Wherein the Romans say “what the pluck” to body hair.
I’m hairy noon and nighty-night night, my hair is a fright,” sang the Cowsills (in a song I butchered in my own not-so-inimitable style in an earlier article), and this certainly reflected the hirsute look beloved of the song’s hippies. I recently rewatched the film Woodstock and responded with a typical Gen X mixture of fascination and disgust when seeing young Boomers cavort (or sit catatonically stoned), their long locks glistening with mud, probably fleas and possibly a lost joint or two.
A group who would have responded only with disgust are the Romans (well, they might also have responded by hacking up the hippies with their gladii—they weren’t big on summers of love). The Romans viewed hairiness as a barbaric trait and like to incorporate a quick pluck into their grooming regimen.
Tease Her with a Tweezer
The Roman reasons for removing body hair differ between the genders. For men, body hair was removed as a sign of purity and maturity. Interestingly, teenaged males did not shave; males first shaved in their twenties, dedicating the shorn whiskers to a deity (for example, Octavian was 23 when he was first shaved, and Nero dedicated his hair to Jupiter after it was cut). Women, however, removed body hair to enhance their beauty. “There are many, many written sources including Pliny and Ovid,” says historian Cameron Moffett, “They are all writing about how you will need to keep on top of the body hair and you know, gosh, no man is going to be interested in you if you’ve got armpit hair.”
A smooth, hairless armpit—which, Ovid reminds us, should definitely not smell like those of a goat—was valued by both men and women. Legs, however, were another matter: while sleek female gams were valued, Seneca stoically instructs men to let their leg hair grow wild and free lest they appear too effeminate.
There were numerous methods for removing hair. Shaving with a razor was common, of course, as were homemade depilatory creams and grinding hairy areas with a pumice stone. One of the most common methods—and one which has recently been the focus of a new British museum—was tweezing. Slaves and professional armpit hair yankers were employed to pluck unsightly hairs; much shrieking was involved, Seneca sniffily informs us.
Please Her with a Tweezer
We are more like the Romans than we might think. With what The Guardian dubs “the current fad for extreme hair removal,” people are approaching their follicles and shouting, “Take it off…take it all off!” Whether we’re trying to look sexier or simply be more aerodynamic when streaking, we’re increasingly setting free our inner naked mole rat…except the rodents rock some great whiskers.
Image: Tweezers—Roman (Source).
