This evening, in the Celebrity Gossip Lounge, I was compelled to follow a thread regarding the more than ample amount of facial hair on Madonna's daughter, Lourdes.

I am a hirsute.

I am a 28 year old female with an extraordinarly high free testosterone level. This is caused by a malfunction in my adrenal glands (one of 2 sources of testosterone in the female body--the other being the ovaries.) One of the many pleasant side effects of this is execessive facial hair growth. Excessive. REALLY EXCESSIVE. I'm talking, like, full-on, put Bob Villa to shame, beard growin' excessive. Societal constraints force me to shave my face every single day; partly to save my son and husband from explaining why mommy looks like an Amish man, and partly because I have no other functional alternative.
I have very sensitive skin, so chemical bleaches and depilatory cremes give me painful burns that last for days, and I think that my co-workers are getting wise to the same old story. "Oh that? I burned my neck, cheeks, chin, and upper lip with the curling iron again." Waxing would work, but I have to let the hair on my face grow so long in order to use it that I look like Christopher Lowell. Thus, I am relegated to using my Venus on my face every day before it ever touches my legs, not to mention my stomach and... well... everywhere else that guys usually get hair. There is so much hair in my shower every day that it looks like I shaved a Yetti in there. Shaving my face may fool some of the people some of the time, but my hair growth is so prolific that by 3:00pm I have a five o'clock shadow so rough you could shred carrots on it, so anyone who is with me all day is well aware of my problem, despite my best efforts to conceal it. This would include family members, friends, and co-workers, all of whom have been so kind as to keep their comments out of my hearing range so far.

So why in the H-E-double hockey sticks am I telling you all this? I guess it's to let everyone know that both views on the subject are okay. There were several noble posts chastising the originator of the comment, defending Lourdes' right to sprout hair when and where she pleased, and for those I am respectfully grateful. My fur-verent hope (couldn't help it) is that you are as accepting to this touchy situation in grown women as you are in children. That said, I also want the comment's originator to know that her comments cracked me up! We are all beautiful, intelligent women. We should also be confident women who are willing to laugh at ourselves. Now, I'm not confident enough to show up at the office "rockin' a handle-bar mustache," but I AM confident enough to laugh at myself. After all, it's just facial hair, not an extra head (no offense to my extra-head homies.) It's only as serious as I make it, and dammit, that's just funny. Big-up to Lourdes--hairy as she wanna be, baby--and to every other little girl who, like me, watched a ZZ Top video and realized she was less the girl in the car and more a member of the band.

Luv to the Busties

hey girl, this is a very interesting post and i am sure many lounge members would be interesting in reading your point of view and discussing this topic.

however, since we are a self-moderated board we try to keep new threads to a minimum to maintain a relatively easy to navigate space. it's good form here to run new thread ideas past everyone in the community forum to see who's interested or to see if there's a thread already going on that suits the topic.

so, please do that with this topic and any others you feel like discussing.

thanks a bunch, and welcome to the lounge!

And you could try this thread

Many newbie apologies for the forum etiquette faux-paz--I'll be sure to check next time.

Not sure how to move/remove this thread--any help is appreciated!

Just thought it would be interesting to find out how other women feel about adhereing to society's definition of acceptable female appearance--not beauty. It's one thing to make the "to shave or not to shave" decision for legs and pits, but my disorder is a little different: not all women have to make that decision about their face. I guess my broader question is:

I try to make myself look closer to the accepted definition of the female norm, and sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not just luvin' my natural self. Anybody else doin' something to "fit the description" that they don't like?

you pretty much rule, the school, Knitten Kitten! I apologize if anytihng I said in there offended you, I was being tongue in cheek and my carelessness can get me into trouble sometimes, but I think Lourdes is a beauty.

Welcome to BUST!

I was absolutely and completely unoffended--thought your comments were quite "cheeky," which the punk-rock-wanna-be-Brit in me adores

it can be a pretty hairy topic (ok, no more of those-I swear)

I'd like to see this discussion happening in the shaving thread, but before that, I did want to say that, kitten, I empathize. My ex-partner is a woman who also has to shave every day. Lifelong pain in the ass. Or face. So to speak.

MOO!