010: Reason to Shave My Legs

It is the middle of winter here and I am quite single at the moment. With that perfect combination, it is a rare occasion when I actually shave my legs. It is not the season to be showing skin, so most of the time everything is covered by with jeans or stockings or my favourite striped pyjamas and sadly when out of sight, things are too often out of mind. If I know I’m going out, I’ll give the pins a once over with a disposable in the shower, but it’s never a particularly good job and has to last until the next night out is planned. I am quite a lazy being, and will endure all the prickly shins and unsightliness that cause many to turn to drink, but I am rarely phased. And if I am willing to put up with it, it can’t be that bad.

This afternoon, when I had nothing more than season one of GIRLS to consume, I whipped out my trusty epilator (a device so obviously designed by a man and tested by compliant women) and gave it a go. Like every other time I have left it too long, I was thankful for the atrocious amount of n

oise the small thing can make  as it masked almost all of my swearing, but it also gets me thinking.

Too often in the past I associated smooth hair free legs with boys. I remember a conversation I had with a girlfriend where we noticed that too familiar collation with the nights we epilated and the nights we pulled. She having a fun adventure one night, and I the next because we had been sharing a bathroom and couldn’t both have been silky smooth at the same time. We worked out (as many women before us have) that by not shaving our legs we gave ourselves a strange but legitimate reason not to go home with a fella – the embarrassment for one is a  certain way that can get me running for the razor ( I have had a charming man announce loudly for those around him to “beware the cactus” that is still leaving scars) But also, in a backwards kind of way, having a little touch of sexy beauty can give you that added need of confidence that can really change how one handles a situation.

This also got me thinking, and my chaotic stream of consciousness followed thus: Why should I let a boy be the reason that I want to shave or epilate my legs? Who cares if no one else is going to come near enough to feel just how silky smooth my legs are now? Why should it be strange that I want to feel comfortable in my own body and go through self-inflicted pain to get there? Why does the effort I put into the way I look have to be solely for the benefit of the people around me? Why can’t I try to look pretty purely for the sake of not wanting to look ugly? Why feel like I need a reason to do this?

I could very easily wait around for someone to be my reason to shave my legs – be it a night out with my girls or an unusually strong desire to find a tall dark handsome stranger but I might accumulate a pair of legs similar to my father. Why can’t I be my own reason? Why am I not allowed to be my own motivation for getting out of the house and embracing the influence that I have on my own life? Am I not reason enough?

Embracing ones appearance is an important part of growing up. So much time and energy is put into the way other people see us but I think it is invested for the wrong reason. The days that I curl my hair or a splash of my favourite lipstick or have endured all the pain with an epilation session, I feel like a can conquer anything. So watch out world, this week Katie comes at you with socially acceptable legs - I might accidently change everything.