Confessions of a gorilla girl.

This is a tale of self-love and self-hate. It is the story of my body or, more specifically, the fuzz that has dominated it since the day I was born 14 years ago. Can those of us blessed with a more-than-ample supply of body hair peacefully co-exist with those who worship the razor? Maybe on Planet of the Apes...

My mother is of Portugese descent; my dad is Jewish. In accordance with genetic prophecy, I came into this world with HAIR--a physical attribute which both aforementioned ethnic and religious groups are notorious for cultivating in glorious abundance. I was beautiful. I was smiling and gurgling gleefully. And I was hairy as heck.

By 2, a thick mop of chocolate-colored coils clustered around my little head. Because I was merely a toddler--and not yet tainted by the world of vanity--my coif was of little concern to me at the time. Soon enough, however, it became an issue that practically dominated my existence.

Fast forward to fourth grade. I had reached puberty--arguably, the most traumatic event to occur in ones formative years. Unfortunately for me, I developed early and, in the course of doing so, sprouted rampantly growing patches of thick, dark fur all over my body. It soon became apparent that this gorilla-like woolliness was not, in fact, very cool. My friends helpfully pointed out, "Gosh, you've got really hairy legs," "Your eyebrows are super bushy," and, my personal favorite, "You could be a guy." I was devastated by their comments.

In a desperate attempt to attain the smoothness reserved for pre-pubescents, I swiped my mom's razor and hacked furiously at my pelt. I spent an hour removing every last hair and then another half-hour meticulously plucking away my unibrow. By the time I was done, I was nicked, bleeding and exhausted. But, by golly, I was hairless!

I was as smooth as a baby's bottom. The razor was my new best friend. I hopped off to school in a short skirt and tank, proudly displaying my lovely bareness and gruesome battle scars. My glory was, however, short-lived.

The next morning, I reached down to stroke my sleek calves and recoiled in horror when my fingers encountered a disgusting prickliness. I ran to my mom, confessed to my razor-thieving and pleaded for help. My mother informed me that stubble is a fact of life. Perform that tedious chore practically every day forever? Unthinkable! But I was committed--until the end of fifth grade, I worshipped Mr. Gillette in all his fuzz-busting glory.

Then, the summer before middle school, I packed up for an all-girls wilderness camp in Vermont--very outdoorsy, very women's lib, very peace and granola, and very, very hairy. I hated it.

It was a month of emotional trauma and blubbering over tear-stained, four-page letters sent home bemoaning the horrors of summer camp. While at camp, I was forced to relinquish my near-compulsive shaving habits. There was only a 15-minute window of time in the mornings to shower, which involved running across half of camp in a swimsuit and towel, with the required all-natural bathing products in tow. After obtaining a shower nozzle in the cramped group-shower located in a rustic log cabin with a gravel floor, I had to finish bathing in five minutes or a bigger, scarier camper would push me away. Bathing got to be such a pain in the butt that I began to do it quite infrequently, like once every four days. Needless to say, my stubble-removing habits disappeared down the drain along with the suds from my Rainforest Natural Botanicals Awapuhi Shampoo.

I soon adopted a certain respect for girls' bodies as they are in their natural state. There were bodies, bodies everywhere. While daily swimming lessons were not optional, swimsuits were, and many girls chose to swim nude. "Wild Women in the Woods" was a favorite evening-time camp game, which involved stripping and then plastering one's body with mud and foliage. This nakedness scared the heck out of me--as did the extreme hairiness of all my counselors. They went on midnight hikes, meditated, knew about organic farming and how to play guitar, made chai for campers who felt bad, sang folk ballads to put girls to sleep, braided their hair with wildflowers...and had the hairiest legs and armpits I had ever seen on anyone, even myself. They were terrifying but, at the same time, beautiful.

Unfortunately, by the time I realized how special they were, it was too late. I had already left camp and was back in the real world, where I again felt the pressure to shave. I fervently attacked my menacing hide of beastly shagginess and managed to pull off a state of continuous hairlessness for over a year.

Then, in seventh grade, I took a pleasant two-week family vacation to France. As you may know, Paris is considered the hairy capital of the world. After hearing all about the undeniably sexiness of the hairy women in France, I eagerly anticipated my brief two-week foray into Hair Heaven. Total rumor! Parisians are possibly more obsessive about hair removal than Americans are.

I didn't shave for two months before traveling to France and, on the first sunny day, I sported capris and a teeny tank for optimum hair-flouncing. Oh-me, oh-my. The second I hopped on the Metro to the Eiffel Tower, I knew something was wrong.

Women sitting in seats facing mine pointed at my legs and snickered in French. I got only one positive response--from two men who were not French. I was on the Metro, where two Dutch 20-something backpacker dudes gave me the once-over, noticed my hairy legs and pits, and smiled--one even gave me a thumbs-up.

After one day of being openly hairy, I was sick of the reactions and decided to shave it all off. I loved France, but I definitely felt betrayed. If you can't be hairy in France, then where can you?

By the following summer, I was semi-used to on-again, off-again shaving. While it was pleasant to feel my sheets at night against smooth, smooth skin, it was also fun to occasionally let it grow and see how horrified I could make people. It's surprising how many people are unaccustomed to hairiness.

This became very apparent at a YMCA summer camp I attended. I did not shave the entire time. After two weeks, I was hairy enough for people to notice. Once, as I reached up to hoist myself onto a top bunk, a particularly annoying bunkmate cried, "What's THAT!?" in horror at catching a glimpse of my remotely frizzy pits.

"Uh...stubble?" I offered.

"But...but...why?"

"Because I'm lazy. Because I don't mind," I replied.

And it was true. Yes, possibly I was lazy but, more importantly, I didn't mind. After years of hair-loathing, my furriness was no longer offensive to me.

I still have a love-hate relationship with my razor. I still feel connected to hairy hippie women I see on the streets. And I still feel betrayed by the French. But at least I don't feel betrayed by myself, which is what really matters. Don't worry; be hairy! Corny? Yeah, but doesn't it sound nice?