the p*** industry, but you have made valid points. As you have said, "Shaving means one thing only: the fantasization of prepubescent girls", at this point I do not have an argument against that. All of us should not be doing anything that fosters body insecurities, yet many (myself included) seem to do this daily, whether or not it is intentional. All women desire to feel and look beautiful and we have been programmed to think that means getting rid of what is natural, covering up what is not "good enough", and consuming (whether food, drink, media, etc.) what is unhealthy for us. We are no one to say that God's handiwork is not enough or incorrect. We women need to learn to just simply be, and like your husband has wrote, "Women should embrace being boggy forest beings". Thank you for writing about this massive topic, I am going to be thinking about this for awhile!
I wrote this before you were back online or I'd have included your words on anorexia!! When you first posted your "take" on twitter it was in the midst of when I was going through my transformation/ research.
This is such a great piece and wove in all the threads I was wondering if you’d pick up. I was raised in an upper/middle class family in a metropolitan city. I remember when I began at a new middle school and all the girls shaved, included their public area, and strove to look like the girls in music videos. I remember when I wanted to begin shaving and my mom was hesitant, I was about 11 or 12. She said “once you start you’ll be a slave to it for life” (she shaved and abided by most modern female beauty standards).
Let’s just say that being groomed to look this way (by society, my peers) from such a young age highly damaged my relationship with my own natural body, and thus, also my sexuality.
I’m a woman of 35 years now and I gave up shaving maybe 8 or so years ago. I was exposed to other women who didn’t and honestly, I just thought it was kind of edgy to let go of what had become so standard. At first I would sometimes shave, maybe once every few months, but it always felt really weird and not good. I felt off and out of sync with my body, like some kind of wolf being who’s lost their senses. Eventually I realized that my hair is a part of my natural female body and was complete put off by removing it. In fact, I feel more beautiful this way, not less, precisely because this is how I was made to look by my creator.
Plus I now know it serves its own biological function as well: it holds our unique scent and signature. This is part of how creatures communicate with each other and now I’m certain it plays a role in attracting a compatible mate.
I have birthed two babies naturally through my body. It is the picture of maternal stregnth and nourishment. I pity those who believe a simulated prepubescent body to be more attractive - a sign of broken culture indeed. I’m glad you pointed out that this obsession with hairless ness and lack of odor is rooted in pedophilia.
Thank you for this. I’m sorry you had to go through treatment that at least borders on abuse, if it isn’t outright. I feel grateful you were able to hold your ground and shine some feminine truth out to the friends still living in their insecurity and conditioning.
Thank you for writing this, Keturah. It was thought provoking. I've never considered a physiological connection between shaving and eating disorders before. I have been realizing that much (most) of what we women do, as you point out, is actually for the benefit of other women (or rather for our benefit so we can feel superior or at least equal). And that it all centers on looking young. I've bought into this as well. In addition to wanting to be desirable by the current world standards, we don't want to accept that we all have a date with death. Instead we engage in a fantasy, and we put off the inevitable. And perhaps it's a byproduct of the fall, the curse that has bound us all to the first death? I feel myself wanting to succumb to this at age 66 quite deeply. This too is a lack of faith, as in the scripture our death is said to be precious in the sight of God.
I really liked your comment (Was it in reply to someone or in the original essay---I've read a lot of words?) about a woman's hair cut or style etc, being no one's business but hers and her husband's. I really think this is a key point. The relationship is so sacred that no one else should be let in. Period.
You had a stat that was 85% (or close to that number?) of Christian women regularly view porn? Where did that come from? Certainly concerning.
The broad picture of history helped me to see how the past 100 or so years have brought huge changes in women's trends. Thanks again for putting this out.
And yes, I do believe some of these things are between a man and his wife AS long as those things between them remain holy. Because nothing really stays between spouses. Children witness a lot, and if they see that their mother is obsessed with her portions, her hair cut, how she shaves, etc, then so will her daughters be. And spouses might think that it's just between them to sodomize each other or watch porn together, but the spirit behind those things persists in their home and affects the children or anyone living with them.
