Earlier this month, the New York Times noted that "American women didn't shave their armpits en masse until the 1920s." These days, Nivea.com has a demonstration of male body shaving.

In a piece from Friday's Wall Street Journal, Cameron Stracher writes: "The same people pushing hairlessness are the ones selling the products. In the best tradition of hucksterism, we must have what we don't need." But Stracher noticed something else important:

Recently I went to see the play Hair, the '60s musical about hair as a metaphor for rebellion, pride, power, sexuality and love. As the talented cast sang about the joys of their God-given hairiness, I realized that at least half the men in the cast had shaved their underarms. In a generation, hair had gone from plumage to be worn "long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty… bangled, tangled, spangled and spaghettied," to being plucked, shorn, waxed, buzzed, razored, tasered, lasered and depilated.

Over the weekend, I went to my friend's parents' 40th anniversary party, which means they got married the summer of '69. The party was hippie-themed, with tie-dye and what not, and someone joked that they'd Googled "Woodstock" to get a costume idea and "everyone was hairy and naked." How did this happen? How did Americans go from being proud of their body hair to being stalked on the streets by gorillas and encouraged to strip it all off? Being shamed into hairlessness can't be progress.

Or course, all things are cyclical — the Ancient Greeks used depilatories. Hairy pits and bush will probably come back around to being "in style" again in another 40 years. Meanwhile, we'll continue to be stripped not only of our hair and pride, but our hard-earned cash: According to WSJ, the shaving and hair removal business made about $1.8 billion in the U.S. last year. Almost makes you want to be a hippie.

Gorillas And Women Tag-Teaming On Spa's Hair-Removal Campaign [BrandFreak]
Receding Hairlines [WSJ]
Do Women Like Men Quite That Cleanshaven? [NY Times]

• A report claims that an Australian baby was born deaf and blind after its mother was given an injection of the wrinkle filler Dysport in the first week of pregnancy. • British professors have been given a grant to test whether pink rooms can make violent prisoners calmer. • Volunteers at a Houston-area maternity ward wrap Christmas babies in holiday stockings every year. • The Church of England is trying to quell "thousands" of dissidents who are upset over the appointment of a female bishop by creating a new type of clergy that will restrict the rights of female bishops. • Oh look: a dog gulping down a small burrito in one second. • Breaking: Olivia has become the most popular name for British girls over the past year. • A California woman pleaded guilty on Monday to arranging the fake marriages of dozens of Chinese citizens to U.S. citizens so the Chinese spouses could live in the United States. • Freida Pinto is set to receive the Palm Springs International Film Festival's Breakthrough Performance Award on January 6 for her role in Slumdog Millionaire. • A 72-year old woman has been accused of kidnapping her 86-year-old sister from Pittsburgh so they could get her away from her ramshackle apartment so a male friend could make repairs on her sister's home. • On Monday, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights ruled against a church group who discriminated against renting out a beachfront property to a lesbian couple seeking to use the locale for a civil union ceremony. • The Popeye the Sailor copyright is set to expire in Europe this week. The copyright is protected in America until 2024. Bring on the European porn tributes! • Apparently, comfort food is back in style as the economy continues to go downhill. • One of the teens convicted in the "Jena Six" beating case shot himself after he was arrested last week for shoplifting. The wound is not life-threatening. • According to a new study, obese men are three times more likely to have a low sperm count than their normal-weight peers. • If you are feeling blue, blame your friend: moods are contagious. • Hospitals in the U.S. are testing to see if simple arm-strengthening exercises can reduce lymphedema, a side effect of breast cancer surgery and radiation. • A Boy Scout from Long Island, NY has earned all 121 badges. • The Florida meter-reader who found the remains of Caylee Anthony may get a $5,000 reward. • An English woman called the police after she thought she saw a man riding a giant turquoise rabbit balloon floating past her house. • Meet Harry, a pet ferret in England who thinks he's a puppy. • A NASA report releases some graphic details about the deaths of all seven astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia, including information about the astronauts not wearing their full gear which may have let them take more action, but wouldn't have saved them from death. • A new study claims that African American women have been shrinking in size with each new generation since the mid-1960s. •

