Insidious, corner of my culture
I hate body shames, discriminations, moral kidnapping and the rest, which I shouldn’t since “hate” is hatred itself, which I hate it too, hahaha, just kidding, you know what I mean. So back to the point, body shame, you’ve definitely heard of such words if you do surfing whatever your nationality is, and to be honest, it’s getting kinda one political correctness, but not all political correctnesses are harmful, at least not this one. Being who you plays a big role in the person’s mental health, which basically liberates you from anxieties, shames, insufficient-confidence, and we should be grateful for, cause our pioneers really poured their blood, sweat and tears.
Before we dive in this sort of shames, we should know that body shames basically are everywhere, they can pop up out of nowhere in everyday life, but to cover them all in this article is impossible. Maybe just let me focus on this hairiness shame this time, because summer, which is my favorite, is coming, and I wish everyone can expose their skin confidently, of course need to be legal instead of being in exhibitionism, and enjoy this beautiful season.
This sort of shames, what I’m gonna talk about here – hairiness shame, is insidious. In my perspective, it hides at the corner of our Asian culture, especially in main land China, in where we don’t really talk about sex or any topic relating sex, like STD – Sexually Transmitted Diseases, or sex education. And I know, I know there’s another shame on opposite side, lack of hairiness, but in my observation, that’s not common in my culture ,or say, not noticeable, cause lack thereof is coincidentally conforming to the culture, no sex on the surface, like an elephant in a room, ironically. Based on that cultural convention, no one will judge or even say anything about other’s body of lack of hairiness. But is that saying the lack thereof leads to no shaming situation? At least in my perspective, it isn’t, commonly it leads to the opposite side of hairiness shame, lack of thereof, but subconsciously and unobviously. To testify my suspicion, I’ll give you some real life instance later on in this article.
Who shames on others shames on their lack thereof
First, why I said body shame is pertinent to the sex topic? To root up this idea all is probably impossible, like a river derives from everywhere and you can’t find them all, they’re all intricately connected somehow. But there does have something you can peek through how things happened, and how come things happened. As you can see, body hair can show muscularities in some ways, and some people even consider hairy people have stronger sexual abilities or desires than others, which no evidence can prove that is scientifically true. Based on that insane fallacy, one connection between body hair and sex has been established before we perceive it consciously.
And to further, because people who have less body hair conform the main culture, they think they naturally have the right to judge people’s behaviors whose have more body hair, sometimes deliberately but sometimes unintentionally. For instance, “You’d better get a hair removal.” – I didn’t ask your advice, you’d better save your suggestions; “You’re wearing a hairy pants.” – because you’re wearing a short, getting skins more exposed and which you shouldn’t, underlaying the words; “Oh, you have lot of hair on your leg” with neutral moods – I mean, Yeah? And? What’s the point? Like I said, some conscious, some unconscious, being in such environments is not comfortable, for some individuals toxic. Like, if you’re an introvert, if you want to shut them up but indirectly and politely instead of saying “shut up, it’s not your business”, seemingly the only way you could do is put your pants and coats on and hide your skin away. And that’s ridiculous.
I don’t know if you’ve watched the movie named American Beauty or not. There’s one piece of plots that occurred me, one character, father, homophobia, named Frank in the film who eventually ironically kissed another man after a hug, named Lester, shot him to death after Lester told Frank that he misunderstood. By the way, that’s a great movie you should definitely watch if you still not. So are people who shame others on their hairiness similar to Frank? That’s a good question to me. Who shames on people’s hairiness shames on themselves’ lack thereof, what if that is true, what an irony it can be, don’t you think so?
And as I said before, no sex topics one the surface that can easily lead to the opposite side, everything can be sexual meaning, like (A) Oh, having lot of body hairs? A sex monster machine, (B) Exposing more skins? Wanting to get fucked or fuck. (C) Having more friends of the opposite sex? A slut or rack…
I mean, really? How superficial they can be?
Personal Story: Trauma, Healing
Okay, let me bring up some real life stories of mine to address that more clear.
First story happened in my middle school, and my “班主任”, which I know there’s no such job in western world, so I’ll just name it in English, “Head-Class”, which means a teacher who is in charges of a class, usually teaching of one of main major subjects, which in China are Chinese, Maths, English, Science, Sociology in middle school, managing students from personal behaviors to academic performances even if he or she is not the teacher of the subject(s), basically doing every school parenting things, which is literally correct since lot of parents think the only thing they need to do is to put kids into school and teachers should take care of everything educational, even their kids are not even at school.
So since he/she was way too overpowered, and considering a lot of students literally live in middle school – students cannot be allowed to back home over a half dozen days, how come? According to what I just mentioned, parents put their kids into, even in middle school, like me, even began with since elementary school. You can easily picture how bad it can be, and how easily he/she could do shitty things to you, only if he/she wanted to.
And unfortunately, my “head-class” was the exact one doing these shitty shaming things to me. So here’s the thing, my “head-class” liked nicknaming students, and most of these names were very offensive. Like if your Chinese name is “Xiaoming Li” and you have obvious leg hairs, he would name you as “腿毛明”, in English that means “leg hair Ming”, the end of part of this FUNNY nickname derives from part of your name. And he would call your nickname in public with his crooked smile, which he might think he’s funny, but I don’t get the point. To prevent that shitty things occurred to me, I’d never show my legs in public. To be honest, I wasn’t afraid of, but I just didn’t want to be the center of attentions, and luckily I didn’t.
At that moment, even I’d not formed my value view completely, I’d already known that was offensive. And even though the shitty thing didn’t happen to me directly, but it did prevent me from wearing shorts till I was in college, I finally had enough courage and confidence to put my shorts on after the battle of self-minds and self-healing. Yeah, didn’t do any therapy. Thinking back on, the reasons I didn’t stand out to point out the ridiculous and offensive are probably attributable to the environment and my age, the environment way too pressured, me way too young. As for now, who would give a fuck to, and probably give a lesson to.
Sheep
I healed my trauma, but some don’t still now, probably forever. Some of them still obsess with the hairless, joking about hairiness unconsciously, such as suggesting you do a hair removal out of nowhere or using the offensive words “毛裤”, which in English means “hairiness pants”. Okay, till now I still don’t get the point, is that hilarious? How come that can show your humor in that way? It’s mostly like I standing in front of someone, and then he/she tells me that I have one mouth, two eyes, two ears. And what’s the point or what do they expect me to reply? Maybe they would like this one – Okay, you know what? I have no idea about that! You’re a genius. And you should probably tell me MORE about it!
So, here’s anther solution, if you want to fight it back with your manners. Next time you come across such situations, you can use the Chinese word “青龙”, for male, ”白虎”, for female, both which are using for describing people body-hairless or barely having body hair, to fight it back if you don’t wanna give them a serious lesson, showing your wide-knowledges by lots of Chinese don’t even know that. And these words are not that offensive depending on the way the tone you speaking. Yeah, show them real humor and hit them back.
I thought joking their bodies is the privilege of the adolescents, turns out, I was wrong. Some of them still think having more body hair is funny. But that’s okay, even they’re still not grown-ups, the good thing is you’re a grow-up now, who knowing what’s correct and what isn’t. Healing from that trauma makes me care less about shits.
Recommendation: A Love Letter to Summer
I love summer, let me share some my treasure with you. To me, they’re a love letter to summer.
The Movie: Blue Gate Crossing; 蓝色大门
The Song: A Little Step, featuring Cheer Chen, album Groupies; 陈绮贞 -《小步舞曲》 – 《吉他手》
At the end of the article, wish you have a nice experience in summer, and get more skins exposed!
