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The Undeniable Facts
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Fact: Every year over 2 million hectares of pubic hair are clear cut or torn out by the roots, much of it in virgin and "old growth" stands.
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Fact: As recently as 650,000 years ago, 97% of the human "landmass" was a rich pampa of gently swaying pubic hair, with herds of grazing buffalo as far as the eye could see.
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Fact: In modern times, pubic forestlands have shrunk to a few out-of-the-way musky cracks, crevices, and lowland areas. Now, these precious areas too are under attack.
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Fact: Pubic hair generates 53.3% of the libidinal oxygen we need to breathe heavily, and provides the subconscious motivation for 49% of all social, economic and aesthetic endeavor.
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Fact: The human race is toying with ecological and sexuological Ur-Megiddo.
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Fact: Pubic hair is on the run in the 21st century!
Hello and welcome! I'm Doctor Henry E. Panky. Tonight, we take an epic voyage to a sublime, terrifying and mysterious isle. Fabled garden of genesis, fertile crescent of concupiscence, happy valley of love, Bermuda Triangle of human desire: called by pilgrims Eleusis, Elysium, Shangri La, Xanadu and golden Beulah Land. That which philosophers proclaim the bonum onum (the "good onum") of life. I speak, of course, of ... "HIRSUTEM PUBIS." Now threatened with eternal extinction!
Boom, boom, boom!
Okay, let's take it down a notch, and start at the beginning. Jimmy, please roll the slideshow and the first graph.
I first became fascinated by the "Glorious Oeuvre" at the age of 13, upon the stupendous discovery that women have pubic hair (italics are mine).
You see, growing up in a repressed, high-security Protestant family, I never actually saw a naked female until the tattered pornographic magazine discovered under my bus seat on a class trip to the llama farm (and quickly clasped possessively to my bony chest). This providential "Howdy stranger!" to the joyous, but terrifying inscrutability that would come to obsess my personal and professional life left me frightened, confused and hyperventilating. And I asked myself, "Is this for real, or is this a freak magazine, like, you know, MAD or Ripley's?"
Ambushed by Love
Still, I knew I was on the trail of something big. I had stumbled on an earthshaking secret that I wasn't supposed to know. I might be in danger. I could no longer look my mother or grandmother in the eyes, and desperately needed to believe that none of this applied to them or, for that matter, to the super obese. Soon slinking furtively from the newsstand on a regular basis, I'd scuttle home with the latest edition of "99% Dogstyle," urgent to rub my naughty bit (then about the size of my ring toe, when angry) against the old lambskin car-seat cover, yet soft and curly, discarded in the basement.
Thus I tasted the first bitter mouthfuls of the guilt, self-hatred and existential angst that accompany this greatest of intimacies with the inanimate. No one has ever explained why this should be so, but Dr. Friedman, my psychiatrist, says it's exactly the same for him. I'm not proud of the way I treated that lonely seat cover: promises, caresses, a passion to light this sad old universe on fire! Followed swiftly by release, lassitude, resentment and the inevitable don't-tie-me-down, free-bird/rambling-man speech. Before she'd even stopped crying, it seemed, I'd be back with a handful of dandelions and liquor on my breath. A story as old, debased and contemptible as man himself.
Of course, now I realize now that all men are abject peabodies to their inflatable noodles -- even manly titans like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Sergeant Sam Troy of "Rat Patrol." That's simply the way our sweet, mischievous Creator planned it. (Hosanna & halleleujah.) But back then, only Licky, my cocker spaniel, seemed to be on the same page as me. He also liked to drag his butt across the carpet in a weird sitting, scoot-like motion that I personally found uncomfortable, but which brought a thick, fixed glaze of ecstasy to his sad, brown eyes.
The Airbrush, The Razor & The Damage Done
"You require no wax job, Ma'am, you're smooth enough for me.
And should you require a Quik Lube, I shall perform this task for free!"
The Wandering Tilburys, "Unclean Universe"
(I remain quizzical over the Quik Lube reference)
In the innocent years of my adolescence, one never saw the details of the female "mystery of mysteries" in printed media, only a soft, fuzzy and comforting, puberulent blur of airbrushed hair - it still makes me smile with golden nostalgia. I'm certain this was done with the best of intentions, and I certainly didn't question it. "I love you just the way you are!" I sang. But this misconception led inevitably to a terrible shock when I came face to face with "the real thing." Aiyee! Whoa! Very real! "Jeez, I'll be damned, never would have guessed at anything like that!" It was all so visceral. But I did get beyond it: I dove right in, I kept my eyes open, and said "Hi, howya doing!" I'm proud that I did, and wouldn't have it any other way. Certainly, at least, the great majority of the time.