• Okay, so they're saying Beyoncé had a little armpit hair at the Cadillac Records premiere. 1) Who cares? 2) Can you even see it? [Mirror]
• A reader points out you can barely see Beyoncé's pit hair in Perez's pictures, though on TMZ, her pits seem especially hirsute. Photoshop of horrors? [Perez Hilton, TMZ]
• Surely when Kanye West said that Beyoncé is "just as great, if not greater, than artists we had in the past. She’s probably greater than Tina Turner," he had not seen this. [Perez Hilton]
• Tina Turner put on a show in New York right after being hospitalized for having a very high fever. Amazing. [Page Six]

• William Balfour, the man accused of killing Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew, is innocent, says William Balfour's lawyer. [People]
• Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil, failed a drug test, so he's headed back to prison to be Blake Incarcerated again. [Daily Mail, Mirror]
• Here's the thing: If Blake had stayed in prison instead of going to rehab as part of an early release, he'd be out at the end of the month. Now he could be in jail until 2010. Whoops! [The Sun]
• Remember how Miley Cyrus said she was "embarrassed" by her Vanity Fair issue with those suggestive Annie Leibovitz pictures? Well she told Scotland's Daily Record: "Everyone outside of America liked it a little bit more because that's more like the style, but the States are really conservative." And! "I would love to be a photographer. She was amazing and so talented and her lighting... I would love to work with her again. But I realize I'm just a kid." [ONTD]
• Madonna was in Buenos Aires yesterday, where she met with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez as well as former guerilla hostage Ingrid Betancourt. [USA Today]
• Twilight's Kristen Stewart will play Joan Jett in biopic The Runaways. Do we approve of this casting? [Hollywood Reporter]
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham on her new clothing line: "Do I draw? No. Then again, nor do lots of designers. But I put it all on myself and walk around in it, and I know what feels comfortable. I know how a dress should sit. I’ve worn so many and when I see the photographs I think, crikey, my boobs are up round my neck again because the corsets are too short and not cut high enough." Ooh, and: "In these recessionary times, and at these prices, women are looking for something that will be an investment, aren’t they?" [Mirror]
• "I was never that good a singer, but I think I am good at fashion." — Victoria Beckham. [The Sun]
• Rihanna and Chris Brown are being sued by a photographer, who claims he was beaten and robbed of his $3,000 camera after taking a picture of the couple in May. Did the singers' bodyguards go ballistic? [TMZ]
• Hockey star and Vogue intern Sean Avery has been suspended by the NHL for making "inappropriate comments." He said: "I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds," referring to ex girlfriends Elisha Cuthbert and Rachel Hunter, who are both dating other players. [AP, Gawker]
• A sneak peek at the season premiere of Lost! Drama for Kate and not-so-little-baby Aaron, involving the nature of their relationship… [LA Times]
• Christina Aguilera wears a heart-shaped locket with her son Max's name on it and a tiny drop of human blood. She doesn't say whose blood it is, but does claim: "I love the symbolism of the blood droplet. It's like Max pierced my heart." [Perez Hilton]
• Naomi Watts plans to get naked in the name of art. [Daily Express]
• First Alyson Hannigan, now How I Met Your Mother costar Cobie Smulders is pregnant, too. Something in the water? [MSNBC]
• Pete Wentz admits that getting Ashlee Simpson knocked up was a "happy accident." [Page Six]
• Audrina Patridge has written a blog post in which she says: "I just want to put it on record that never did I EVER call Lauren a 'slut,' 'bad friend,' 'shady person,' etc. I simply asked her a question and that’s how she interpreted it. I didn’t go around town running my mouth either." Plus: "Justin and Lauren treating me like I wasn’t worthy of an explanation was almost worse than the rumor itself, and it only got worse the harder I tried to get a genuine answer." And! as for JustinBobby: "His inexcusable behavior has become somewhat expected at this point. And I just want to say that if I were looking for a serious relationship, I would definitely be looking elsewhere!" [People]
• Zoolander sequel: Good idea? Not sure. Me and my friends have been too busy sunbathing off the southern coast of St. Bart's with spider monkeys for the past two weeks, tripping on acid. Changed our whole perspective on shit. [ONTD]
• CBS has a midseason series called Game Show In My Head, a reality show produced by Ashton Kutcher. Contestants must perform "embarrassing and hilarious" tasks in front of strangers to earn cash. [NY Times]
