pubic knowledge

Friday, mar. 14, 2003   |   0 comments

Wow, who got stinking drunk Tuesday night? Evany, Evany Thomas did! It must have been some kind of an accident because I only had three (admittedly strong) drinks over the course of the evening, which wouldn’t usually put me so completely under the table. Oh wait, I also had a shot of something, a fruity something called a “Forever 21”? Which was a gift from Yvette, the nice and fine bartender? Maybe that was what did it. Or maybe it was the weird mint oil pill I took to counteract my onion-crazy dinner — not at all the good, clean, Christian, Trident-type mintiness I was hoping for but some earthy, hippy version of mint that made my chest burn.

Whatever it was, by the end of the night I was so sandblasted, I couldn’t walk, talk, or see straight, the kind of drunk where you wake up with a frying pan on the floor next to your bed. (Note from sober Evany to drunk Evany: I really appreciate you trying to take care of me in my compromised state, but if you were really worried that I was going to be sick, the big popcorn bowl probably would have been a better choice. But thanks for being there!)

Besides the frying pan, and the sad little piles of the previous night’s clothing crumpled all over the apartment, and the “I think I may still be drunk” hangover, I also woke up with that dragging suspicion that I owe a lot of people apologies. So … Sunny? I’m sorry for forcing you to listen to all my self-defecating comments. Oh and for making you to take those pictures of my ass. Gene? I’m sorry I kept sending you embarrassingly misspelled instant messages about how I was an oracle with divine insight. And to Caroleen, I’m sorry I kept trying to make you stay out, even though you had to get up at 6:30 the next morning (you sure are lucky you left before things got really ugly, though). To Amy, Sunny’s cute friend with the Madonna Like-a-Prayer hair and all the great stories about famous actors’ balls: I know we talked all night, but I’m still really looking forward to meeting you! And to Yvette: I’m sorry I kept trying to dazzle you with my impressions of waving pubic hair!

To (kind of) explain the pubic hair thing: The big, ongoing topic that night was “pubic grooming.” This is going to be another one of those pieces of ever-mounting evidence of my incredible squareness, but I only found out that people styled their lower states about three years ago. I mean I knew about Landing Strips and Brazilian waxes, and that you could get yourself shaved into heart- or star- or your-ad-here-shaped patterns. But somehow I had filed all that away under “titillating, semi-annual experimentation to please boy/girlfriend” or just “the purview of strippers/pornstars/cute estheticians.” I just never realized that garden-variety girls, i.e, the bulk of my friends, regularly wax or trim themselves with clippers bought specially for that intimate purpose (beard-trimmers, I’ve since learned, are the best tool for the job … Liz Dunn wants to manufacture one in pink and call it “Mr. Pussy”), or that they use conditioner and styling pomade/mouse/gel on their down theres.

Now I’ve never been a particularly hairy person, but I must admit that hearing, as I did on the fateful day my friends and I finally compared notes, that I was so completely out of the pubic-grooming loop was kind of horrifying. Like should I be sending my exes “Sorry I inflicted my nether-afro upon you” sympathy cards? (Hallmark? Are you getting this?)

Luckily I think I only have to send cards to a few of the more recent boys. As it became clear through last night’s incredibly drunken conversations about the topic (which ranged from horror stories about snagging trimmers and bloody waxing mishaps to detailed descriptions of various partners’ stuff), the whole “‘man, she had a big bush’ as a derogatory comment” thing didn’t really become a trend until the late 90s. I mean, yes, lots of people have been grooming down south for years, but it didn’t become culturally exepected until fairly recently. Right? (I’m probably wrong about this, but … RIGHT?)

I’m guessing it has something to do with the tech boom.