But now, the pendulum has swung the other way - too far, too far - and I worry about the little ones, the children...
If you were a healthy 12-year-old today, feeding at any of the multitudinous media troughs of explicit smut, you might reasonably conclude that a penchant for pubes reflected one of the more archaic, oddball, unseemly, even perverted compulsions - ranking distinctly below she-males, toon sex, artificial genitalia and quadruped bestiality. I don't mean to disparage these fine practices, nor to put pubic hair on a pedestal - I'll leave that to the Brooklyn Museum of Art - but only to reestablish the rightful order of things.
I worry about the shock my delightfully wide-eyed and heartbreakingly defenseless son, if such a child indeed existed, is in for when he first sees a naked woman in "real time." After years of earnest pornography study - which yet constitutes the greater part of our society's sex education curriculum - little Danny might very well recoil in genuine horror from the best damn thing in life (italics mine).
It might well conjure up that old movie about Atlantis where humans were turned into pigs and donkeys, before everyone got burned up by the giant crystal ray gun, except those lucky few who escaped back to Mykonos on the submarine. This saddens me immensely - the shaved pubis conundrum, not the submarine, though turning humans into burros was kind of creepy, and has now been soundly condemned by U.N. resolution. (The Bush administration, however, refuses to limit our "tool bag" of options in protecting legitimate national interests.)
The Middle Way
"The milkweed bloomed, the worms have turned
The bison graze no more
And now we crop love's curlicues
Adorning Heaven's door!"
Henry E. Panky, "Paradise Shaved"
Who could have dreamed that a small corner of curly follicles would become the sine qua non ("the good onum") of life, the slightest shadowy suggestion of which drives men, and I assume Lesbians, to woofing, tongue-wagging, bacchanalian frenzy? And how does one compare something so bald (and, I cringe to say it, often razor-burned), un-garnished by the delicate, enchanting curling tendrils of human parsley, to Guinevere's Perilous Forest, Sappho's shrubbery-hidden Cave, or Sharon Stone's gloriously downy muffaletta in "Basic Instinct"? I hear the soaring music from "Amadeus" when I remember that scene. These are holy places where men go MAD from the passion and sacred mystery!
Whoa! I've got to calm down, splash some cold water on my face, and slip into a pair of loose, fleecy sweat pants. You may want to do the same.
Let me be clear: I am not glorifying loin foliage of kudzu-like dimensions. Buddha taught the Middle Way: neither too much, nor too little. Something tasteful and appetizing, but without being overwhelming. The doyennes of social etiquette pronounce a tidy, neatly hedged, pie-shaped wedge to be appropriate -- something that looks pretty in, or out of, a bikini might be a handy rule of thumb.
And please people, no shaven lightning bolts, arrows, exclamation points, X-marks-the-spot, 666's or team logos. That's like towing Chartres Cathedral to Yabba Dabba Doo Land. Furthermore, ring piercings, studs, ball bearings and dangling chin-up bars on the privy parts should be outlawed and prosecuted - our airport security professionals are working hard enough as it is in these difficult times.
God's Inscrutable Will? We Survey a Variety of Opinions
Somebody's got to ask, "What's behind this lemming-like race to a hairless pelvis?" If we can identify the culprits behind it, we can try to help them understand the error of their ways. Or conversely, we can have a witch-hunt!
Certain Christian fundamentalists believe that Adam and Eve didn't have any genital hair, or indeed genitals, or anuses for that matter, until after the Fall. This reminds me of those nightmarish "Outer Limits" episodes, which scared me shitless as a child, where horrible mutants wandered and bumped around the streets with no mouths, nose holes or eyes, just skin covered declivities. Our Lord may be mischievous, but that just doesn't sound right to me.
Then I read an article in the Times about a Pakistani teacher who suggested to his class that the Prophet might NOT have shaven his pubic and armpit hair. Presumably, he was just trying to get a lively class discussion going, an intention I thoroughly applaud, and it's a crying shame about his impending execution by public stoning under Sharia Law.
"Hmmm, I'll be jiggered," I mused to myself. According to the article, "Pious Muslim men often shave their pubic and armpit hair, while allowing the beard to flourish." Who would have imagined that? [Note to self: What about a youtube video featuring Iran's President Ahmadinejad shaving his armpits to the tune of Aretha Franklin's "I Say a Little Prayer." That would be inspirational -- and something one could tap one's toes to -- and might help heal the doleful breach between our societies.]