• VH1 is ordering up 8 episodes of Tough Love, a reality series from Nancy Juvonen and Drew Barrymore's Flower Films. The premise: A group of women in a house get "ready" to meet Mr. Right by having their destructive dating habits "reshaped" at "tough love boot camp." [Variety]
• Johnny Depp's production company has acquired the screen rights to In The Hand Of Dante, a Nick Tosches novel. [Variety]
• Tyler Perry was in court over allegations that he stole the material for his blockbuster film Diary of a Mad Black Woman from a playwright named Donna West. [Yahoo News]
• Donny Osmond on gay marriage: "There are many gay individuals that are members of our church. I know many of them. In fact, some of my best friends are gay. You ask how I react regarding their marriages. Well, I do support our Church leaders who say that we can accept those with gay tendencies in our church as long as they do not act upon their temptations. Everyone has tendencies to succumb to temptation, but we all have the same standard given to us by our Father in Heaven. Whether we may be tempted to be immoral with members of our own sex or of the opposite sex, we are expected to live chaste lives." [Joe. My. God., Donny.com]
• Dylan McDermott, who married his wife Shiva Rose in 1995 and = with whom he has two children, will be single again on January 2, when their divorce is final. New year, new you. [TMZ]
• Kristin Chenoweth is working on a memoir, due in stores April 2009. [Daily Express]
• Ricky Gervais answers reader questions, and talks about the Beckhams being in an Extras special. [The Sun]
• Brandy, who has not recorded anything for four years, has a new album, out December 9. She still faces a wrongful death lawsuit which goes to trial in April, stemming from a car accident in which another driver died. Says she: "What I experienced in the past couple of years was tough, but I had to face it and find the strength to move forward. Connecting back with music has definitely helped me through everything. Once I got back in the studio, the butterflies went away." [Yahoo News]
• Julianne Hough and her boyfriend are "talking marriage" but are not engaged. [People]
• Gary Coleman was in court yesterday, facing a disorderly conduct charge from that Utah incident outside of a bowling alley. He paid $100, case closed. [ET]
• What's a Hollywood lawsuit without mentioning the name Bruce Willis? [TMZ]
• Former Playmate Shauna sand claims she was choked, punched and thrown across the room in front of her kids by her husband, Romain Chavent. She got a restraining order against him yesterday and the paperwork alleges that the Frenchman hit her in the breasts when she'd just had reconstructive surgery. [TMZ]
• Donald Trump is mad at his brother Robert, since Robert's getting divorced but failed to get a pre-nup. Ouch. [Page Six]
• "I have a passion for words. That has always been in me, and I wanted to see if I could come up with some interesting phrases. I wanted to make people laugh a little and to tell some good stories." — actor Christopher Plummer, whose memoir is "engaging." [WSJ]
• "Nobody really wants to recognize that Beyoncé is a fucking living legend." — Kanye West. [Perez Hilton]
• "Every investor and financier turned down this film because of Mickey Rourke, but I wouldn't do the film without him." — Director Darren Aronofsky, on The Wrestler. [Page Six]
• "Some actors take drugs, drink, and act crazy to light a fire within them; others take drugs, drink, and act oddly to put out the fire in them. Mickey [Rourke] is one of those actors." — Alec Baldwin. [Page Six]
• "It is fun, obviously, to kiss Beyoncé. I insisted on a lot of takes." — Adrien Brody, on his role in Cadillac Records. [Rush & Molloy]
• "I got my gig late, got married late, had my kid late – and none of it came a minute too soon. All my life I'd had this problem with following through, not feeling that I was worth it. Not having a mother makes you think, 'If only I'd been better, she wouldn't have left me.'" — Mariska Hargitay. [People]
• "I've been contemplating taking a college course in religion. I love religion. I remember whenever the book The Da Vinci Code came out, the Discovery Channel did this three-night piece on it that I TiVoed and then watched eight times." — noted scholar Jessica Simpson. [Page Six]
• "I'm planning an album of all these great songs from the '60s that I've never covered before. It was such a magical time for music - groups like The Beatles, the Hollies, the Zombies, the Kinks, the Stones and singers like Dylan and Otis Redding… I want to pay tribute to a time when I used to listen to music on my little transistor radio or on my AM radio in my Ford Mustang." — Cher. [Page Six]

