Tolerance

We were watching Dan Zanes “Let’s Shake” video on the Disney channel and my husband says, “oh GROSS!” when he noticed that the female keyboard player has hairy armpits. First of all, they show her armpit (barely) for about .05 seconds, so I’m not sure how he even noticed it, but I can only chock it up to his extreme intolerance for all things different.

This concerns me. Normally, he’s an easy going, loving guy. He’s kind towards all animals. He is all for women’s equality - often saying I’m smarter than him (which is true, of course), he’s extremely supportive of my millions of hobbies and interests. BUT - he’s totally homophobic. It’s not like he doesn’t like the gay people we know, he just always makes little comments or stares at people that we don’t know. Like if we see a lesbian couple in the store or something, he openly stares at them with a look of disdain. So I guess he’s homophobic of the unknown.

Then there’s the hair in the girl’s armpits. He was literally freaking out about it. When I commented on how quickly it’s even shown, he kept yelling, “Look! There it is! Gross” every time her armpits were shown.

So here’s the funny thing. My mother was a raging feminist who didn’t shave her armpits or legs, didn’t wear a bra or underwear, and owned only one pair of high heels - that she fished out of a dumpster. All the rest of her wardrobe consisted of Converse sneakers in at least eight colors and the biggest t-shirt collection you’ve ever seen. Somewhere along the way, she decided that she loved women more than men, and she left my father for a woman about 10 years her junior. That love affair was short lived. Her final partner was about 15 years her senior, who took care of my mother as she became ill. My mom eventually died due to liver disease when she was 42.

Beyond all that, she was beautiful, hilarious, quick to laugh, brilliant and could sing any song in the style of obnoxious opera, for which she was classically trained.

My mom died when I was 17. My husband, who I met and married when I was 24, never got to meet her. But what would he have said? I asked him what he would say to her about her hairy armpits, and he said he would give her deodorant. This was such a silly answer to me. Do men stink more than women because they have armpit hair? No. Would he offer a man deoderant because he had armpit hair? Of course not. It was a ridiculous thing to say.

So what happens if our beautiful perfect son grows up to be gay? What then? I’m concerned. I have faith in my husband’s ability to love, but I’m afraid of the thoughtless things he says.

Most interesting is that this behavior is in direct conflict with my husband’s personality. He is extremely sensitive to people’s feelings. I often joke that he’s the girl in our relationship, because in addition to a superior fashion sense and excessive personal grooming habits, he’s certainly more aware of people’s feelings than I am. He’s also very charitable and quick with compliment. Only time will tell, I guess.