DEAR ANDREA: Am I being selfish to want to keep my pubic hair?
There's only one guy in my history who actually liked it; the others
all reacted with something between dismay and active disgust. I actually
dumped a guy once on the theory that I'd rather be single than have
crotch stubble, but is this going to be a trend in my love life? I should
add that I'm 19, and I don't think some of these boys have seen
pubic hair before. Also, I'm of the hairy-legged feminist variety, but
since I'm very blond, guys tend not to notice the legs or underarms.
Love,
Goldilocks
Dear Locks: "Dear Andrea: Am I being selfish to want to not
cut my legs off? The guy I'm with is really disgusted by legs, but I
don't really want to cut them off ..."
Yes, I exaggerate, but geez. No, you're not being selfish. Not by
keeping your body hair, growing or cutting your head hair, wearing or
not wearing makeup, being slim or getting fat ... The phrase "it's
your body" may be getting a little stale, but it really is your
body, you know. So the question isn't whether or not you have a right
to keep your pubes – they're really, seriously your pubes to
do with what you will. It's more, is keeping the hair going to be more
trouble than it's worth?
I must admit to being puzzled by the shocked and disgusted boys.
I know shaving is all the rage these days, but I'll just have to assume
these dudes, being maybe 19 or 20 themselves, haven't gotten around
all that much. You're a learning experience for them. Lucky you.
There's no delicate way to ask this, so please bear with me, but
just how hairy are you? I'm going to guess that, being a blond
and all, you're not sporting the "muskrat crawled into my underpants
and died there" look, but maybe a compromise is in order? Your
social group is clearly pube-negative. So is mine, by the way: I was
at a hot-tub party this weekend, and it was all landing strips or smaller,
no luxuriant crotch locks to be seen. So maybe do a tidy little trim,
and then tell any guy who complains about what's left that he should
be so lucky and to get lost. Either that, or you could move. What's
de rigueur in SoCal or Miami is still just for porn stars in Des Moines.
Or so I hear.
If you do decide to shave, there are ways to minimize the discomfort:
clip everything very short and use a very sharp razor, avoid scented
soaps and complicated lotions, and exfoliate like mad. This won't work
for everyone, of course, and it certainly won't work for you if you
really don't want to do it. If you don't want to, just say no. I
doubt you needed me to tell you this, but hey, it's my job.
All of this reminds me of a column I did in which the woman was
really turned off by the idea of shaving or even trimming and wondered
why the porn girls were uniformly shaved and why the guys liked it.
I felt for her, I really did, but my own aesthetic prejudices took hold
of me and forced me to write this:
I recently saw a meant-to-be-amusing video reel of '70s porn highlights,
and ... ick. The unshaved, untrimmed (and apparently unwashed), actors
look like they've glued giant swatches of dank, matted shag carpeting
to their crotches, to no good purpose. Besides looking unsavory (to
me! I know! hold those e-mails!), they look, well, obscure. Is that
a vulva? Were those balls? They could be hiding anything in there.
And did the readers hold their e-mails? They did not. I took much
abuse for siding with the patriarchy, to which I plead not guilty. I
don't even like the baldie-pants look; I'm just kind of a neat freak,
and those old films were skanky. Of course, I also heard from one thoughtful
writer who had considered the options and decided to trim. She was still
a little weirded out by her new look, but she concluded, accurately,
"Hey, it's only hair." She was, of course, my original correspondent,
the one who felt strongly enough about not shaving to write to a columnist
about it.
Fashions change, and we change with them. If we don't want to, we
sure as hell don't have to, and I would be the first to defend your
right to stick to your style. Fashions also tend to cycle around again,
but I've got to admit that while bell-bottoms, platforms, and blue eye
shadow have all made reappearances, I haven't seen the giant pubic bath
rug making a comeback yet, and I wouldn't stake my love life on it coming
back around anytime soon.