Just found a quote that relates from Fahrenheit 451! The character is talking about how books are important because they have quality and texture. "So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam."
I just wanted to add a note on skin health, hair, and bacteria. So humans like all animals have a "normal microbiome," a lot of good-guy bacteria that live on the outside surfaces of the body. This of course includes the skin. When tiny babies are first born, and also in elderly people, they don't have as well-established of a healthy skin microbiome, and because of that, can get more skin infections. Why that is is because of sebum on our skin.
Sebum is made by the sebaceous glands, and consists of fatty acids that prevent the growth of many bacteria on our skin, but allow the good-guy normal skin microbiome to thrive. The sebum gets onto the sebaceous glands via hair: each hair follicle is connected to sebaceous glands, and the hair acts as a conduit for the sebum to get on the skin. When you remove the hair, you remove the conduit for the sebum to get on the skin. This explains why there are skin infections that you cannot get if you don't depilate in some way.
You grow more hair and make more sebum with it after puberty, in response to sex hormones. Later, as people become elderly, sex hormone production drops off, as does hair growth. This is a key reason why the skin of elderly people is more fragile and infection-prone than the skin of younger adults. It's also why hairless babies get a wider range of skin infections than older kids and adults do.
Shaving does not make your skin as sebum-deprived as that of an elderly adult or of a newborn, but it sure makes it a lot more sebum-deprived than it would have been with hair. And that's going to make it a lot less healthy.
That having been said, I can think of one real hygiene reason for shaving of either head or body hair: lice. Only head lice are common now, but body lice were very common throughout history. In their day, body lice carried multiple deadly diseases, which accounted for a higher mortality rate in the early 20th century as all cancers combined do today. The reason for the disappearance of body lice isn't shaving, it's laundry--if you have the resources to have at least a few outfits that you can regularly take off and wash with soap and water, you won't have body lice. For most of human history, though, few people had access to enough clothing and washing facilities to eradicate body lice, and shaving body hair may have been an attempt to reduce body louse burdens.
Related note: the modern preference for hairless genitals has had a significant impact on reducing crab lice infestations. (I normally take the opportunity to joke about "another species on the verge of extinction because of Brazilian deforestation.") It does make sense for those with many sex partners to not provide a habitat for parasites. And of course, porn being a visual medium, anything that interferes with seeing *everything* is to be avoided.
I don't disagree with the idea that prostitution and porn promote shaving, just suggesting a couple of alternative explanations other than fetishizing prepubescents.
A lot of bad philosophies tend to have a couple good side affects -- although in this day and age we understand hygiene a lot better and don't need to shave the entire body in order to achieve it
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about three not immediately obviously linked subjects! I think you're on to something. This might be a subject to bring up in my church's women's group!
I also feel sad about what you went through to accept your body and femininity. Perhaps it may be reassuring to remember that outside of the US, Christians aren't as horrible as they sound in this piece, and many if not most of us are more concerned about how to love God and our neighbour than about fitting into cultural standards. May you continue to stand fast in the faith also and let these distractions fall away.
I do hope nobody’s take away from this essay is “Christians are horrible!” There are many wonderful Christians in the states (and outside of it as you say!!). I wrote this essay for Christians to Christians because I believe it’s more important to speak to our own — maybe more so! What good is it to rant on about how immoral you believe others to be living if they don’t share your values and beliefs anyways? I’m so glad you’ll bring this up in your women’s study. We all know that porn has damaging effects on women and men, but we’re not always willing to discuss what those effects might be I’ve found.
This was an excellent threading together of three phenomena. You’re not the first person to detail the dysfunctional sexuality that can infect and infest a Christian community and the damage it does. It absolutely infuriates me hearing that kind of harm done, especially when Christianity is such an embodied religion.
