Sinclair wrote a great post about butch body hair that has sparked off some really interesting comparative experiences. I hung around in her comment box chattering away until I realized I’d written an entire blog post of my own, and yanked it back over here.

So. Hair. Prepare for some personal information dumping.

I’m trying to figure out where I fit in the gender galaxy. I’m content to make this a slow, meandering process; I feel no burning need, at this very instant, to figure out exactly what I am and how I fit into the boxes. At the moment, if anyone asks I’ll say I’m standing at the intersections of queer and butch and dom and quirky, staring at the street signs quizzically and wondering how to get to the nearest deli.

But I have recently changed my attitude to my body hair, and the change is, in that peculiar meandering way, somehow connected to my gender identity.

My body hair is naturally light. I don’t grow hair on my face except my thin, arched eybrows, and my arms are barely covered in tiny glinting blonde strands.

I shave my legs. I barely have to, as the hair only really grows from mid-calf downward. But I do. For three reasons: the ritual, the texture and the look. I love folding leg shaving in with a good long bath and some relaxation. And I am obsessed with texture; when my legs are smooth and moisturized they feel amazing. I like how having shaved legs makes my sheets feel slippery. Sort of hard to explain, that.

But it is also because I still connect the look of shaved legs with the cultural images of grace and femininity. I wonder sometimes if I still shave my legs because the wealth of my body hair is still something intimately private to me. Or if I’m just not brave enough to display myself grown out. Or if I’ve still got a little femme in me. I probably do, and I think I like her there.

I pluck the stray hairs that grow on my nipples. (And yes, if you didn’t know, women do grow pubic hair on their nipples.) I don’t really care about having hairy nipples, but I like plucking them in the same way I like picking at scabs and cutting my toenails. These are the weird little body quirks that interest me.

I wrote ages and ages ago that I was growing my pubic hair out. That lasted for a while. Then I trimmed it, then I shaved it. Then I grew it out and trimmed it again. Then I had some ill-fated adventures into complicated landscaping. Now I’m growing it out again. It’s longer that the hair on my head. I like it. I also found a company that sells pubic hair dye, and am flirting with the thought of turning it blue. Because hey, why not?

The major result of my change in attitude is that I’ve grown out my underarms. I’ve never done this before. My underarms have been shaved smooth since they first started sprouting fifteen years ago. But again I thought, what the hell, why not?

The first thing I noticed of these budding new hairs is that they’re very different in texture that I expected. I had thought my underarms would sport the same wiry, rich brown hairs as my vagina. But no. They’re thin and soft and silky. They feel a bit like having a tiny, expensive fur muff wedged under each arm.

The second thing I noticed is that my smell has changed. I bear odd resemblances to the people whose smells fascinate me: Maymay, Stitch, Bear. In short, I smell like a boy. It was a disconcerting experience at the time. Standing in our kitchen I’d turn my head expecting Maymay to be standing next to me, and find no one. The scent of skin and powder has vanished, replaced by sweat and light musk.

I loved how boys dressed, and then realized I could dress the same way. I loved how boys sat in chairs like little sprawling kings, and then began to sprawl myself. I loved how boys smelled, but I always thought that particular smell was something that didn’t make it into my portion of the biological soup.

I was wrong.

On the one hand, I love jewelry. If I wore a single different piece of jewelry each day, I’ve estimated that it would take me a little more than a year to go through my entire collection. And I make jewelry. I’ve made about half of my collection. I love the colors. I love the spark. I am, as previously harped upon, obsessive compulsive creative.

On the other hand, I’m currently exploring the much more butch side of performativity. And I love it too, right down to my toes, to the tips of my cuffs, I love it. But there is almost no intersection between that kind of performative dress, and my brightly colored mounds of jewels. So I’ve been making new things, and running up against new questions. How is men’s jewelry different from femme jewelry different from butch jewelry? Is it different at all? Google is no help, of course. Someone must have asked this question before me.

I’ve been doing new work in wood, and in hemp and in leather. I’m still trying to figure out if I can make pearls butch. Believe it or not, I think I can.

I have images in my head of what femme is starting to mean to me, what butch is starting to mean. More and more I find that it’s the mix I like more than the far reaches of either image. All juxtapositions and inherent contradictions, as broad as my legs sprawled out in a skirt, as small as a beaded tie.

I feel like I’ve tossed a coin in the air, and I don’t know which side it’s going to come down on. In the end, I suspect, it won’t come down at all.