(no subject)

[which_chick]

If I were a less conceited certain person, I would be more distressed by the fact that when I decide that I'd like to read about the new gay cowboy movie and I hit up google for information, the screen of results that appeareth before mine eyen looketh thusly...





I want to read about it, and voila, there it is to be read about. (My life works like this a lot of the time. Like I said, it's something I would worry about if I were less certain of the unbearable rightness of being. :)

Also, mostly for the chicks in the audience, it's time for a little audience participation...

Do you, personally, shave your armpits and/or legs? What can you tell me (No googling, please. I already googled. I'm up to speed. I want to see if you're up to speed.) about why most women in the United States shave these areas and when they started doing so?

*sigh* And yeah, I'll participate.

I shave my pits when I'm tired of looking at the fur and/or when I might be exposing them to other people via tanktops and similar. I shave my legs to the knee if other people are going to see them, mostly because I have thick, dark, highly-visible hair on my shins and I don't really want more people asking me if I'm a lesbian than already do. (It's not something I expect people to ask unless they have an actual need-to-know. If you're asking with no intention of inviting me to bed depending on my answer, you shouldn't be asking.) If you're a very, very good friend and you ask quite nicely, I'll shave from my feet to my bellybutton... but you have to ask very nicely indeed. Also, in the wintertime, I don't shave my legs. Wintertime is from about the end of October to when I decide to start wearing shorts.

Why are we talking about this? Because I want a lovely red horse trailer. Isn't it cute? It's exactly the sort of horse trailer I want to have. Now, people who know me fairly well in real life are up to speed on how utterly important having the right thing is for me. For the rest of you, the right thing is more important than you think it is. (If you're careful, your head won't explode around that concept. Recursion is not for novices...) Anyway, this trailer is the right thing and as such, it is an object of desire for me and I'm swimming in that most entertaining of the seven deadlies. (That'd be lust even though the mood is covetousness. I figured putting "lust" for the mood would give people the wrong idea. Odd as it may sound, this ain't a wank blog which is why I don't post about how much fun I'm having with my new electric train set large rainbow-striped dildo. The seven deadlies, for our FSM and/or atheist readers, are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed aka Covetousness, and Sloth. Collect 'em all!)

As a member of our advanced and modern civilization, I've mostly moved beyond the pleasures of the flesh these days. I generally blow my wad wholeheartedly adoring consumer goods and services. (Yes, entendre intended. It's all part of the quality handcrafted goodness you've come to expect from these posts.) The only reason I have any money at all is that usually, thinking about having said goods and services is sufficient to slake my lust [Er. Lust is slaked, right? I mean, I know thirst is slaked, but does it apply to lust as well? Well, m-w.com (I use them because they agree with me and because I can tolerate their website. I'm not using them because of the inherent authority they totally don't have. Also, they backed me up the other day on "gravid" meaning pregnant when it came up vis a vis the employee Ed.) says "satisfy, quench" in an archaic sense. They use the thirst example, but they also use a different one, so I guess you can use it for things other than thirst. I'd bet that I generally see sate more in regard to lust except that mostly I get blank looks from the illiterate with sate. Slake might work better. What the hell does Geoffry-bad-pirate-Barbossa say in PoTC when he's talking about lust? Anyone? Bueller? Aha! Yes. HE says "... slake our lust". Right. So it's okay then. Lust is slaked. Hollywood would never, ever steer me wrong because fantasy pirate movies are the definitive linguistic reference for these, our modern times.] so that I can gloss over the actual having part. My consumerist orgies are pretty inexpensive most of the time. Anyway, I am kind of hoping that if I wait a while, the urge will pass. Talking about shaving is what I'm doing while waiting for the urge to pass.

The preceding was a test of the emergency broadcast system demonstration of how my mind actually works. Usually I edit the hell out of things so that the posts are more readable for normal people, but just in case you wanted to see behind the curtain, now you have.

Comments

[ornery-chick.livejournal.com]

I can very well understand the requirements of finding exactly the Right Thing. My dining table and chairs are a perfect example of which. I was willing to, and did, go without said items until I could find the exact thing I wanted...a nice, chrome-and-formica 1950s dinette set, with swoopy, curved legs and little metal studs in the chair backs. Ditto the expensive but highly gratifying bicycle I now ride. This is why I tend to save up for ages, then splurge in a major way.

