Pornosophy: The Four S's

Remember when women used to shave their legs—and other parts? Now that Brazilian or bikini waxing is waning, old fashioned shaving is experiencing a renaissance for those who don’t want to remove body hair forever. Before the advent of electric razors shaving commercials filled the broadcast waves. You’d see an actor's face covered with Old Spice, Palmolive or Barbasol and Schick and Gillette amongst others would provide the blades. But imagine today’s unisex commercial. A young man or woman is going to the beach and they want to get rid of all that dreaded pubic hair that sticks out of their tight fitting swim suits. Instead of a face full of cream you will see a crotch looking like Santa Claus’s beard. If it’s hard to imagine a man or woman spreading their legs and lathering up their gonads for a shave on TV, look no further than the recent Swim Suit issue of Sport Illustrated where the model Hannah Davis freely exhibits what was previously considered one of the most private parts of the female anatomy, the mons pubis. Now with Brazilian waxing confining itself to Rio, try to envision a whole new generation of ads exhibiting well known porn stars like Stoya and James Deen scraping aside the cream as they perform a new version of the shaving portion of the three S’s in totally conventional settings with dogs barking and spouses calling out things like , “where are you, your breakfast is getting cold” and toddlers walking in on the proceedings with their thumbs in their mouths. In all likelihood major manufacturers of shaving creams and razors will also produce lines of after shaves which will be thinly veiled lubricants. In fact the three s’s are likely to become four, with the final s being sex. What else are you supposed to do after you’ve shaved your groin area?

Hair! Again

In the famous musical of the same name, hair was looked at as sign of rebellion. Hair was both a symbol and sign of freedom. It’s always astonishing how times change and how the sensibility of a culture is reflected to by a host of new manners and mores. Now hair is looked at far less benignly than it was the 60’s, especially in relation to femininity, with natural women, who populated Woodstock and the cast of films like John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus 7, and sported hair on their legs, underarms and pudendae looked at as an anomalies--and Brazilian waxing all the rage. Really it’s the difference between women and children. In the 60’s pornography was rife with flamboyant displays of pubic hair and with the advent of full frontal nudity in Playboy and Penthouse, centerfolds really had something to show. Now their counterparts, the starlets of internet porn, literally have nothing to reveal, below the belt at least. Today’s pornography is basically a not so veiled form of pedophilia, as is the sexuality being marketed by the fashion industry. But a revolution is in the making (“Is Dyeing Armpit Hair a Harbinger of the Future?" The Screaming Pope, 7/20/15). Like the l905 uprising in Russia it may be the harbinger of things to come. Women around the country are beginning to grow underarm hair and a recent Times piece, “Woman Who Dye Their (Armpit) Hair,” 7/14/15, reported the phenomenon of  “pit-ins.” In Aristophanes Lysistrata the women of Greece refuse to have sex until the men stop waging war. Men should support this sea change in the values of our sterile kiddie porn oriented culture, by refusing to have sex with Barbie Doll clones who shave their genitals.