Hair is funny stuff. Depending on whose it
is, and where it is, it is either desirable or undesirable. When I was young,
we had plaits or pigtails, and no girl had anything shorter than a bob. On the
other hand, until the Beatles came along, men with long hair were considered
foppish and effeminate, and the crew cut and short back and sides were the
norm. That's all changed.
Completely bald women are still something of
a rarity, but they do exist, and like Gail Porter, they can be just as
beautiful as women with long hair. I can't be alone in thinking that Jessie J
looked hotter after she'd had her head shaved for Comic Relief than before. It
wouldn't suit all of us, but it can look very sexy. Remember Sigourney Weaver
in Alien 3?
Men more often have shaved heads, probably
because nature robs them of the hair on their heads anyway, and as with women,
it doesn't suit all of them. Bruce Willis and Patrick Stewart look great, but
there's always a danger that the shaven headed man could look like a thug.
Men with beards are apparently considered
manly, but I've never really understood the attraction of all that coarse
facial hair, and designer stubble is even worse, like kissing a hairbrush. Give
me a smooth face any day.
Moving away from the head, hair becomes even
more controversial. Men almost never shave their armpits, and women mostly do.
Not all women, of course, but if we think someone might see, we generally tidy
up. Much the same goes for legs. There is a feminist view that we shouldn't
shave our body hair, or pluck our eyebrows, but if you're going to go down that
road, why bother with pretty clothes, either? If I think I look and feel better
with sleek shins, I'm going to keep waxing, and if my eyebrows decide they'd
like to meet in the middle, I'll keep plucking.
I don't much like hairy chests, either. A
few silky hairs are nice, but the tangle of fibres that is supposed to
constitute manliness reminds me of nothing as much as a doormat. Give me Jacob
over Esau every time.
And so to the pubes. Female porn stars seem
routinely to shave theirs, along with a few of the men, which seems a shame. I
enjoy having my pubic hair pulled, gently, a few hairs at a time, one way and
then the other. You can move the skin without touching it. I have a friend who
has a few fine hairs around his nipples, and he enjoys having them tugged, in
much the same way. The hairs around my nipples are so short that he'd need
tweezers and a magnifying glass, but if they were longer I can see that I'd
like it too.
As I've grown older, I've gone greyer. The
hair on my head is dyed. If I let it grow out, I'd probably look like a road,
with a white line down the middle. I don't bother with my underarms as often as
I used to. My pubic hair has spread out, sparser in the middle than it used to
be, and spreading to the tops of my thighs. If I ever want to wear a swimsuit
again, I'll wax it, but for the moment, I'm happy for it to sprawl. There's
more to pull.
