America's Next Top Model

It's no secret that I love "America's Next Top Model". I like to pretend that I oppose all reality television, but that simply isn't true; I'm a sucker for the reality shows with professional contests, like "Top Chef", "Iron Chef", "Project Runway", "RuPaul's Drag Race", and so on. And if there's an ANTM marathon on the TV (which Bravo does far too often), I am drawn like a moth to a flame to sit down for six hours or so until a girl is finally crowned America's next top model.

It's my guilty pleasure, and yes, I'll probably keep watching it, even as Tyra gets crazier, the show declines, and the winners continue to not, in fact, become top models at all. Now on Cycle (the fancy modelized word for "season") 14, they are certainly milking things as much as possible, including a line of clothing and cosmetics sold at Walmart, and the recently released book for young women: "Fierce Guide to Life: The Ultimate Source of Beauty, Fashion, and Model Behavior".

It caught my attention mostly because of this particular excerpt from the section about body hair: “Yes, you’re secretly a hairy beast. While there is no medical or hygienic reason to get rid of your body hair, the current standards of beauty absolutely require you to remove all hair from your armpits, legs and face for a smooth, youthful look. It’s a regular chore that every model must handle. If you’re going to be modeling a bathing suit or lingerie, you will definitely need to groom your bikini line.”

Makes sense, really. Modeling is a competitive industry with impeccably high (or perhaps unrealistic and unattainable?) standards regarding one's physical appearance; every other show, it seems, has to talk about height, race, hair, body size, and so on in relation to a model's acceptability. It follows logically that body hair would be just as scrutinized, just as subject to standards of beauty. And indeed, body hair got a starring spot in ANTM during Cycle 10, when Fatima Siad did the above-shown gloopy paint photoshoot . . . with a bit of armpit hair. The judges were appalled and chastizing, as you can watch below:



Except that . . . their attitudes are a little "off", as some Googling shows.

If the queen of supermodeling can go out with an unwaxed upper lip, or sporting a bit of armpit hair, and if Carmen Kass is a popular model consistently getting work despite her hairy legs, and if they can airbrush body hair out of your photos anyway . . . well, it seems that ANTM and the book are providing some very conflicting messages.

I don't think that I really need to say that I find the infamous picture of Fatima lovely; her eyes are so captivating that I can't imagine anybody's first focus is the hair (which, incidentally, is pretty measly compared to the pelts that some ladies grow). In the end, the "Fierce Guide To Life" seems not so fierce at all.

Alicia Keys

Have I mentioned yet that I am utterly swooning over Alicia Keys' new song "Empire State Of Mind: Part II"? It's got a beautiful piano composition, Alicia's stellar soaring vocals, and the lyrics are truly inspiring. It's the sort of song that totally re-affirmed my love for her musical genius (the constant replaying on the radio of "No One" was really starting to turn me off from her). I've been listening to the song on repeat- and enjoying the wonderful live version featuring a rapping Stephen Colbert doing the original part of Jay-Z (anytime Stephen raps is awesomesauce, obviously).

Today I stumbled over a forum with these pictures and the title "Alicia Keys hates shaving". (Side note: I hate claims like these; no interview or quote with her talking about shaving, only the assumption that hairy legs must always mean the owner of said legs dislikes shaving, which certainly isn't true!). A lot of things jump out at me from the main picture: that dress is gorgeous!, her waist sure is tiny!, those are pretty high shoes,! I don't like her hair parted in the middle like that, she looks like she's giving a dynamite performance.

But, of course, the only focus of the forum posters were her legs, or, more specifically, her leg hair, so apparent in these pictures thanks to the backlighting provided at concerts. Another blogger even went so far as to decry this horrendous (in her eyes) faux-pas and post a poll weighing the relative evils of hairy legs vs. jumpsuits.

I, for one, think she looks wonderful, and the hair on her legs looks cute and fuzzy. She joins a trend, it would seem, of African American celebrity women with hairy or hairier legs (Beyonce and Monique come to mind . . . I wonder if it's significant, or just a coincidence?).

Either way, Alicia has offended the body hair police before, by having fine, light hairs on her chest/breasts.

