Fellow sea swimmer and friend of Wild Swimming Cornwall, Chloë, shares with us her experience of how embracing her body hair has been a source of empowerment. It’s helped her devote more time to the things that matter; getting in the ocean, investing in her wellbeing, and continuing the move towards body positivity.

I’ve been swimming for longer than I can remember. And I’ve been being told how to be a woman for the same amount of time.

In the heavily sexualised world of women and swimwear there are parts of maturing and adolescence which are acceptable, and those which are not. While the vessel of delivery has evolved since I was a teenager coming to grips with my changing body, the messages have remained the same.

My parents are both from landlocked cities, and understood how important it was that I learnt to swim if I was going to safely grow up by the seaside. I loved it, and worked my way through my pool swimming badges as my confidence and love for the water grew. I was even fortunate enough to go to a secondary school which had its own pool and scheduled swimming into the P.E. rota.

It was at this same time that I hit puberty and began to notice the narratives being sold to me. The aspects of my transformation which I should embrace — breasts and hips, and those which I should banish — body hair. I complied, stealing my mother’s razors and eradicating any trace of my natural dark hair.

The thought of showing any part of my body — besides my head (providing my eyebrows and moustache had been carefully curated) — that had not been preened to approved standards was unbearable. My prudish mother never spoke to me about hair removal, so I was left to my own devices navigating the world of shaving, waxing, creaming — anything to ensure that I was free of the burden of my hair and the shame associated with it.

This shame followed me into my early adulthood, as I began to consider my sexualisation and the male gaze. I never particularly enjoyed the arduous process of shaving, and I often ended up patchy due to my lack of effort and inability to see my legs without my glasses!

This shame became paralysing, if I hadn’t shaved I wouldn’t go to the pool. I missed out on activities that gave me joy and kept me fit, became pre-occupied with making sure I had time to prepare my body for the gaze of others, instead of focusing on what exercises I might do or planning meals that would nourish me. At one point I remember being more concerned that a pool lifeguard had seen me stretching with hairy legs, than worried about the painful cramp that had put me there.

The coalescence of finishing my Master’s Degree and going through a break-up allowed me to give way during my final year of university. Personal grooming was not a valid excuse to miss out on library time and with the added motivation of abstinence, I didn’t have to worry about anyone’s opinion other than my own. And that’s when it finally clicked — a simple but powerful sentiment — it didn’t matter.

I returned home to Cornwall desperate to reconnect with my natural ocean environment, and spent the summer swimming, surfing, stand up paddle-boarding, all the while exposing my new, hairy body to my friends and peers. I read up on feminism, better defined my motivations and choices, and became more body confident than I’d ever been. If I was brave enough to swim while betraying commercial womanhood’s number one rule, then I was brave enough walk confidently breaking all the others. No thigh gap, no abs, lumps and bulges in the wrong places. And do you know what? No one has once told me off for disobeying the rules. I’ve not been sent out of the swimming pool, never been chased off the beach by an angry mob; never scared children to tears running back to their parents.

There has been a massive movement towards body positivity since the days of glossy magazines talking about bikini-bodies. We now see models of all races and sizes being used to advertise swimwear, but body hair remains the most uncomfortable taboo. Even hair removal companies refuse to show it in advertisements for fear of revolting their consumers. Body hair is every part of being a woman as are our curves and periods, and we should not be shamed by it. Hair removal is absolutely a choice, and there should be no derision on either side. So next time you’re about to opt out of a swim because you’ve got a patchy bikini line, think about the amazing experience you’ll be missing out on. Embrace your body for its strength and power, and don’t let the hypothetical judgements of others ever stop you from investing in your own well-being.