I do want to provide some nuance for the artistic parallels. One of the newer discoveries about Ancient Greek and Roman statuary (about 15 years, it absolutely hasn’t filtered into the mainstream) is that it was painted. Most stonework in the Middle Ages was also painted and we even know what colours they were because of pigment traces left behind. Most of those statues were bright and colourful with varying degrees of realism. Hair may be have been painted onto those statues, but we’d never know now given the ravages of time.
The other thing that I wanted to draw your attention to is the extreme fasting for religious reasons and its relation to anorexia nervosa. It was not supposed to be a common discipline and the people who we now revere as saints were scandalous in their day. (Catherine of Siena was one of these types and I’d highly recommend a biography of her by Sigrid Undsett). It was especially scandalous because of a heretical Christian sect that emerged in the 13th century known as the Albigensians. They also practiced extreme fasting out of a heretical rejection of the body and carnal desires as satanic. They advocated against procreation (trapping a pure soul in a meat sack was the highest sin) and even subjected infants to extreme fasting to ‘liberate’ them.
Albigensianism was one of the descendants of Manicheanism and in the ancient world, a dualistic pitting of the spirit against the flesh that is the logic of Plato taken to its bitter extreme. We in the modern and post modern west are in the throes of another manichean revival. The only person I’ve come across who understood this dynamic in modernity is Pope John Paul II. I hope that you eventually get to his Theology of the Body in due course. It lifted the scales from my eyes in my 18th year and I haven’t looked back. You’re on the right track though. Porn is a profound evil and any Christian who justifies using it is no better than medieval Albigensians sodomising each other because ‘the body is of no consequence’.
For the record, I still wax my legs and trim other hair. I have very little and light armpit hair because I’ve only ever waxed them. Now I don’t bother. I ain’t got time for it now and I do it all my self 4-5 times over spring/summer and don’t bother in winter. The woman in the Song of Songs is intimately connected to gardens and that I think is the best approach to all issues of grooming and how far to take it. Remove weeds (ie, cancerous marks, warts or other diseases of hair or skin), prune to shape and promote growth, and water and fertilise for flowering and fruiting. It should be full and lucious, not denuded and minimalist. That’s my two cents.
P.S. the ‘gentleman’ who is willing to be honest and tell his pregnant wife she is repulsive to him needs to be whacked upside the head with a fish named prudence… that’s not honesty, that’s unbridled self-expression and a profoundly unhealthy way to communicate.
That is such an interesting tableau about the statues having been painted! I hadn’t heard that before — but it sounds quite possible, and would make a lot of sense. I’ve been wanting to read more about “Christian anorexia”, but had no idea that Sigrid Undset’s wrote about it! I’ll def be keeping an eye out for that. Thank you for your thoughtful response!!
This was such a good article. I have struggled with both porn addiction and disordered eating. I can tell you that porn is a horrible, horrible problem in the Christian community. When I was watching porn, it felt like heroin at times. The human body is simply not designed to handle it. Ironically what saved me was my girlfriend. I just realized how unrealistic porn was by spending time with her. Now I can't look at it, Praise be to God!
I think it's really sad you were hurt by these Christian groups. As I like to say, Christians have turned more people off from salvation than atheists ever have.
Hippie Feminist here, though not a lesbian lol. You should make a bingo card.
I like to think of Beauty practices as "Pretty-ing" or "De-Uglifying."
Putting on an extra nice dress, doing your hair up fun, maybe some red lipstick or something fun, jewelry- Few people do this to cover up some ugly part of themselves, and the cultural messaging matches it. No one says someone is ugly without a pretty dress and a necklace, just that they look extra beautiful with it on. Most people dont feel ashamed to be seen without a special pair of earrings. These are beauty practices I consider "Pretty-ing" and I indulge in them with no strange mixed feelings. They seek to elevate the already naturally beautiful woman.
However, there are beauty practices, like shaving, that are not like this. They are to remove or conceal some unsavory part of the natural female form- shaving, concealer, unhealthy diets. A woman in public not wearing her Sunday Best is rarely held in disdain- But she will be ridiculed if she also happens to be hairy, have uneven skin, or a few extra pounds. Shaving does not elevate from an already lovely state. Its pulling yourself out of the ugliness that is your natural body. The removal of something shameful. It starts with an entirely different assumption than putting on the nice dress. I call these "De-Uglification" and avoid them usually. Im not perfect. Still pluck the face.
