I left my leg hair unshaved all through high school. It was thick and sun-bleached so it had coppery glints in it and I adored it, especially the little fringe around my ankles where it petered out. I sat on my front stoop in the late afternoon sun and twisted it into little dreadlocks or made vain humorous attempts at french-braiding it which made my friends shriek. I knew I was sometimes the butt of jokes but I thought it was stupid to shave my legs, and have a field of stubble in place of fuzz. But my leg hairs got blacker and more profuse, and I started to envy my friends with white-blonde hair that didn't show. Though I still liked to look at it on my naked body, sticking out from under clothes it looked incongruous. Crushed and writhing under stockings, like my Trigonometry teacher's, it frightened me. I shaved it off. For years the razor was seized and won back by opposing camps. I shaved my leg hair defensively, I grew it back dogmatically, I shaved it guiltily, I grew it back proudly, I shaved it experimentally, I grew it back humorously. I shaved it. Objectively, philosophically, morally: fishnets look better on shaved legs.