Marcel Winatschek

The Forest Under Anna’s Arm

A friend named Hannah showed me Anna. Anna is twenty-two, Danish, runs her own blog about watches and makeup and good food, and is entirely responsible for the fact that I now find armpit hair on women genuinely attractive. I have apparently leapfrogged straight past most of humanity in terms of personal evolution.

The video is technically about dreadlock maintenance. What do I know about dreadlocks? Nothing whatsoever. But she lifts her arms for a moment and where everyone else would wince and reach for the wax strips, I want to put my face there. That’s the whole story. That’s where I am now.

To be fair, I probably don’t love all armpit hair on all women. I don’t love all women—I love very few. But Anna’s small patch of arm forest is a genuine bright spot in a world obsessed with the removal of everything natural, a world of hairless bodies and smooth surfaces and the general aesthetic of a freshly cleaned mannequin. Have I developed a fetish? Possibly. Am I fine with it? Apparently yes.