I think for different people, different practices can end up in different categories. Maybe in some communities nice clothes are deuglification.
I will say trimming up the hair makes tick checks easier, but I dont think this is why most people do it these days haha.
Im intrigued by your comments on spiritual anorexia. What got me to quit struggling with food was growing frustrated by the experience of the "calorie voice" always in my head. I woke up and the first thing my brain did was divide the calories in a banana in half, by three, in quarters. How many calories in a pound of fat, how quickly Id lose a pound if I ate a half banana every day instead of a whole. It was incessant, a constantly rattling calculator. And I didnt want that to be my brain, I didnt want to be that boring. Yet God calls his followers to pray without ceasing- perhaps the frantic calorie chatter is a misfiring of wiring that could become constant prayer chatter? hmmm
Anyway, hope youre doing well. Stay warm, dont get buried in snow.
Hahah a bingo card would be fun to do! Maybe one of these days!!
I love how you broke this into two categories: prettifying vs de-uglification, and I think that's so astute and true.
I also agree on what you say about the frantic calorie chatter being a misfiring of wiring toward constant prayer. If you haven't stumbled across Birdie Hall's Substack, you'd love it ... she just wrote something on this. Wish I'd thought to include it in my post! She commented here so it should be easy to find her essay on "Starving Yourself for God."
Hi Keturah! I've been reading your substack since its inception (and your blog before that!) but I don't comment often, partially because I often have mixed feelings about your thoughts. I always find them fascinating--but I don't always agree. :)
Anyhow...about this, I just wanted to say that I find it absolutely appalling that there are groups of Christians that a) are proponents of the view that women need to make themselves 'attractive' for their husband *in any way that he wants* and b) are 'honest' with each other to the point of the husband saying that the wife looks ugly when she's pregnant. That's not love!
I was definitely not brought up with that (praise God) and reading about it reminded me of the polar opposite thing that our priest (I'm Catholic) always says to all of the engaged couples who come through marriage preparation at our parish: "Your wife should be the most beautiful woman in the world to you, because you know her heart the best". Not because she necessarily objectively is the most beautiful woman in the world, but because of her *heart*. And all of the time!
I grew up with a mom who was not at all interested in conforming to 'beauty norms' (which I am very grateful for!). She never wore makeup all throughout my childhood (and I don't either, although I do enjoy putting on a bit of mascara and lipstick for special occasions!), and she didn't *always* shave. I have a complex relationship with shaving...I didn't ever shave my legs before this past summer (and I'm in my twenties), partially because I didn't want to, and partially because it was too much work. This past summer, I was wearing dresses every day, and paradoxically perhaps, it made me want to shave because I didn't like the way my legs looked with hair on them. I'm not sure if I'm going to stop (although I don't do it in the winter for sure--way too much work!), but I will certainly put thought into your point that it's a rejection of the love for the natural ways our bodies *are*.
Also, although I've only dated two different (Catholic) men in my life, I find that men are *generally* not interested in women doing weird body-modifying things. Neither of those men were/are interested in me wearing makeup, nor were/are they proponents of me shaving my legs. One of them even has (current boyfriend) a love/hate relationship with my earrings! Which suggests that in some ways, women do those things to show off to *fellow women*, not men, at least some of the time.
Interesting side-note: I've read that when artists started portraying (nude) women *with* pubic hair in I believe the early 20th century, they were accused of being pornographic in a way that portrayals of nude women *without* pubic hair were not. Not sure quite how that fits with your argument, although it might.
Hello Samantha! Wow -- how crazy that you've been around since the old blog! Don't worry about not always agreeing ... blogging is like journaling, and my opinions tend to change over the year. It's just fun to share and discuss. Furthermore, I'll be converting to Catholicism in the near future, so I'm sure I'll be getting to your way of thinking on at least some things more and more.
