I spent a good sixty minutes in the shower shaving my legs so I could get a photo of me in a thong. It’s quite painful shaving your legs, especially when you’re as hairy as me. I got a really nasty cut on the back of my left leg, where the skin barely conceals a tendon or a scrap of flab – and protrudes. It bled and bled. And then I got another laceration on the edge of my heal, where the Achilles runs – and that fucking killed –

Looking in the mirror I realised my bum sags quite a bit. I’ve started doing squats in attempt to firm up the muscles but it’s not as firm as I’d like. It's strange for me not to have hair on my legs, the silkiness feels uncanny. With smooth legs, I realised I could see the muscles more clearly in my quadriceps, I like the way the muscles snake around the knees. When I was a teenager, I really wanted bigger legs, like the kids who were good at football had. However, I was too weak, and drug addled to do anything about that. Now, I like how slender and slight my legs are – and not having hair on them highlights that. I am in quite a lot of discomfort as it grows back and I feel for people who are compelled to do this regularly. 

Our bodies are ours to do what the fuck we like with. And language is changing to accommodate this, which I think, is very encouraging. The implication being that the mutations of language can work both for and against our respective freedoms. In many cases, the generation below me are using this idea, by moulding language to steer the evolution and liberation of their own identities in an increasingly dislocated world. 

There are of course derelictions with these fluid variables, think of Amazon and its cold hegemony whilst associating us with the comfort of trees, rainforests and air. That’s bad. But the adaptability of language – ultimately how we choose to use it to serve us, is more than just interesting. It has the potential to offer us, new & unforeseen, collections of emancipated bodies.

Feb 2021