Wild About Hairy

Some Like Legs Shaved. Some Like Them Not.

All Wax Eloquent on the Matter.

By Lonnae O'Neal Parker

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 4, 1997; Page D01

The Washington Post

Graceful, but with an exaggerated, Mae West "Why don't you come up and see me sometime" kind of sway, she could maybe teach that walk.

But you have to be born with the legs. Buckner's seem to begin just below her shoulders and are shown to great advantage by the three-inch "walking" heels she favors.

Attractive enough from a distance, it's only up close that you appreciate their most striking quality. Buckner's legs are hairy. Very hairy. That's vury hurry if you want to add the regional accent, as some folks do.

"My legs are one of the first things men notice about me. And when they find out they're hairy -- that really gets them. They really love that," she says.

Buckner, 32, is a data entry processor for the Justice Department. She is black. She says she's never shaved her legs, which suits her boyfriend of 11 years just fine. She says the hair would grow back thicker, and that smooth legs would require too much maintenance. "Although we do have a lot of black women who shave," says Buckner, "it's just a cultural difference, basically. You know, it's one of those preference things."

Many black women do not shave their legs. They span the age and class spectra. The fact was recently noted on black-owned WKYS-FM during a segment about sexiness. It is not universal, but even a number of black women who do shave regularly say it's not as if they're scared to walk out of the house if they don't.

Glen Johnson is working out at Bally's gym in Capitol Heights. The small, attractive 25-year-old slowly rolls up one leg of her sweats to reveal waves of dark, silky hair. Hair like fringe on the dress of a flapper. More hair than leg.

"I shaved once," Johnson said. "I think I was about 18. My mother got so mad. She was like, `Don't shave again. We're a hairy family. Just accept it.' "

Johnson, a barber, says that at the Landover shop where she works, "men are constantly telling me, `Your legs are so sexy, don't shave.' " She's even earned a hirsute nickname. "I've been called Chia Pet," she says. "I love it, I love it. I accept it. It's all me."

According to William Stuart, director of undergraduate studies for the anthropology department at the University of Maryland, female body hair is a marker of sexuality, ethnicity and in-group status for many cultures.

For many white women, though, the idea of body hair as acceptable, let alone sexy, is almost incomprehensible.

Debbie Ethridge, who owns the Merle Norman salon on L Street NW, says she spends most of her days waxing clients to remove unwanted hair. She estimates that 90 percent of her facial waxing clients are black but that 90 percent of her bikini and leg waxing clients are white. "I have at least 40 clients who come in for leg waxing on a regular basis," Ethridge says. "Of those, three are black." She says black clients "will get all their facial hair removed, and hair under the arms. But they don't want the leg [hair] removed. They say it's a black male preference."

Tony Carter, 28, a certified mechanic in Capitol Heights, makes no bones about it. "I love it. I love it. That is the sexiest thing ever. I mean, that just brings out -- you know -- brings out their beauty. Like hairy legs and stockings," his voice drops to a deep shudder, "that's sexy as [expletive]."

Carter is critical overall of prevailing white standards of beauty. "Models have to be skinny and real frail. Why can't they be thick and beautiful? Why can't models have hairy legs?

"I mean, I'm getting married next month and to me, my wife is perfect -- except she doesn't have hairy legs. If she did, she'd be a beast. A perfect 12."

Jerry Branch, 33, a Giant Food warehouse worker in Jessup, finds hair on black women's legs "definitely sexy, but then again, black women show a little bit more flavor in all kinds of ways." He gestures to a woman a few feet away with hair twisted high in an elaborate curly upsweep. "You'd never see a white woman in a hairstyle like that."

Sheila Dearybury is a 28-year-old white attorney from Arlington. She says she won't go out, even with her boyfriend of three years, if she hasn't shaved. "I shave from the hip down. The entire leg," she says. Dearybury, who has shaved for more than 15 years, says that shaving seems to be a matter of personal choice for many black women, but that when she first encountered white women who didn't shave, "it was totally a political statement."

Stephanie Baker, an administrator for a Washington law firm, says she shaves compulsively. She is white. "I don't like to go to bed with any growth on my legs," she says. "Shaving was a rite of passage in many ways. I did it before my mother even said I could." Baker knows a number of black women, professional and nonprofessional, who choose not to shave. "I presume they just think it's prettier," she says.

An environmental consultant at the Merle Norman salon declines to give her name. "As a white woman in a corporate environment," she says, "it is socially unacceptable not to shave your legs."

Eric Silverman, assistant professor of anthropology at DePauw University, has studied the politics of body hair in other cultures. He theorizes that because nonwhite people were virtually invisible to advertisers during the early part of this century, when the disposable razor was invented and began to be mass-marketed, black women were less affected by the social convention to shave. "Affluent white women were like children and babies in this country," Silverman says. "Pale, powdered, overly adorned and sheltered. Shaving may have been a way of infantilizing women, of further distinguishing them from white men. . . . Black women could simply say `That rule doesn't apply to me.'

"It could have been an area where black women say, `We are not as repressed or as uptight as white women,' " Silverman adds. "Maybe having body hair is a way of expressing internalized white racism, turning it around to say, `We appreciate our bodies for what they are.' "

In some other cultures, too, there is less emphasis on the practice of shaving. For instance, according to Belen Aranda-Alvarado, associate beauty editor at Latina magazine, hair removal "is not as much of a religion to Latina women. I think we are concerned with hair removal. There is a cultural bias against shaving, but a lot of Latina women wax. There are definitely some that neither wax nor shave. Particularly for those who have just arrived in this country there is definitely an acculturation thing. The bottom line is it just depends on where you come from and personal choice."

"Because of our mixed heritage," says Aranda-Alvarado, "there are a lot of us for whom it's just not an issue."

According to Silverman, unshaven white women conjure up "sort of this Sierra Club, granola kind of thing." Silverman says shaving became political for white women because "once the idea of women shaving became a dominant rule for white women, they simply did not have the luxury of ignoring it," the way some black women are able to do.

"Grrrrrr," growls Chris Preston, a 34-year-old paralegal supervisor, as Cathleen Buckner passes him in the office.

It is a running joke and Buckner -- "Cat," as she is called by some -- is unoffended.

Preston, who says he is happily married, and another employee, Cedric Hall, a 24-year-old file clerk, discuss Buckner's legs.

"I love them. Very nice," Hall says. His smile becomes dopey. "She's like a cat with all the fur."

Preston agrees. "When you see a black woman with nice legs, that's like 10,000 bonus points. Cat gives you the full package, though." Hall nods vigorously.

According to Preston, the right amount of hair on the legs is a delicate balance.

"She's got the right mix, but she's borderline, though." Preston says. "She's gotta go inside on full moons."

reprinted with permission of the writer from the WASHINGTON POST