Thank you for your thoughtful response and sharing your own journey -- love to hear it. And love what your Priest has to say about beauty. It's spot on.
I'm not sure what the reason for the pornographic art would be, except maybe it was considered less pornographic to depict prostitutes than natural, fertile women? Not really sure, just spitballing here!
Tragic that those evangelicals led you astray. They should be wary of Jesus’ warning about millstones being hung around necks. You were so innocent and fresh, and they stomped all over that. I liked your point about all women being trans these days. I’ve been thinking that too. How the “beautiful” women are only so named because they’ve dyed their hair, gotten surgery, wear fake eyelashes and a cake-face of makeup, and starve their bodies into unnatural shapes.
But I don’t think these things (including leg shaving) are child-bride mimicry. In moderation, they serve to heighten the already present bodily differences between men and women. Women, after all, do tend to have less body hair than men (usually our chest hair and arm hair is invisible, for example, and we don’t grow beards). Is enhancing those differences bad?
It’s true there’s certainly a line somewhere. If we don’t consciously draw that line, we’ll get sucked into the plastic porn land of our decadent culture and end up looking like Dolly Parton. But when I braid my hair, prune my brows, and apply lip balm, I think I’m still in the holy territory of tending the garden of my body in a peculiarly feminine way.
Yes, honestly it's hard to judge those who "misled" me since they were near my own age + a product of pornbrain culture which is unfortunately quite rampant in many, many Christian cultures. I have a theory that the reason it's more rampant than in say secular environments is mostly due to the fact that seculars are more open with sexual promiscuity -- they'll sleep around, therefore the hidden sins of porn and its effects are less insidious to a degree.
I completely agree with your analysis of the "trans" woman -- I tweeted recently that "beauty pageants are drag for straight women".
I think there certainly is a fine line between highlighting male and female differences and denouncing the pure feminine body. This line is blurred by current culture, and is really left up to us to figure out on our own. It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job yourself of discerning that line for you and your daughter.
I agree with your thoughts on the origin of women shaving, as well as "There's a line somewhere, but feminine hair habits probably isn't it." Somewhere, not sure where, I read that women started shaving their body hair when men started shaving their beards. Because men now had less body hair, women now needed to reduce their body hair too to look distinct from men.
Wow…this has given me a lot to think about. I’m 99% sure I know exactly who you’re talking about when you described the family with the grandmother at the center, and the woman who peddles the best-selling diet. I followed that diet for years until I married a good, kind, godly man. On our wedding day, I was bone-thin with digestive issues and orthorexia. After my husband (kindly!) told me that diet was INSANE, I stopped following it and I’m SO much healthier.
I’ve heard that shaving your private parts is a routine inspired by porn, but I never realized shaving your legs and armpits originates from the same source. I started shaving at 10 years old because my grandmother cruelly mocked my dark leg hair and said it looked “like a forest.” Definitely going to think long and hard about this. I have a little girl of my own now so the stakes are high.
Your story breaks my heart! So many girls start shaving around the same time that so many young boys begin to view porn. I don’t think this is a coincidence — society is truly trying to tear down both women and men by making them both equally dissatisfied with the female body. How wonderful you were blessed with such a kind and insightful husband!!!
Interesting reading about your experience in Germany. I studied there in college in the '70s and no German women shaved. Some girls in my study group quit shaving because the peer pressure just wasn't there.
I quit shaving my legs when I was in my 40s and found out about its connection to prostitution. I was helped by less hair production as I aged, and quit shaving my armpits, too. (Tried vinegar rinses, didn't work.) With you on eyebrows. Not surprised at all about the relationship to porn use. I grew up Catholic, then was an Evangelical for +30 years; I saw, being Ev. from the late '70s on, how the desire of Evangelicals to be "Biblical" about everything led some who wanted to be "traditional" to the unhealthy place you describe. My traditional Catholic parents didn't have those hang-ups, in spite of being supposedly so much less "Biblical"! (I'm Orthodox for the past 16 years and very much feel like I'm in a place that supports my desire for health and healing.)
