Name: Surreal
Age: 24
Background: Trinidad  (but Canadian born and proud of it!)
Photographer: CProductions
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    It’s really strange and sad to think that just having hairy arms, could create such drama and misery in one’s life! My name is Surreal and I’m one of the glamour models for girlswithhairyarms.net.  Yes I’ve got hairy arms and yes I was one of those who suffered a lot because of them, when I really shouldn’t have had to!
    When I was a young girl in school, you couldn’t imagine the name calling and jeers I had to endure because of my hairy arms. Especially at that tender age where you just begin to notice things like boys, beauty and body image.

    To my misfortune, I found that being a nice, smart, even pretty girl just wasn’t enough! For me, it was because while all the other girls had smooth, lean arms with only the merest bit of ‘peach fuzz’, I had been cursed with long, dark hairs all along my arms.

    I’d been that way ever since I was a baby pretty much, and you’d NEVER think that something like this would matter!…but suddenly I was forced to take notice of its apparently ‘unwelcome existence’ there on my body.

 
    I remember the first time I was taunted. It was in junior high gym class. All of us girls sat on the floor for attendance when suddenly I heard whispers to one side. Three of the most popular girls in school (popular due to their flawless beauty – and skin, no doubt) were staring at me with sneers on their faces, pointing and laughing.       
     I hadn’t really figured out why they were laughing at me until one of them whispered audibly, “What a hairy beast! She should shave her arms” Another one said, “Gross! I hope she doesn’t touch me with them!”

    The moment I realized they were talking about my arms...it changed my life forever.

    Suddenly, where I’d thought myself a perfectly acceptable person at school, who’d never had any problems making friends – still, I wasn’t good enough.
    From that day forward, you can’t imagine the craziness I went through, trying to remove the hair from my arms! from sugaring to plucking to waxing… Suffering through depilatory creams which only gave me itchy rashes that seemed SO much worse than the hair itself… One time, I even tried to burn off the hairs, one by one, with a cigarette lighter. That didn’t last too long, after I’d kept burning my skin more than the hair….ouch.

    I was absolutely miserable.

    Because removing the hair was so exhausting and time-consuming, I instead started wearing long sleeves at school, from September all the way through to the end of June – to hide my arms. It was so horrible and humiliating, even though my family and closest friends assured me that nobody who really mattered would negatively point out things like my hairy arms. I still worried, though, mostly that no boys would ever like me because I wasn’t smooth and hairless like the other girls. Trust me, that pain was enough to depress me for so many years.
    It wasn’t until I began noticing I wasn’t alone, that the misery began to recede. Years passed and as I entered my twenties, I found other girls who complained about – and removed – the hair on their arms. I, who had stopped all of the waxing appointments, started doing them again regularly, now that I knew it was more common than I’d thought.
    Better than that, though, was when I met my boyfriend who actually was the first person to truly make me feel OK about my arm hair. A short while after we’d begun hanging out at school, as friends, he cornered me one day and forced my sleeve up my arm. I was shocked and dreading his reaction…but to my surprise, he tenderly assured me that I shouldn’t have to hide such a thing; that it didn’t matter at all to him.
    You can see why I fell for him instantly!
    Despite all of these changes for the positive, the hair on my arms still does get me down, from time to time, to be honest. There are days when I still see guys – and girls – gawking at my hairy arms and grimacing as though it were the most hideous thing they’d ever seen. It still hurts. Yes, it does and probably always will, just not to the extent that it used to. For this reason, I still do remove the hair from time to time, mostly for special occasions just so that it won’t bother my mind…
    One day, however, I do hope to be completely free of this way of thinking… I would love to feel completely proud of my body, just the way it is. This is why I am awe-struck at girlswithhairyarms.net and its cause. I really do feel that girls everywhere should be proud of their uniqueness…and never feel as though they need to look like everyone else. I’m definitely going to be promoting this website as much as I can, because it’s an important message that needs to be spread:

NEVER be ashamed of who and what you are. We’re all beautiful in our own way.

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Surreal has her own group (just opened January 2008) where other women can feel free to contact her, ask advice or just read what some other girls have had to say

Surreal's Hairy Arms Advice

Visit this group

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Comments or questions for Surreal can be sent to one of the emails listed below. Please put "Surreal" in the subject line.  She is also a registered user at our messageboard!