taylor titmouse

dwarves + the womanulet part 10

Added 2025-04-08 18:45:24 +0000 UTC

He did always kind of want to know...

do you ever think about how the depiction of, or absence of, body hair in art is inherently a political choice? regardless of gender, really. most people have hair on their arms, usually thick enough that it's clearly visible to the eye. but depicting it, or not depicting it, is an aesthetic decision informed by social pressures and therefore political. you might draw it on a man to make him look more masculine. that marks him. you might do the same to a woman, and that marks her. but its absence is as much a statement, even if it's widely accepted. what does depicting a man without arm hair mark him as? what does depicting a woman without it mark her as? because it does mark her, or at the very least, mark the opinions of the person drawing her.

i took angre's body hair away as a cartooning choice based on the social idea that women are comparatively hairless, and therefore the goal of "fetish art about transforming a man into a woman" is more strongly achieved with that familiar symbol of femininity. but there is no real reason his leg hair should disappear. i didn't need T to have hair on my stomach. he wouldn't be any less a "woman" with those, but to most effectively "sell" that he's a woman now, they have to go.

just some food for thought, i suppose. i invented an entire culture to justify depicting a dwarf woman as conventionally attractive and hairless, because that's what i find more attractive. every choice you make in art says something about you and your preferences, for better and for worse.