A DIPPY DEPILATION DEBATE

[This is going to be a girlie post, so you fellas might want to stop reading now!]

Back in the days when, eternal optimist that I was, I attempted to teach French in UK secondary schools [my students being convinced that I had personally invented the language in order to make their lives difficult] I would start off the youngest classes by asking, "Now, what do you know about France?" I'd get, "It ain't in Britain, is it?"; "They make smelly cheese"; "They got the leaning tower of pizza " [nice try, kid, but geography and vocabulary a little off the mark]; and "My Dad says they're all w*****s". But by far the most common response was, "The women don't shave their armpits, do they?" Indeed, one class was so obsessed by this topic that I fear I imparted no French, no French culture and no eagerness to visit our Gallic neighbours all year; in July, as in the previous September, all those kids wanted to know about was the shaving habits of the women.

Here in Italy the problem besets me: with regard to legs and bikini area , particularly legs , there is no question - wax! But when it comes to the underarms, there seems to be no norm; some do and some don't. I was told as a teenager that continental men find the unshaven armpit sexy and you do see women with great tufts of the black stuff going around in their sleeveless dresses. I have also read that it is unhealthy to shave this area. The only near-convention that I observe appears to be that, in general, younger women do and older women don't. There's a feminist issue too, of course, but I'll leave that bit for now.

So what do I do? I've come to a compromise: underarms - shave [less hassle, no allergic reaction that way and no one gives a toss in Italy how clear you are there]; everywhere else - wax - upper lip and jawline included. [The beauticians here, as in the UK, don't know why I worry about facial hair as what little I have is very blond. But when you've been a menopausal teacher in a UK school, have caught the light on your face and had some 11-year-old shout out that you "need a shave", you are apt to become over-sensitive about the matter.]

What do women in other parts of the world do? How many of us truthfully enjoy summer, always fearing the tiniest fraction of regrowth of a hair in the wrong place? And why is nature so unfair to women in this affair anyway? Tell me what you think. Me, I herald the autumn with relief!