Completely agree about female "beauty standards" destroying the beauty of everyone's natural features. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to do what I secretly wanted to do. God bless you & Andy and your little one.
Dana
I know what evangelical group you're talking about, and it's really sad to hear that their culture has bred disdain for women's natural body that God designed and an overemphasis on beauty/weight modification. Sad to hear what you and others experienced.
I read this essay last night and I woke up today still thinking about it. You've left us with very strong arguments with much to ponder and consider. I have never deeply thought about how the act of women shaving can be tied to the p*** industry, but you have made valid points. As you have said, "Shaving means one thing only: the fantasization of prepubescent girls", at this point I do not have an argument against that. All of us should not be doing anything that fosters body insecurities, yet many (myself included) seem to do this daily, whether or not it is intentional. All women desire to feel and look beautiful and we have been programmed to think that means getting rid of what is natural, covering up what is not "good enough", and consuming (whether food, drink, media, etc.) what is unhealthy for us. We are no one to say that God's handiwork is not enough or incorrect. We women need to learn to just simply be, and like your husband has wrote, "Women should embrace being boggy forest beings". Thank you for writing about this massive topic, I am going to be thinking about this for awhile!
Beautiful Keturah
Thank you!
I wrote this before you were back online or I'd have included your words on anorexia!! When you first posted your "take" on twitter it was in the midst of when I was going through my transformation/ research.
This is such a great piece and wove in all the threads I was wondering if you’d pick up. I was raised in an upper/middle class family in a metropolitan city. I remember when I began at a new middle school and all the girls shaved, included their public area, and strove to look like the girls in music videos. I remember when I wanted to begin shaving and my mom was hesitant, I was about 11 or 12. She said “once you start you’ll be a slave to it for life” (she shaved and abided by most modern female beauty standards).
Let’s just say that being groomed to look this way (by society, my peers) from such a young age highly damaged my relationship with my own natural body, and thus, also my sexuality.
I’m a woman of 35 years now and I gave up shaving maybe 8 or so years ago. I was exposed to other women who didn’t and honestly, I just thought it was kind of edgy to let go of what had become so standard. At first I would sometimes shave, maybe once every few months, but it always felt really weird and not good. I felt off and out of sync with my body, like some kind of wolf being who’s lost their senses. Eventually I realized that my hair is a part of my natural female body and was complete put off by removing it. In fact, I feel more beautiful this way, not less, precisely because this is how I was made to look by my creator.
Plus I now know it serves its own biological function as well: it holds our unique scent and signature. This is part of how creatures communicate with each other and now I’m certain it plays a role in attracting a compatible mate.
I have birthed two babies naturally through my body. It is the picture of maternal stregnth and nourishment. I pity those who believe a simulated prepubescent body to be more attractive - a sign of broken culture indeed. I’m glad you pointed out that this obsession with hairless ness and lack of odor is rooted in pedophilia.
Thank you for this. I’m sorry you had to go through treatment that at least borders on abuse, if it isn’t outright. I feel grateful you were able to hold your ground and shine some feminine truth out to the friends still living in their insecurity and conditioning.
What a story.
Thank you for writing this, Keturah. It was thought provoking. I've never considered a physiological connection between shaving and eating disorders before. I have been realizing that much (most) of what we women do, as you point out, is actually for the benefit of other women (or rather for our benefit so we can feel superior or at least equal). And that it all centers on looking young. I've bought into this as well. In addition to wanting to be desirable by the current world standards, we don't want to accept that we all have a date with death. Instead we engage in a fantasy, and we put off the inevitable. And perhaps it's a byproduct of the fall, the curse that has bound us all to the first death? I feel myself wanting to succumb to this at age 66 quite deeply. This too is a lack of faith, as in the scripture our death is said to be precious in the sight of God.
I really liked your comment (Was it in reply to someone or in the original essay---I've read a lot of words?) about a woman's hair cut or style etc, being no one's business but hers and her husband's. I really think this is a key point. The relationship is so sacred that no one else should be let in. Period.
