Back in The Day, when I was young and single, I was a member of a group of women co-workers known as the Female (pronounced fe-MAH-le) Ghetto. For reasons unknown but highly suspected, most of the women in the newsroom of which I speak were seated in close proximity to each other, and whenever some piece of dreck work needed to be done (this was the early 1980s, and not all consciousnesses were raised back then, by any means), a male editor named Herb would pick up the assignment sheet and head resolutely over to our area.
"Don't even THINK about it," one of us would growl, anticipating the chore of calling the Weather Bureau for the next day's forecast, or the unenviable job of doing the annual United Way story, or being dispatched to the zoo to see whether the snake eggs had hatched. Herb (who was always terrified) would manage to withstand the chorus of laments, complaints, bitching and moaning which would erupt, and eventually the Unlucky Person would heave a sigh and set to work while the male reporters nearby serenely finished the crossword puzzle and puffed on their cigarettes (this was pre-smoking bans, too).
No right-minded man who has ever heard the phrase "sexual discrimination lawsuit" would try such a stunt these days, but do not be deceived: we have not come a long way. The harassment these days is more insidious and personal. I speak, ladies, of requests from men that we shave our pussies.
This, at least, is what I read today in Cary Lewis' advice column in Salon, where a 40ish single woman in New York writes in to say she fears she will never find a guy willing to date her who doesn't want her to shave "down there."
Notice, ladies, this is not accompanied by any corresponding trend among men to, say, shave their testicles (do they even make electric razors for that?) or any other hairy parts in the crotch region. Most men go through life with the unshaken confidence that whatever they have hanging out down there is inherently beautiful, even though they may harbor some qualms about whether this is enough beauty, size-wise, for the world to admire. Most women go through life ashamed of their body parts--at least once they hit puberty, when menstrual periods begin and "down there" begins to be associated, however illogically, with the ewwww factor. (Up until then, in my experience, little girls glory in their private parts as much as boys do. I remember flaunting my nakedness way past the point where my mother told me to go put on some clothes, for pete's sake, and nowadays we frequently have to forcibly dissuade my own five-year-old daughter from displaying everything south of Venezuela.)
So what's with the shaved pussy thing? It has to be the porn influence, doncha think? While I am not an expert in the genre, I've seen enough hotel-room porn to get the general picture, if you know what I mean, and all the porn actresses I've seen have private parts as innocent of hair as a baby's bottom, the better to display their (ouch) body piercing artwork. It's bad enough that this infantalizes adult female sexuality; what's worse is that what used to be the sign of the pro has seeped into mass culture (and I may be talking about a five-year-old fashion trend; I do not pretend to be in the loop on these matters). In any event, the result is that now this poor lady in New York City can't so much as land a date without some doofus asking her to lather up, and I don't mean with passion. What's a girl to do?
Cary Lewis deferred to his readers on this one, and my answer to her would be simple: strike a blow for equality. If her date says, "Honey, will you--?" she should say, "Sure, if you will." Then, if he says no, she can say, "I am sorry, but I refuse to be in a sexually unequal relationship" and that will pretty much be that. If he agrees, she should let him--and then say so long. Either way, the only thing she stands to lose is the dubious pleasure of having sex with a Great Big Baby.