Before proceeding further, I want to express my utmost respect for all the world's great religions, including Islamism, Mormonism, the worship of aliens, and Ba'haiism. I love Cat "Yusuf Islam" Stevens, and often sing or whistle "Peace Train" to myself as I go about the glorious mundanities of daily life. Frankly, if more of us climbed on board that well-intentioned choo-choo, the world would be a nicer place. Finally, and this is the clincher: I don't really give a shit what men do with their pubic hair, much less their armpits (beyond basic public-transport personal-hygiene issues).
Anyway, please no death fatwas; it's not a good time for me.
Moving on, we find in James Clavell's groundbreaking "Shogun," a group of toothless, simpering lackwits gathered round the rice pot to gurgle about the supposed penetration advantages of the "hairless yoni, neh?" But in his epochal study, "Zuviel Bologna uber die Yohni" ("Much Baloney About Yoni"), Professor Harry Mahns effectively demolished this and other Shogunistic theories for everyone except a handful of obdurate Hairless Yoni cultists now living in Tokyo's subway tunnels.
Last but not least, here's an alternative view from Mr. Charlton Heston, "The Clintonian Trilateral Council on Foreign Relations wants to crush our will to live and make us zombie U.N. slaves with hairless balls and without our guns (Mr. Heston's italics)."
Mr. Peanut Comes to Me, Speaking Words of Wisdom
I began to despair of solving the question of the "grassy-less knoll" before it was too late. Religious utopianism, hairless yoni-ism, pre-emptive Darwinism, childhood irredentism, Bill Clintonism, or maybe even conspiracy? (I don't know whose italics these are).
Then I had a luminous dream where Mr. Peanut came tap dancing out of the Gillette-Epilady Corporation clutching a fistful of greasy dollars, and as he went gaily by, he whispered, "Follow the money, Bubbalouey!" You may recall that Bubbalouey was Quick-Draw McGraw's trusty sidekick, though I remain unsure why Peanut man called me that.
The scene shifted and someone looking much like Donald Rumsfeld stood chest high amid an immense undulating thatch, waving a huge, fluttering flag, and speaking of "America's great renewable resource." I saw granite-jawed, tool-belted developers before the Statue of Liberty pointing to a sea of surging boatloads, "People need someplace to live." I beheld hardworking capitalists bagging the rich curly silk of impoverished, education-hungry Pac 10 cheerleaders, of desperate, hollow-eyed junkies, and exploited Third World womanhood eager to join the global economy. Victoria's Secrets would weave their crinkly ringlets into an extraordinarily popular line of fine merkins,* and its "You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone" campaign would go on to sweep the Obie Awards at the emotionally charged awards ceremony.
I woke up re-energized and tumescent. Was it that simple? Was all the psycho-socio-political mumbo jumbo just a smokescreen? Are we selling our precious birthright for a mess of pottage? What is pottage anyway? And why is it always served in a "mess?" That doesn't sound very appealing, but somebody must like it to command such barter value since biblical times.
Pübers Über Alles
"Give to me the life I love ...
Bed in the bush with stars to see ...
That's the life for a man like me"
Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Vagabond"
I don't know the answers to these questions about pottage, and probably shouldn't have allowed myself to be distracted. But I do know that if we concede our short n' curlies without a donnybrook, next they'll come for our horny toenails and bumpy nipples. How long before the belly's lint-gathering button is spackled? Already the soft and jiggling breast, wondrous in its shifting shapes, enthralling in its transience, has been sacrificed to the hard silicon teat that succors neither baby nor swain. Inevitably it seems, all our dangly parts shall be deemed as uncouth and déclassé as Spam canapés; suitable only for rude underclasses...or the knackers. It won't end til we're all as sleek and slippery as Flipper the porpoise, as seductive as chicken tenders, defeated in our lovemaking by a lack of handholds.
Is all lost to us then, reactionary Luddites of the deliciously louche and lubriciously gnarly human physiognomy?
Damn your eyes, No! We lay shaven, plucked and waxed only by our craven acquiescence. We must stand as one, ebony and ivory, and even those unfortunates without much pubic hair to begin with, and with a single voice cry, "Here we draw the line!"
Are ye with me, lads? I bellow, a modern day Leonidas defending the Hot Gates.*
* Footnote: The English translation of the Greek "Thermopylae" is "the Hot Gates," a particularly apt location name for our own seminal battle. Personally, I can think of no better place to die fighting for what we believe in.
From off in the distance comes the cadenced march of thousands, millions, billions of like-minded muff lovers, roused from their heedless slumber, and from their throats comes an ancient song of hope and determination: "It's a long, long way to Tipperary, but we'll get there somehow..."
We've only just begun to fight.
This is Dr. Henry E. Panky saying, thank you and good night.
We welcome your opinions and comments, but please, no letters or photos from men pretending to be women.
By Henry E. Panky
"Nobody knows me like the Lord...and He don't like me."
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