You had a stat that was 85% (or close to that number?) of Christian women regularly view porn? Where did that come from? Certainly concerning.
The broad picture of history helped me to see how the past 100 or so years have brought huge changes in women's trends. Thanks again for putting this out.
I don't remember where I got that stat from! But here's a breakdown of some of it: (20% of christian women are addicted to porn, but way more view it). https://enough.org/stats_christians_online_porn_archives
And yes, I do believe some of these things are between a man and his wife AS long as those things between them remain holy. Because nothing really stays between spouses. Children witness a lot, and if they see that their mother is obsessed with her portions, her hair cut, how she shaves, etc, then so will her daughters be. And spouses might think that it's just between them to sodomize each other or watch porn together, but the spirit behind those things persists in their home and affects the children or anyone living with them.
Thank you for reading and for your response!
Just found a quote that relates from Fahrenheit 451! The character is talking about how books are important because they have quality and texture. "So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam."
Hi! Thank you for a very interesting post.
I just wanted to add a note on skin health, hair, and bacteria. So humans like all animals have a "normal microbiome," a lot of good-guy bacteria that live on the outside surfaces of the body. This of course includes the skin. When tiny babies are first born, and also in elderly people, they don't have as well-established of a healthy skin microbiome, and because of that, can get more skin infections. Why that is is because of sebum on our skin.
Sebum is made by the sebaceous glands, and consists of fatty acids that prevent the growth of many bacteria on our skin, but allow the good-guy normal skin microbiome to thrive. The sebum gets onto the sebaceous glands via hair: each hair follicle is connected to sebaceous glands, and the hair acts as a conduit for the sebum to get on the skin. When you remove the hair, you remove the conduit for the sebum to get on the skin. This explains why there are skin infections that you cannot get if you don't depilate in some way.
You grow more hair and make more sebum with it after puberty, in response to sex hormones. Later, as people become elderly, sex hormone production drops off, as does hair growth. This is a key reason why the skin of elderly people is more fragile and infection-prone than the skin of younger adults. It's also why hairless babies get a wider range of skin infections than older kids and adults do.
Shaving does not make your skin as sebum-deprived as that of an elderly adult or of a newborn, but it sure makes it a lot more sebum-deprived than it would have been with hair. And that's going to make it a lot less healthy.
That having been said, I can think of one real hygiene reason for shaving of either head or body hair: lice. Only head lice are common now, but body lice were very common throughout history. In their day, body lice carried multiple deadly diseases, which accounted for a higher mortality rate in the early 20th century as all cancers combined do today. The reason for the disappearance of body lice isn't shaving, it's laundry--if you have the resources to have at least a few outfits that you can regularly take off and wash with soap and water, you won't have body lice. For most of human history, though, few people had access to enough clothing and washing facilities to eradicate body lice, and shaving body hair may have been an attempt to reduce body louse burdens.
Related note: the modern preference for hairless genitals has had a significant impact on reducing crab lice infestations. (I normally take the opportunity to joke about "another species on the verge of extinction because of Brazilian deforestation.") It does make sense for those with many sex partners to not provide a habitat for parasites. And of course, porn being a visual medium, anything that interferes with seeing *everything* is to be avoided.
I don't disagree with the idea that prostitution and porn promote shaving, just suggesting a couple of alternative explanations other than fetishizing prepubescents.
A lot of bad philosophies tend to have a couple good side affects -- although in this day and age we understand hygiene a lot better and don't need to shave the entire body in order to achieve it
Arabic is not the language of Iran. Iranians speak Farsi (Persian).
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about three not immediately obviously linked subjects! I think you're on to something. This might be a subject to bring up in my church's women's group!
I also feel sad about what you went through to accept your body and femininity. Perhaps it may be reassuring to remember that outside of the US, Christians aren't as horrible as they sound in this piece, and many if not most of us are more concerned about how to love God and our neighbour than about fitting into cultural standards. May you continue to stand fast in the faith also and let these distractions fall away.
