The Most Disgusting Picture Ever

True confession:  As I am prone to do every semester, I have once again tarnished the innocence of young adults by forcing a group of students to look at this particular photo.  It is, I am told, “the most disgusting picture ever.”  If you can stand it, here it is:

A woman with hair under her armpits

It turns out that my students’ near ubiquitous sense of disgust with this image is not unique, for scholar Breanne Fahs has recently shown that despite many women’s nonchalant attitudes towards underarm and other body hair as mere “personal choice” when discussed hypothetically, a diverse group of her female students who opted to forego hair removal as part of an in-class experiment reported almost universal feelings of social pressure, helplessness, disgust, and anger, not only in the way that they felt about themselves, but also in the way that their families and peers treated them. Continue reading “The Most Disgusting Picture Ever”