Ms. Kazanjian's two-page story of solid text about armpits begins thusly:

I first noticed it one hot day in August 1999 on my way to a luncheon party on Long Island. As I studied a map in the car, my eye caught an unsightly bulge of skin peeping out from under my sleeveless blouse, where my left arm joined my chest. That's sort of unattractive, I thought. Over the years, I've obsessed about one part of my body after another — my fat thighs, my nasolabial folds, my elbows — but I guess I wasn't ready for the armpit… I kept noticing the errant bulges, though, and watching them morph, as I passed 50, into flaps of loose skin."

And so, because Ms. Kazanjian is obsessed with her pits, she tries to convince us that other people are, too. She visits famous dermatologist Dr. Patricia Wexler, who indulges her. "Women come to me about this problem all the time," Dr. Wexler says. "They're not called armpits, they're called gludgeons, those fatty things that hang over a strapless gown." Wexler used Thermage (radio-frequency therapy) on her own gludgeons, and recommends it for Kazanjian. Ever the consummate reporter, Kazanjian gets a second opinion from Dr. Haideh Hirmand, who has her head screwed on right. "When you first called me about this," Dr. Hirmand says, "I thought, are you serious?" Hirman goes on to say Kazanjian could have plastic surgery on her folds, but: "Honestly? It's not worth it."

Determined to get someone to share her armpit horror, Kazanjian meets with designer Vera Wang at her Park Avenue duplex, where she gets the mother of all pull quotes:

"Yeah," Vera Wang agrees. "we all know exactly what you're talking about. The armpit is nasty, nasty. Even young girls can have this problem."

No, really. This was an actual pull quote. Look:

Thanks, Vogue. You took a perfectly natural occurrence — skin that connects arms to bodies — and turned it into something "nasty" that even youngsters should worry about. Ladies, we'd better forget our health, our weight, our noses, our thighs, our cleavage and whatever else we think we're supposed to be worried about: Armpit hate is the new hot shit.

Drip Stop [NY Mag]

A new survey says that American women spend between $10,000 and $23,000 in their lifetime… on hair removal. Yes ladies, from puberty to death, we deal with getting rid of body hair — by shaving, waxing and creams — for about 53.6 years of our lives. We spend a cumulative amount of 58 days in our lifetime just removing hair. Maybe you're just not one of those women who feels comfortable having hairy pits. Or hairy legs. Or retrobush. But do you ever think about why? Is it same reason some women get plastic surgery? Because they want to be a "better" version of themselves, because they think Mother Nature somehow delivered a less than perfect product? And where did we get that idea?

Cosmetic Surgery Procedures To Exceed 55 Million In 2015, Study Predicts [Science Daily]
Women Spend Up To $23,000 To Remove Hair [UPI]

Earlier: Hairy Pits: Appealing Or Appalling?
Plastic Surgery: Where Do You Draw The Line Between Deformity And Vanity?

Then, last year, Woodhouse decided to "take the plunge" and stop shaving. It helps, we think, that she moved to Paris. It was difficult at first, Woodhouse claims. She thought her hairy pits were disgusting and couldn't look in the mirror.

But I chucked my razor away and persevered, wearing sleeveless tops on nights out and forcing myself to dance with my arms in the air. I got some funny looks, which amused me more than anything else, and eventually I grew to love my hairy armpits. I grew to love myself, to accept my grown woman's body and, more than anything, to love the freedom I discovered when I no longer had to waste time and money preparing my supposedly unacceptable body for the outside world.

Hairy Anniversary [The F Word]