I do hope nobody’s take away from this essay is “Christians are horrible!” There are many wonderful Christians in the states (and outside of it as you say!!). I wrote this essay for Christians to Christians because I believe it’s more important to speak to our own — maybe more so! What good is it to rant on about how immoral you believe others to be living if they don’t share your values and beliefs anyways? I’m so glad you’ll bring this up in your women’s study. We all know that porn has damaging effects on women and men, but we’re not always willing to discuss what those effects might be I’ve found.
This was an excellent threading together of three phenomena. You’re not the first person to detail the dysfunctional sexuality that can infect and infest a Christian community and the damage it does. It absolutely infuriates me hearing that kind of harm done, especially when Christianity is such an embodied religion.
I do want to provide some nuance for the artistic parallels. One of the newer discoveries about Ancient Greek and Roman statuary (about 15 years, it absolutely hasn’t filtered into the mainstream) is that it was painted. Most stonework in the Middle Ages was also painted and we even know what colours they were because of pigment traces left behind. Most of those statues were bright and colourful with varying degrees of realism. Hair may be have been painted onto those statues, but we’d never know now given the ravages of time.
The other thing that I wanted to draw your attention to is the extreme fasting for religious reasons and its relation to anorexia nervosa. It was not supposed to be a common discipline and the people who we now revere as saints were scandalous in their day. (Catherine of Siena was one of these types and I’d highly recommend a biography of her by Sigrid Undsett). It was especially scandalous because of a heretical Christian sect that emerged in the 13th century known as the Albigensians. They also practiced extreme fasting out of a heretical rejection of the body and carnal desires as satanic. They advocated against procreation (trapping a pure soul in a meat sack was the highest sin) and even subjected infants to extreme fasting to ‘liberate’ them.
Albigensianism was one of the descendants of Manicheanism and in the ancient world, a dualistic pitting of the spirit against the flesh that is the logic of Plato taken to its bitter extreme. We in the modern and post modern west are in the throes of another manichean revival. The only person I’ve come across who understood this dynamic in modernity is Pope John Paul II. I hope that you eventually get to his Theology of the Body in due course. It lifted the scales from my eyes in my 18th year and I haven’t looked back. You’re on the right track though. Porn is a profound evil and any Christian who justifies using it is no better than medieval Albigensians sodomising each other because ‘the body is of no consequence’.
For the record, I still wax my legs and trim other hair. I have very little and light armpit hair because I’ve only ever waxed them. Now I don’t bother. I ain’t got time for it now and I do it all my self 4-5 times over spring/summer and don’t bother in winter. The woman in the Song of Songs is intimately connected to gardens and that I think is the best approach to all issues of grooming and how far to take it. Remove weeds (ie, cancerous marks, warts or other diseases of hair or skin), prune to shape and promote growth, and water and fertilise for flowering and fruiting. It should be full and lucious, not denuded and minimalist. That’s my two cents.
P.S. the ‘gentleman’ who is willing to be honest and tell his pregnant wife she is repulsive to him needs to be whacked upside the head with a fish named prudence… that’s not honesty, that’s unbridled self-expression and a profoundly unhealthy way to communicate.
That is such an interesting tableau about the statues having been painted! I hadn’t heard that before — but it sounds quite possible, and would make a lot of sense. I’ve been wanting to read more about “Christian anorexia”, but had no idea that Sigrid Undset’s wrote about it! I’ll def be keeping an eye out for that. Thank you for your thoughtful response!!
This was such a good article. I have struggled with both porn addiction and disordered eating. I can tell you that porn is a horrible, horrible problem in the Christian community. When I was watching porn, it felt like heroin at times. The human body is simply not designed to handle it. Ironically what saved me was my girlfriend. I just realized how unrealistic porn was by spending time with her. Now I can't look at it, Praise be to God!
I think it's really sad you were hurt by these Christian groups. As I like to say, Christians have turned more people off from salvation than atheists ever have.
What an incredible peace!