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My mother says I should shave because I probably smell dirty and I ask her if she can smell me. She says I just probably do and I ask again. I ask her if men smell too and if her boyfriends all shave and she says that's different, but it's actually the exact same thing.

When I was eleven I started growing body hair and my mother would have me hold my arms up in the shower so she could shave for me. She said a cut in your armpit really hurts a lot so she'd do it for me until I could. My sister would watch and pretend to shave hers too even though she didn't have any hair yet. One of my friends started shaving when she was six years old because some little boys told her that her little scrawny legs looked like bushes walking around on the playground. My sister and I stopped showering together and making soapy, spike hair dos because my bush was funny. 

I remember attending the birthday party of a girl I didn't know once. I was in Germany for the first time in my life, and a girl I stayed with invited me along. Once we were there, she told me she was confused as to why any of us were invited because none of them were friends with the girl - she leaned over and whispered that the girl didn't shave her legs. I saw and remembered my six year old, freckled friend shaving her legs in kindergarten so boys didn't make fun of her and realized that doesn't go away when you're an adult either.