I Am Mr. Potato Head

TOTAL READ TIME: About 7 minutes

I’m seriously considering getting a mustache tattooed onto my forearm. Like a full Mr. Potato Head thick black mustache tattoo permanently on my person.

Why?

Well why the hell not?!

It makes me feel like a badass. I mean I could get a tattoo that says “Fuck The Binary” or I could get a mustache that represents how I feel about it.

I want to celebrate the acceptance of my natural body in regards to the hair that grows there. I know I have more to go but I also know I’m currently at a place where I feel like I am finally in charge of what hair I choose to display on my body and how I decide to display such hair IF choose to display it at all.

No I don’t have FULL ON mustache nor do I desire to have one but I do have hair on my upper lip and I desire to live in a world that does not make me feel guilt or shame for that. Why should I?

We all (or at least most people) have hair ALL OVER OUR BODIES! It’s a part of being a human. It’s just a question of how much hair, where and what society has deemed acceptable for who.

I think it’s stupid.

So I no longer participate.

I do whatever I want with my hair. The hair that grows on my head has been dyed, cut, braided, infiltrated with chemicals, and now I rock it shaved. I let it grow out till whenever then I shave it again. I feel more beautiful and “feminine” bald than I ever did with hair because I now know where true beauty comes from. It’s within y’all!

Call it a cliche but first - try shave off all your hair (yourself) then look in the mirror without any makeup and tell yourself you are beautiful. Bonus points if you go outside. Double bonus if it’s not dark. Try it. It grows back.

To me having a shaved head isn’t about “looking like a man” as that is not, was not and will never be my intention. I’m not trying to look like a man. I’ll never be a man. In my personal opinion “men” don’t even really exist outside of the binary social construct which I don’t believe in. To me having a shaved head is about how powerful it makes me feel, how easy it is to maintain in comparison to my other options and how good I look cause daymn… I got a nice ass head.

These are things I would have never felt about myself if I continued to do what society told me to do and kept my hair within their rules.

I don’t remember when I first shaved my head. I think it was after I moved to San Francisco when I was 24 that I actually buzzed it down completely. I had gotten short hair cuts before so this wasn’t too dramatic for me. Never had a big chop moment.

I do remember the night of my 29th birthday was when I felt my whole naked scalp. I knew wanted to go into my 3rd decade of life fresh and being completely bald was the way I wanted to do it. I started cutting my hair at 10pm and by midnight and I had actually shaved it all the way down with a razor. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. Feeling your whole shaved head is something I advise everyone to experience at least once.

Decisions I’ve made about what to do with other hair on my body have come from other various occasions and experiences. I stopped shaving my legs one year for #noshavenovember and just never looked back. I think it’s been 7 years now? Legs were easy. Armpits were hard.

I actually wanted to try armpits one year for #noshavenovember because of the success and pleasant surprise I had with my legs. It did NOT go well. The first year I tried I gave up a week in. I felt so self conscious. My legs aren’t very hairy at all. The hair on my legs that I do have are a mixture of light brown and blonde (shout out to my nana) and against the color of my legs they aren’t really that noticeable. They especially aren’t very noticeable in comparison to the quite thick and very dark brown hair (shout out to my other nana) against my much fairer skin that be my armpits.

It wasn’t until I was staying on location for a film project I was working on that I changed my mind about armpits. The cinematographer was a SICK human who I (never asked but) assumed was a cis woman and one day I saw they had armpit hair. This human had obviously woken up that morning and been very selective about every way they presented themselves from head to toe and I was here for every square inch of it. I admired her so I decided to sit with myself and really address some of the bias I had about gender and armpit hair. Then once I got thought that I had to make a decision about what I was going to do about it. The next November I stopped shaving my armpits and I never looked back. Every few months I give them a little trim down but it’s been 5 or so years with them and I’m so happy.

I don’t pluck or shave the hairs off of my toes. I used to. But then I would always feel weird wearing open toed shoes when it was prickly and growing back. Now I just let it be and love my feet just as they are.

I’m also letting my little happy trail grow under my belly button. This was a challenge for a while. I found it sexy in others to have them and could not get over feeling as though it was gross on myself. After working through many nights of almost shaving it off I FINALLY made the switch over into appreciating it for what it is which I’ve now decided is HELLA CUTE!

Then there’s the stash (actually there’s way more like nips, booty and vag but I’ll save that for another post). I don’t pluck my lip hair anymore nor do I shave it. I simply allow it to be. It’s there. I wants to be there and I’m happy to allow it to grow. I’ve come to terms with the fact that anyone who has a problem with that doesn’t deserve to be so close to my face anyway.

As someone who is #AFAB / Assigned Female At Birth am aware of how intimidating some of this may seem but I promise (for me) it’s always been worth it to get to the other side. I love myself so much more now than I ever have before. I find myself to be the most attractive I’ve ever been in my life and (though I honestly don’t care what others think) I think this confidence shines through and even more people find me attractive now. Really the biggest take away from developing my relationship with my body hair doesn’t even have to do with the hair on my body. It’s transcended past my body because now I make decisions for myself based on what I want for myself and not on how I can best please others.

And that’s why I want to get a tattoo of a mustache on my forearm.

I’m gonna go live on Tik Tok now cause I feel like jamming to some music and connecting to the globe.

Peace.

JFS