And, despite having high-resolution pictures of her every follicle dissected and criticized, the girl keeps on singing amazing songs and looking gorgeous and bein' all successful and happy. Between her and the people who spend their time commenting on these photos saying "Gross!", it's pretty easy to see who is the real winner.

On The Joys Of Smooth-Legedness (And What It Really Means)

One common response you see quite often in the shaving debate is the idea that some women simply enjoy the tactile feeling of being hairless. These are the words that razor commercials are made of- silky, smooth, sleek. It sounds luxurious, to be sure.

And I have to admit that sometimes that definitely is true. While most of my shaving experiences trended towards the "How can I feel stubble half an hour after shaving?!?" variety, there have certainly been days when I broke out a brand-new razor and some sort of moisturizing shaving cream, and exfoliated beforehand, and lotioned the hell out of them afterward, and then got into a bed made with freshly laundered sheets and just rubbed and rubbed and rubbed my legs together, falling helplessly in love with the sensation of frictionless gliding. Those rare nights were a testament to how pleasurable hairlessness could be.

So my question is . . . why are men prohibited from this activity?

I don't think there's anything wrong with women in discussion forums and comments on articles about leg/body hair pointing out that for many of them, the impetus is not society, but the physical preference for the feeling of hairlessness. That's certainly a valid reason. The problem is the way it negates the problems associated with society's mandatory rules on body hair, and presents itself as autonomous false empowerment. "It's not about unrealistic patriarchal standards of beauty," they seem to say. "I just like them smooth, and it makes me feel strong and powerful and sexy. Girl power, yeah!".

And I have no doubt that in a social vacuum where we weren't influenced by society's expectations and reward-and-punishment system and flood of media imagery, this could probably be true. Even with all of that, making a real choice about your body is always positive, always empowering, regardless of whether it conforms to the status quo or rebels against it; the empowerment comes from knowing the choice is ultimately yours.

But when women act as though it's all about the physical feel, they seem blissfully ignorant of the gender divide and how body hair rules serve to strengthen it. Unless you are a runner, cyclist, bodybuilder, or swimmer, as a man, the removal of leg hair is taboo. Men have made strides, for sure (or have been imprisoned by hair expectations just like us?), and nowadays it is okay, or at least understood, to be male and wax/shave your chest, to "manscape" facial hair like eyebrows, and to experiment with grooming one's pubic hair. But leg hair remains an impenetrable zone, and I simply do not believe it is because men are somehow more inherently okay with the sensation of having leg hair.

We are all human beings, and in the same way that both sexes can enjoy the feeling of warmth on our skin, or of getting a massage deep into our aching muscles, so too can we both revel in the wonder that is the unnatural state of hairless skin. It is only society's strictures that keep it from being so; a man who shaves his legs is already seen as feminine, possibly gay. To imagine him sprawled in bed, rubbing his legs together, touching them with his hands, relishing his smoothness, is the ultimate taboo, because our society codes it as "feminine". A man can worship at a woman's shaven/waxed legs for hours without his masculinity ever being questioned; it's okay for him to enjoy the sensation of hairless legs in that context. And that is when it becomes clear the sort of sexism that lurks behind this double standard: he is not supposed to objectify his own body- only hers. (The same holds true for cross-dressers who are socially allowed, or even encouraged, to fetishize lingerie, but only inasmuch as it is an extension of objectifying women, and never a means of exploring his own sensuality).

The idea that women would enjoy feeling hairless but men would not goes right back to the same tired old gender essentialism: men are stoic, women emotional, men are unconcerned with the physical, women obsessed with vanity, men are strong, women vulnerable, men are sexual aggressors, women are sexual objects. Or, in other words: he Tarzan, you Jane.

And this is not to say that all men are secretly yearning to have smooth legs. I'd wager most men have simply never had the thought cross their minds, and that many would feel uncomfortable doing it because of how society makes us view hairless male legs (and "feminine" acts of grooming in general), and some would simply dislike the physical sensation of it and long for the feel of hairy legs rubbing together again. But the point I'm trying to make is that men are never allowed to explore these options in a socially-sanctioned way, just like women are not allowed to explore the options of being hairy-legged.

And when one group of people is allowed to do something and another is not, we call that "privilege". And I'm tired of this privilege being ignored, dismissed, cheapened, and belittled by women who carelessly say "Well, I just like the way it feels."

It's more than that- and we know it.