As far as shaving goes, I do it when and as I feel like it, and I don't do my armpits, other people's presumptions about my sexuality bedamned. I don't care what anyone else thinks, but not getting ingrown hair in my sensitive armpit flesh is priceless to me. Being able to wear deodorant on a daily basis is similarly priceless. That little label reading, "do not apply to broken or irritated skin" isn't kidding around, and going around without deodorant is not negotiable for me. I'd rather look like a she-wookie than be smelly any old day. The legs get shorn about once a month, give or take. When I can't stand the feeling of leg-hair flapping in the breeze while I am biking is when I shave 'em.

[drabheathen.livejournal.com]

Huh... It's funny how we're different.

See, I shave my armpits for the smelling-good purpose, too. :) I guess I'm lucky, but I've never had bad luck with shaving them-- no ingrown hairs, irritation, redness, etc. I notice that if I don't, they smell a whole lot more-- and if they're shaved, washed and dressed with deodorant, it will take a day or so of really heavy sweating before they smell different than the rest of my body. (Too much information!)

I shave my legs when I feel like it. And nothing else.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

Eh. As you can see, I figure one of the benefits of being an antisocial hermit who doesn't see his relatives more than twenty days out of the year is that I don't have to shave if I don't want to - and I don't.

Who needs a muffler when you've got a beard?

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

My shaving habits are similar to yours. 'cept that I have someone who sees my pits every day, so those get done too.

I look on shaving as a sort of pampering thing anyway. And with my Tom's of Maine deodorant (notice it is not an al-u-minium fraught anti-perspirant) I've never had a problem with it.

In some places around the world men shave their body hair. Cable program did a thing on Ancient Rome, and the actresses had to shave completely for their nude scenes. Big discussion on the Chatty Librarian list about the cable program on Rome. The Librarians were aghast that people were making such a fuss when they could have exercised their choice by just turning off the t.v.

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

Sorry, not the Chatty Librarians, it was Pulse's lj.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

I don't shave my legs. I shaved them for my wedding and for the hormonal blast that was Falling In Love (felt like I had to do something...), but not generally for other reasons. Black tights for formal occasions are a wonderful thing.

I love the wind-in-leghair feeling. Apart from the hassle of shaving (I already spend way too much time cooped up in the shower just washing the 2 1/2 feet of hair), the horrible numbness of no leghair is the main reason I don't shave.

I do prefer to shave the parts that sweat. With Tom's of Maine and very little skin irritation from shaving, I can shave my pits every three days (the day after hairwashing) with no problem.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I don't have any experience with skin irritation from shaving armpits. Mine tolerate it fairly well, even with dull, cheap, entirely-not-pink razors that say Gillette on them. (Probably if I swapped out razors more often, they wouldn't be so dull. They're sharp for the first couple of weeks...)

(Nobody liked unbearable rightness of being? Dang. I thought it was kind of cute. All ya'll didn't think new electric train set large rainbow-striped dildo was funny? うそ！ I also refuse to believe that I drew nothing but blank stares on the perfect duality of blow my wad. Someone, somewhere, had to at least crack a smile on that -- it was deft in a crass and vulgar way. Finally, I totally reject the clear and present evidence before me that fantasy pirate movies are the definitive linguistic reference for these, our modern times didn't draw a single comment. Probably you're all just so damned awed by my prowess (this is a stock phrase for Atobe in PoT) that you can't find words to say so. Yeah, that's it. Definitely.)

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

But, but... we're used to you being clever! Clever is expected! Appreciated, enjoyed, but, hey, on LJ, how would we make the little interleaved *snark* or *heh* comments anyway?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Verily, LJ does not have the ability to have interleaved reply bits like email has. I can't help that. Anyway, yeah, I imagine you get the jokes. You've read enough of my prose over the years that you should be able to predict the jokes, even the ones you haven't heard three or four times already. But there are other people in the studio audience, some of whom lack the intimate familiarity with my prose that you have. It's possible that they may be missing out on things, especially when trees fall silently in the LJ with nobody around to hear them...

*sigh* It's an insecurity thing. I realize, intellectually, that things can be clever and amusing even if nobody laughs, but it's not always easy to *believe* that. I'll work on it.