The Last Taboo

The Last Taboo

People used to use the expression “the big c” when referring to cancer. Nowadays, women proudly display tattoos on breast scars. Men talk about rising or falling PSA numbers, indicative of the possibility of prostate cancer and children’s pictures are strewn all over Facebook  holding placards reading “Pray for me, I have been cancer free for 245 days”.

Divorce was a hushed event, domestic violence happened behind closed doors and evidence of abuse hidden behind sunglasses and long sleeves. Children with polio were kept from view as were most children with Down syndrome.

 Homosexuality was in the closet. Kids in class were made fun of for being fairies, people lost their jobs but mostly it was innuendo until Stonewall. There are still people who for various reasons choose to not disclose their sexual preference, but main stream television and main stream politicians have opened the door.

Even the popular book Fifty Shades of Grey has brought to the forefront some sexual picayunes that were private thrills people thought about bought magazines furtively or if they were lucky found a partner they could secretly use their pink fur lined handcuffs with.

Commercials on television plug pharmaceuticals for products ranging from leaky bladders to severe depression.

And I am sure there are many other taboos that were not discussed in public or even in private but now grace our billboards and Facebook pages.

However, I admit to hiding behind a closed door of shame. It is my last taboo and I want to come clean.

The subject is women’s facial hair. God Bless Frida Kahlo. She didn’t hide her mustache. She used it in her artwork like Hugh Hefner used breasts.  I mean look at a photo of her.

Absolute beauty, in spite of her crippled body.

What admiration I have for Frida.

 In 1987 I started to notice them. I wrote a short poem, long lost except for one line, which described the hairs on my chin. It said something like “I see them when the light hits the bathroom window at just the right angle, ½ dozen of them, more or less."

I was shocked; I didn’t want to really count them. I was appalled.  I bought tweezers. I bought Nair for the face.  I knew my fate. Had I known my fate before I had children would I have brought any into the world? The physical flaws right there for anyone to notice, to stare at, to even question or make fun of.

Facial hair, what could be less sexy for a woman. Gotta hide it, bleach it, and wear foundation, anything so I didn’t end up looking like Now facial hair on women is not as uncommon as I was led to believe.  Although there can be  some medical reasons for the “problem, sometimes it is ones’ fate and  estimates put the number of women in this country who do some kind of facial hair removal process at about 20 million.

 Hormonal changes that begin with puberty can change the fine hair on a girl’s face known as vellus to become thicker. Although the more common place for this hair to show up is in the pubic region or armpit, sometimes it will pop its ugly head on a girls face.

  As women get older and hit menopause hits, the ration of androgen to estrogen change and increases in facial hair can occur.

Heredity can also determine how much facial hair a woman ends up with because those genes determine how thickly hair follicles are distributed and at birth, the dice are cast. And of course, certain ethnic groups are more likely to develop facial hair than others.

Now, on a personal level, my mother, as she got older, spent a great deal of time sitting on the couch with tweezers in hand. When she developed brain cancer, she lost a great deal of hair during treatment but those stubborn chin hairs did not yield to radiation or chemotherapy and when she died, and her skin retracted, my middle sister, who also tweezes her chin, complained to the funeral parlor make up person about that detail those of us with facial hair notice, that she should have shaved my mother’s face before applying make-up.

 By the way, my other sister bleaches her mustache and her daughter who is 17 and was a child model now gets laser treatment for her mustache.

My daughters are blond and although one of my daughters has some peach fuzz you can see in the sunlight, I hope they are either lucky enough to not develop the dark hairs my sisters and I have or are liberated enough to realize it makes them no less beautiful.

 For me, I have bleached, tweezed, waxed, threaded, lasered and have had electrolysis and have had no luck. I have used a prescription cream that costs $75 a tube and that works well, as long as I can afford to use it as directed, twice a day.

Is it worth it? My children and husband love me. My husband says he doesn’t even notice my hairs unless he catches me rubbing my chin to feel those stubbles.

 I have grown up with a standard of beauty that I will never meet, frizzy hair, flabby belly, larger than average nose and a flat butt.

 A famous soap company had a wonderful campaign letting all women with other body “flaws” know they were beautiful no matter what their body type. The advertisement did NOT mention facial hair. It has been a taboo topic, but I am out of the closet. I have hairs on my chin, hairs on my neck and along with the wrinkles on my face and my flabby belly, I am woman anyway. And I am beautiful.