Vol. 2, Post #75 Yes, your back hair is repulsing me...
It's not body shaming, it's body CLAIMING. My weekly sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to mid-life by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, (people with readers).
Social media is an utter shit show, full of fake news and people screaming into the void, but last week, someone in a private women’s empowerment group of which I am a member wrote the following:
“I went out on several dates, hit it off so far. I like him. He’s smart, financially stable, great conversationalist, so far totally kind and consistent, as well as romantic. His face and smile adorable. We had sex tonight, during which I discovered that virtually every inch of his body is covered in hair, with the exception of his head! Sex was great, but by the end of it I was finding myself repulsed with the hair. What should I do? I’d hate to pass over a gem, over hair.”
And the conversation that followed was pretty interesting.
The woman asking this question chose to post anonymously, which is an option in this group, and then, about 70 comments poured in, including a few people who posted, “Can’t wait to hear what Abbe thinks about this!” Of course I had an opinion, which I’ll share below, but I was so pleased when Lady Anonymous followed up by emailing me directly, so we could continue the conversation. Obviously here and anywhere else, I’ll protect her identity as well as that of the group, but in summation, here’s how the conversation went on Anonymous’s post:
Nearly all of the comments on the post (I didn’t count but let’s estimate at least 55 or 60 of them) advised Anonymous to see if she could look past the hair and instead enjoy the man underneath it. Likewise, there were plenty of good suggestions about trimming, waxing, etc.
Related, there were more than a handful of comments from women who said they realized, over the years, that what was once an “ick” for them ended being no big deal, and for a few of those women, they actually ended up enjoying the very thing that first made them say “yuck!” (I’ve written about “the ick” before, if you’re looking for context. And to be clear, most icks are yours to manage, not the responsibility of others to manage for you.)
But there were several women in the same camp as me regarding Lady A’s post, and we were focused on her choice of word: Repulsed. Repulsed is a biggie. Repulsed is hard to bounce back from, isn’t it?
What did I write on the thread? I suggested that Anonymous doesn’t try to bounce back. Gem or no gem, repulsed sets a ship adrift on a sea of No Return. Hear me out.
First, I completely understand and agree with the women in my group who say a good man — a gem! don’t forget that it! — is hard to find. Good partners as we age are indeed more of a rarity than not. Second, no one is perfect, including me. Especially me. I was standing naked in my bathroom this morning, several weeks ahead of my usual end-of-summer beach vacation, noting my rounded belly, the cellulite on the top of my thighs, I could go on.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. NONE of us Young Olds look the same as we did in our younger years — those of you who hit the gym, eat sparingly, watch your sugar and white flour carbs, and drink more than the suggested servings of water instead of coffee may look great (I say this as I pour a third cup but fuck it, it’s SUNDAY), and you STILL don’t look like you did ten or twenty years ago. Cue everyone reading this now to take a minute and think back to those photos of yourselves from your earlier decades — the photos when you thought you looked “fat”? Turns out, not so much, huh? For me, my early fifties were a sweet spot, when I was living part-time back in the city, and walking about five or six miles a day, as well as having a TON of sex with my partner and our other partners (these were the polyamorous years). I was lean yet still curvy, with an ass of steel, smokin’ hot, definitely feeling myself. And…none of that would have mattered if someone was repulsed by my physicality, if my physical being made them not just wrinkle their nose but actually wish me out of their bed. That’s how it goes.
Further? I’ve been repulsed — not just gotten “the ick” but been beyond turned off with a lover or two in recent years and even when they are indeed “a gem,” there’s really no turning back. To paraphrase one of the women in our social media group, sometimes that attempt to “make it work” actually makes it worse. And that’s not fair to you, OR the person you are trying on for size.
Recently, I briefly dated a man who shaved everything. EVERYTHING. I was already a tiny bit worried about what would happen when we went to bed together, because this guy had a shaved head and I’m not such a fan of that. It’s been a rare shaved head or baldie who has become a partner for me. It’s just not my personal preference and I know enough about myself to not try and force that attraction. This man was a gem in every way. And when we took off our clothes and got in bed (after some hot kissing on previous dates), I wanted to throw up. I ended it shortly after that. That’s all, folks.
Does that make me a shallow, superficial bitch? It does not. I am OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT I LIKE AND DESIRE and to treat that desire with the respect it deserves.
Back to Lady A. and her preferences. I will confound some of you when I say I ALSO agree with her regarding too much body hair. It’s not my thing. I’ve had lovers and partners with a lot of body hair, some for years and years. As many of the women in our online group wrote, there were times when I and my hirsute suitors made grooming into a group effort. It’s HARD to reach back hair, etc. and let’s face it, the things you do for love sometimes defy logic. I had a lover who liked to trim my pubic hair (I’m pretty hairless which is too bad since I think a full bush is sexy as hell) — this was before the days of widespread (hee hee) waxing — and I in turn helped him keep his back hair in check. It wasn’t a sexy thing; it was a tender thing. Sounds like that’s not what’s happening here with Anonymous. She’s still a ways away from Tenderland.
