Shaving Redux

Some subjects will not die, will not go quietly.

Some subjects demand a revisit. They spawn, and the spawn spawn. Daughters and granddaughters. Like isotopes in nuclear degeneration: Uranium 235 to 238 or something, if I remember. Maybe.

Surfer Girl calls my predilection, "Demented subjects discussed in bars."

It's true. The shaving thing. The shaving everywhere thing. Men shaving everywhere from the neck down. Men over fifty shaving everything from the neck down. The Depilitator.

He told me about a recent dinner with clients and business associates. One fellow, he said, a short, sixty-something-year-old claimed over the first round of cocktails that he shaved everything.

"This was the start of your dinner conversation? With clients?" I asked. "That doesn't strike you as a little strange?" (My shaving discussions have been with close friends or complete strangers.)

"No..."

"Who were the other people at the table?"

"Two of them were building superintendents."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure they were thrilled."

"My friend," The Depilitator ignored my question, "He's something of a misogynist."

"Nice."

"He said he shaves everything because when he went down on his girlfriend, he didn't like to pull hair from between his teeth. And he said he was doing her a favor by shaving. So she won't get hair stuck between her teeth."

A short, sixty-year-old who shaves everything. Right. That would get me hot. Even writing this now, I am flummoxed. Can these men be that dense? Don't they get it?

"A man who can use his mouth and his hands - at the same time - is a man a woman will want to keep around forever." I did say that. I did.

"Dude. It gives your mouth a break. Geez, it feels better for us." I stopped a second. He sat there, with that blank, confused-looking stare.

And then I drove the point home. "Everything pushes back. You don't have to get hair stuck between your teeth." I told him. "A stray hair every now and then is unavoidable. Among adults."

Honestly, if a guy is licking my hair, he's going to get some direction: "Push it back, aim for the center line!" (Not that many remember direction from one moment to the next...)

Here is a spawn, this from a longtime buddy. He wrote, "Maybe its a generational thing. After all, my former managing editor (very early thirties) was a devotee of the razor - his head and face apparent to all, nether regions by his own account only. But, he's a self-diagnosed lesbian in a man's body, so that may account for his actions."

Another spawn, this one from The Depilitator himself. "A woman I dated a couple of years ago, she was a vice president at Schick. She gave me a clipper. I still use it. But I Nair my balls."

He Nairs his nutsack. I need to write that again. He Nairs his nutsack.

Another buddy's take. Call it spawn number three. "Having recently been shaved for two surgeries - I see no appeal in the extra or optional shaving. I prefer to shave as little as possible, which is still too much. I'm sporting my annual winter beard, new in its infancy and still a tad itchy. That said, I have shaved a bush or two in my life."

Spawn four. I let a boyfriend shave me down to nothing, once. About ten years ago. That will never happen again. Some very specific parts were meant to have a little protection. Or my specific parts, anyhow. I was in pain. Until it grew back - which was another, almost unparalleled adventure - I walked like I had been horseback riding for a month. I had to sit down very gingerly, and then try not to move. Never, ever, never, never again.

Five. Don't get me wrong about my own bush. I do believe in neat, trimmed and clean. Just not bald. I won't be bald. I won't do bald.

And six. One thing upon which all my girls agree. There is a place on a man, below the neck, that requires scrupulous depilitation. His back. Can I hear a "Hell, yeah?" Hell yeah. No need to dither further.

Seven. A very sexy, sixty-something artist acquaintance and I had tea on her terrace downtown, watching the sun set on a strange, warm evening last November. We were wrapped in old comforters. The sky glowed a mad riot of pinks, oranges, reds, and violets. She said to me, "You are a beauty, you must know that. You don't have to do anything to your body that you don't want to. I am a few years older than you," and she winked. "There will come a time when you might want to color your hair. Down there. And when the time comes, I'll tell you exactly how to do it."   

Hair color. I get that. Oh yes.

Mondo blondo.

Comments

[Kerndog]

Burn our boxers, hell ya! Been California for a long time. Prefer it to 100% organic cotton or even the best silk. Yet another reason to leave the hair where it belongs...

But speaking of finery, help me with the thong. God, it can't be comfortable. Can't be much more than a perma-wedgy. Now, from a male perspective, a thong sneaking up above the hip huggers does turn an eye and provoke the magma. So, like low cut tops that flaunt deep chasms to accent the chest, is it all about enticement??? And if so, like the blow job, does it dissappear after "I do" (AKA, "I don't have to anymore!")

Holly, thanks for giving us Spawn of the Spawn, almost as good as the original!

[Holly Hodder]

Misandry?

[Barber of Seville]

When men comment upon women's vast array of personal hygiene rituals and cosmetic elective surgeries (hair coloring, mud masks, fake nails, colored contacts, hair weaves/extensions, eyebrow plucking/waxing/threading, leg shaving, breast augmentation/reduction, botox, push up bras, girdles, high heel shoes, tummy tuck, liposuction, glutal implants, cologen injections, nose jobs, etc.), they get branded misogynists mixed in with some response about women's right to reclaim ownership of the female form. A fair observation. Rather than open up the laundry list of personal enhancement techniques to debate, let's avoid the misandry and afford men the same right to own their bodies ladies - it's not always about you. Let's burn our boxer briefs! ;-)