DEAR ANDREA: I've got to attack your analogy between cutting
pubic hair and cutting legs off. I'm sorry – the analogy isn't
even plausible. There's no connection – no one would choose having
their legs cut off over having their pubic hair cut off.
But why do so many women want to make an issue about
keeping their pubic hair? Please give me a real answer. I agree
with these younger guys: women with bushy pubic hair make me
react with something between dismay and disgust. I'm mostly OK with
women being "au naturel" – except for the pubic
hair issue. I don't care about nails or makeup, but I'm completely perplexed
by women taking such a strong stance about keeping their public hair
untouched, not trimmed or shaved. These are a few of my thoughts:
[Note: Excessively long catalog of horrors associated with pubic
hair follows here. Retained pubes result, apparently, in mouths full
of gag-worthy hair, which traps blood, feces, and toilet paper.... You
don't want to see it. It'd make you sick. – Andrea]
So, back to my original question: why is it that so many women
have such a strong attachment to keeping their pubic hair?
Real answers, please.
Love, Bubba
Dear Bub: Because it's theirs. I can't understand the indignation
and frustrated rage displayed in letters like yours, nor can I imagine
what sort of skanky hos you're all going down on. A woman who can't
keep her pubic hair from trapping every body product that happens by
has more going on than a reluctance to shave for the likes of you,
Bub.
No subject – not incest fantasies, not rape, not child abuse
– draws the amount of attention I get when I write about pubic
hair. It's quite extraordinary. Moreover, there's something about the
subject that hinders readers' comprehension: hair in eyes, perhaps?
Half the letters accuse me of goading my female readers into growing
luxuriant nether tresses to trail out the window like Rapunzel's, while
the others see me ordering the ladies to line up for the razor. I do
neither. I never would. If you all don't start reading more carefully,
though, I'll be forced to fantasize about lining you up, shaving you,
dipping you in honey, and staking you out for the fire ants. Good lord,
folks, get a grip.
Love, Andrea
Dear Andrea: Although I usually enjoy your column, the donkey punch
stuff just isn't funny. Probably because it reminds me of something
one would do to a prisoner, and the recent behavior of our soldiers
in Iraq is so freaking disturbing. Unlike play "rape," it's
very difficult to imagine anyone wanting this done to them. And even
if they did, isn't whacking someone on the head impossible to do safely?
While you claim this act doesn't exist, I see no reason why it couldn't.
The apparent online interest in the subject certainly implies there's
an audience, and I'm sure the sex industry would have no problem sating
this collective desire.
Love, Sensitive
Dear Sense: You're nice, but you're wrong about everything. I'll
now proceed to correct you. You won't enjoy it, but you'll discover,
as have I, that being right is far more gratifying than being nice but
wrong.
I agree that the donkey punch stuff isn't funny. Hitting people
in the head isn't funny; involuntarily gaping sphincters aren't funny,
at least not to me (but I'm a prude about that sort of thing). These
subjects shouldn't, however, remind you of the mistreatment of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib, for the simple reason that one (an imaginary icky sex
act much sniggered about by frat boys) has nothing to do with the other
(sordid war crimes that ought never to have been allowed to happen).
Apple, meet orange. Orange, apple.
What really disturbs me about your letter, though, isn't the inept
analogy-making but the assumption that one ought not to discuss yucky
things that don't exist just because they might. Good grief.
All forms of fiction except those involving pure fantasy or the supernatural
describe things that might exist, and we don't refrain from positing
them just because it would be unpleasant if they did exist. I
guess you don't go to a lot of movies.
You may rest easy, anyway, as I assure you that my column isn't
responsible for any sex workers being inundated with demands that they
allow themselves to be punched in the head. The only reason people keep
bringing up the donkey punch is that the scatological holds an enduring
fascination, especially for the young of the species. Six-year-olds
make poo jokes, college students make Cleveland Steamer jokes, and then,
eventually, most outgrow it. I hope you outgrow your tendency to overthink
the ridiculous as easily.