Again, I want to circle back to the women in our group who are (tenderly) encouraging our Sister to give her gem a chance. Here’s what I’d like to ask them, if this were an online comment-and-answer section:
What repulses you, outside of anything related to the physicality of a partner’s body? Is it a sinkful of dirty, crusty dishes? Is it dirty socks or underwear on your bedroom floor next to or near the laundry hamper but not in it? Is it someone who clips their toenails while sitting at the dining room table? Someone who picks at their teeth with a cap of a pen instead of flossing? See what I mean? If you just can’t get past something that makes you want to scream, DON’T get past it. Ask for what you need with direct kindness, while you acknowledge your own foibles that your partner overlooks of course, but non-compliance when there is an “easy” solution is not love either. And to that point, my next point…
What about when you ask someone to make an adjustment in the way they do things and are met with either a “nah” or a half-hearted effort? I’ll use myself and a recent boyfriend as example. When we met, he was trimming his body hair. Not shaving it all. Trimming it. Over time, he got lazy. As I was waxing myself (Shout out to my pal Debbie Dougan at Glo Woodstock Day Spa. She does a brilliant service — calls it “The Woodstock Brazilian” — which is labia, clit, and asshole clean as a whistle, but bush up front. When I wax, it’s my go-to!), I told my guy, “Hey, when we met, you were keeping things kind of tidy. Need some help?” He didn’t. Nor did he tidy up again, now that we were deep into a relationship. In the end, I was both resentful of that and as a result, I didn’t really enjoy fucking him any more. Repulsed had entered the room…meanwhile…
Hi Deb!
And the most important question I’d pose to this group of women that I like and trust, with whom I share many intimate conversations? Do you think that overlooking a serious turn off can be balanced by a lot of other lovely things that a potential partner does or can do for you? I’m asking because I’m curious, not because I somehow think I have the answer.
So, with that last question in mind, I sent a DM to a few other women in this online empowerment group, women who have partners as Young Olds and women who are still in a first marriage from their younger years (therefore, long-term married Young Olds). I asked, “Is there anything that your Beloved does that, if you were experiencing it now for the first time, would make you decide to forego a relationship with them?” Of the eight women I messaged, three of them said that their guys yes, did things that drove them batty but that these were not deal breakers. Three of the women said that yes, there were things that would be deal breakers but that life circumstances made a split impossible or at least very unattractive so they were in it for the long haul. And two of the women said that they were in the process of leaving relationships that did not serve them any longer — one because of her partner’s pot habit which seems out of control and related to depression that he refused to treat, the other because she is no longer attracted to the person he’s become and further, she does not like the person she is around him.
Bingo!
She does not like the person she is around him.
When I was dating Mr. Nah Not Trimming My Back Anymore, I was starting to be a bit of a bitch to him. I was annoyed at things that normally didn’t annoy me. I was nitpicking when there was no reason to do so. I didn’t like how I was treating him, and I told myself that I just had to get past this place of being grossed out by his laziness and accept that OK, in the winter months, he looked like he was wearing a sweater when he was naked. Similarly, Mr. Everything Shaved? I wanted to STRANGLE him when he told me he loved the way I cooked salmon and only wanted me to cook it that way going forward*. I actually said to Debbie, she of The Woodstock Brazilian, as she is one of my best friends, “Can you believe that shit? Who give a fuck how he likes the way I cook salmon? I’m doing the cooking! He’ll eat it anyway I decide to make it.”
Debbie looked at me and said, “You are tearing apart this guy’s every utterance, misstep or not. You don’t want him. Stop trying to make it so.”
*If you watched (or read, preferably) Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn,” you might recall the scene when Jack Nicholson’s character tells Meryl Streep’s character, as they are trying to make a bad marriage work and she is being a dutiful wife, “I never want my pork chops any other way!” but meanwhile, upon hearing this, she feels like stabbing him. “Heartburn” is wonderful - and because Nora understood that food makes any story better, the book contains a select number of great recipes too. “Heartburn” is based on Nora’s failed marriage to Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists of Watergate’s Deep Throat fame. Movie is so-so but still a good watch for these two beauties below.
You know what, in honor of Nora, I’m remembering that I promised, when I first started publishing this Substack, to occasionally toss in a recipe or two, so here you go. I make this NYTimes Cooking ginger-lime chicken all of the time — and I add in cilantro and scallions or shallots and toasted sesame seeds AND if you don’t like mayo (Hi Becky Blake!) which just gets cooked off and serves to only keep boneless proteins from drying out, you can sub Greek yogurt or sour cream. AND it’s great on pork chops too.
I digress.
Let’s go back to what my pal Debbie said. I was being a cunt. Because I was unhappy. Because I didn’t like this guy. Because he turned me off. Because I couldn’t turn off what turned me off and therefore, Not Nice Abbe.
I listened to my heart and my body and called it off. I’m allowed to do that. So are you. And NOT to “go there,” because I hate general men-bashing, but in reality, men have done this for centuries, so women, you can too.
Lady Anonymous, not sure what you’re doing to do with your fuzzy friend, with regard to keeping your gem in the rough, polishing him up, or returning him back to the jewel box from where he came. But either way, I hope you look within and remember that as a single Young Old, you answer to you and only you now. So no, you’re not repulsive for putting desire at the top of your list. And no, although I don’t know you inside and out, you don’t seem like you are being avoidant and just pushing away a good relationship as a way to somehow protect yourself from getting hurt. And finally, yes, this might mean you are letting go of a good man. Go right ahead. You’re brave. Brave is always a turn on. Keep going.