On Shaving Your Armpits
Short version:
Do you guys shave your armpits? And if so, how short?
Long version:
I’m a white 17 ftm, I’ve been out as nonbinary since fifth grade and feeling more like a guy since start of highschool (I think this is sort of confusing for my parents, and I haven’t had a real sit down, re-coming out [I tried with my mom, and it went weird but that’s a tangent] but they’re pretty aware - i don’t hide it), and was always sort of boyish before that. I never really shaved my armpits. My dad would always make comments (even after coming out) about how gross and smelly it was to have hairy armpits (he has thickets of armpit hair, and only ever made these comments to my sister and I).
So I didn’t shave for the longest time because I didn‘t want to subscribe to his views of femininity (and by extension views of me). But recently I’ve been feeling gross about having long armpit hair. I don’t know if it’s just because of what I was raised on, or because it’s Florida and hot and my deodorant is clumping between the hair (ew). Lately I’ve just shaved it a little bit, and it leaves behind itchy stubble. Is having shaved armpits clockable? I want to start wearing more tank tops now that I’m taping and it’s summer.
I’m also pretty involved in theatre (mostly backstage, but over the summer doing a lot of onstage stuff), and a lot of guys in theatre shave their pits. So from an outside perspective, do you shave your armpits? Is this a weird thing to stress over?