An adult film actress capitalizing off of her hirsuteness kept her line of work private to family members.
Until now.
Redditor “quarantinedqt” was on a Zoom meeting with her fiancé’s aunt and some cousins when she suddenly felt pressured to reveal the truth about her body hair and why her armpits were suddenly hairless.
The Original Poster (OP) let the aunt have it and inflicted major razor burns with the truth about what she does for a living.
“I’m an adult performer who found her niche in fetish productions due to my ‘natural body hair’ – I stopped shaving quite a number of years ago because I’m prone to really gross looking razor burn and suddenly, my ‘career’ took off.”
Since Redditors in the thread wanted to know more details, the OP explained how she got into the adult entertainment industry.
“I went to college for library sciences. Now I’m in porn. Sometimes, that’s life, folks.”
“I have a part time job as a writer for a super small local magazine, and that’s where we told people my income was generated.”
“We have gotten lots of skepticism from that explanation, though, mostly because it’s pretty unbelievable. The magazine is a nonprofit.”
“Honestly, everyone had to know that we generate income elsewhere, they just didn’t know where.”
“I make a decent living doing mostly solo work, more than enough to live on and build up a savings.”
“I’m open about my body hair but not my ‘career’, so I tend to just tell people that it’s a societal statement or something similar.”
“My fiance’s family all knows that I’m pretty proud of my body hair. I don’t think it detracts from my looks or femininity at all.”
The latest job offer prompted her to undergo a major transformation of her bodily landscape.
“Recently, though, I was hired to do a ‘bimbofication’ series that paid very well, and they paid me extra on top of the usual base salary to completely remove all of my body hair on camera.”
“They sent a whole damn waxing setup and I made the videos and I got paid.”
Without giving thought to the ensuing consequences, she posted pictures of her new look on Facebook.
“I posted a couple of selfies with my arms in the air to Facebook with the caption of, ‘look what I did! Quarantine boredom is getting to me!’ and didn’t think much of it until Sunday, during a Zoom call with my fiance’s aunt and a couple of female cousins for some wedding flowers I was bullied into getting from the aunt because she’s a florist.”
“The aunt brought up my body hair transformation immediately and was like, ‘oh, I bet you did it for the wedding!'”
“I tried to deflect and say it was really just quarantine boredom, but she kept on keeping on.”
“‘Oh, you probably feel more feminine! I bet you feel prettier! Don’t you smell better? You want to keep it gone forever now, don’t you? Welcome to the ranks of real women!'”
The aunt pressed until the OP finally reached a breaking point and all hell broke loose.
“I deflected no less than a dozen ridiculous statements from the aunt tying together my femininity with bald armpits, and I finally snapped and said, ‘no, you’re right, I didn’t do it because I was bored, I did it for porn that your NEPHEW recorded and I’ll do it again once the sh*t grows back.'”
“Then I hung up the call. My fiance isn’t terribly pissed, but he’s getting calls to end the wedding from his extended family.”
“He’s mostly annoyed that his phone hasn’t stopped ringing since yesterday afternoon. Thankfully, his parents aren’t interested in this drama, probably because we’re the picture of a mundane family. Overlooking this detail, obv.”
“The aunt is no longer doing the flowers which is an unnecessary bill I don’t have to pay, but I’m wondering.”
The OP asked AITA (Am I the A**hole) for telling the aunt what she specifically waxed her armpits for.
Anonymous strangers on the internet were asked if and where guilt belongs by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
People took issue about female expectations, with many reacting to the aunt’s comment when she said: “Welcome to the ranks of real women.”
“I hate all that ‘real’ stuff.. Real women like men with beards. Real women don’t have armpit hair. Real men like curvy girls.”
“Disgusting. It’s really just another way to invalidate someone else’s preferences and isolate them.” – iShipwreck
“I’ve heard it more from women tbh. Despite birthing multiple children I’m not a REAL woman unless i have curves. Which i do not have. The skinny-shaming is real.” – LilStabbyboo
“I’m overweight so definitely have “curves” and the whole thing is just stupid.”
“I’m about an 18 in jeans and L-XL in tops. It’s like I can’t even complain about being fat anymore because people do that ‘real women’ sh*t and plus-size stuff is more and more available.”
“Like, no I need to lose weight and I’m working on it and I don’t need to be told that I’m a ‘real woman’ because I’m overweight.”
“This type of mindset that fat makes you special or something is literally toxic and me and these other ‘real women’ do need to lose weight and not be discouraged from trying to be healthier.”
“I’m 5’1 and 190 for reference, so absolutely unquestionably like 70-80 pounds overweight which is not healthy and shouldn’t be accepted as such.” – kristen_hewa
“Someone who thinks real women lack secondary sex characteristics like body hair. Or perhaps it’s someone who thinks real women should aim to resemble prepubescent girls?”
“I’m not sure. I shave my armpits because I dislike B.O. and reducing hair helps with that, but it certainly doesn’t make my womanhood any more ‘real.'” – BanjoTannerIsHere
This Redditor thought everyone was to blame.
“ESH. Look, we all have that aunt/uncle/relative/friend. We all WANT to say something like this but at the end of the day it is totally counterproductive because now you look like the a**hole.”
“Now you’ve given your aunt ammo and you didn’t need to do that. You know you can be the bigger person and you know she’s rude/inconsiderate/sexist in her believes…. just take the high road.” – Business-Depth
“There’s a difference between taking the highroad and being a door mat. Had Op just grinned and bared it then she would have been a doormat, but she definitely did not take the highroad.”
“You can be respectful and a peace keeper without airing out things like this. It obviously came from a place of wanting to humiliate the aunt but she could have said so many other things as well while still being the bigger person.”
“She literally could have just left the zoom without saying anything and just responded with a ‘I do not appreciate being told that apparently all these years i have not been a ‘real’ women due to body hair.’ or ‘you know how meaningful this message is to me’ (she says she’s been telling them it’s a form of activism/statement) if they reached out to her.”
“Maybe even said she would like to cancel the flower order as she would not like to promote that mentality.”
“There’s nothing wrong with not hiding your line of work or even being proud of it, and had Op been open and honest about what she did for a living then this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“But she dropped a bomb she knew would cause drama considering she’s been quiet about it for years.”
“Obviously the aunt was out of line and is definitely an a**. But so is Op.” – AnimalLover38
This person recognized the response as the inherent problem.
“NTA. In some ways it’s like coming out – you got tired of hiding something about yourself to protect their feelings since they showed no concern for yours.”
“If they’re ‘scandalized’ by that it’s ultimately their judgemental views, not you, that is the problem.” – MenacingJowls
The OP told the aunt she would be willing to remove her armpit hair again, which gives the implication there could be a sequel to the niche fetish film.
But any speculation about a trilogy in development is neither hair nor there.