Fuzz and Feminism

Why can't they just leave women's body hair alone? From Cameron Diaz to American Apparel, they are being intrusive.

To think that the Hollywood star has discovered feminism via down under is a bit much. She is selling her book, and just like propping up the smooth skin is a big ticket there is a market for fuzz when these views come pregnant with adjectives. It is almost always "shocking images", and about being raw.

If Lower East Side Manhattan is going to curl up with embarrassment over a clothing store that shows mannequins in transparent lingerie showing off pubic hair, then it has little to do with reluctance to accept the natural.

If natural is what we want, then why restrict it to hair on the privates? Where is the fuzz on legs, arms, face? Where is the pigmentation, the natural contours of the belly, the hip? You can't create a woman, or a mannequin, to look like a stereotype and then talk about how liberating it is not to depilitate.

American Apparel's statement is:

"We are a company that celebrates natural beauty...We created it to invite passerbys to explore the idea of what is 'sexy' and consider their comfort with the natural female form."

For all the liberating talk, they are telling women that it is okay, that this is sexy, and they ought to just lie down and be comfy. It is such a magnanimous gesture that girl power will rush to buy the stuff. It happens to be the Valentine's Day window display, much in advance. Those women who have made the horrible decision to get themselves into a pre-pubescent stage have enough time to redeem themselves and grow it all back, so that when their boyfriends or spouses get these itsy-bitsies gift-wrapped for them, they can 'fit into' the role that the show window wants them to. All this, including celebrity endorsement, amounts to talking down to women.

The New Age man is always ready to experiment, therefore he would probably walk into American Apparels and imagine a fresh from mother earth sensation.

Also, do notice that the hair is dark, very dark. Why are there no red heads, blondes? Does 'nature' and its connotations imply only a shade that is perceived as belonging to the untamed? Is this not racism?

Somebody has called the display retro. We might have a pop version, a blues version, a nirvana version.

Cameron Diaz has a chapter in her book titled 'In Praise of Pubes' where she asks, "Do you really want a hairless vagina for the rest of your life?" Had this been a serious question, one might have attempted an answer. There is some merit in bringing it out in the open, but she refers to pubic hair as "pretty draping" and "mysterious". She obviously knows what evolutionists or creationists, depending on how she swings, intended it to be, if not god her/himself. What if some do not find it pretty?

She says such hair is like having a nose. The comparison ought to have been with nose hair. Will the big studios like to see poky little hairs sticking out from every part of the body? More importantly, where does one stop at grooming or start?

The idea behind grooming anyway amounts to interfering with what is available material. From head to toe, we meddle in the affairs of the body. It could be to please others, but to a large extent it is also what we are comfortable with. One is not contesting how social brainwashing might affect us, but will those using such images to get us back to basics show us a complete picture where nothing at all is groomed, and not just the sexual organs?

Whichever way you look at it, the obsession is with the female form. Clean-shaven men are seen as metrosexual. Clean-shaven women are now deemed unnatural. From grooming too much to now not grooming, we are sought to be objectified.

This is a private matter between us and our bodies. Do not tell us what to do behind the fig leaf.

© Farzana Versey

Men on a mission

You get a silky or lacy thing from him but it might be to keep track of somebody snuggling up to you when he is out of sight. The Chastity Garter will send men a text message if their wives or girlfriends are cheating on them.

Edward and Lucinda Hale came up with the idea because:

“Our relationship nearly fell apart when Lucinda cheated me. She told me she regretted it and wished there was a way of removing the temptation by making straying impossible.”

I don’t think this garter will take away temptation, which lies in the mind. It will only make it difficult to act upon it. I also find the technicalities a bit amiss:

The garter monitors rising pulse rate as well as surface moisture levels on the skin and when these apparent signals of sexual stimulation occur, a text message is sent to alert the woman’s husband or boyfriend.

See, where is the remedy for temptation? She is all charged up and excited and all her partner will get is a beep-beep to tell him there’s something about Mary, but no apple will be bitten into. Why? Only an automatic text message can unlock it, which is a control freak idea. Does it make him feel any better? Imagine if he’s in a meeting and is alerted about a panting spouse. What does he do? Leave the client and rush to save conjugal bliss? Will he reach on time? What if she was only indulging in a bit of self love? Or reading some erotic literature?

It is also an exceedingly regressive product. And to think that this is a gift for the woman. Do women want it? Is it not insulting? I can only hope this piece of bondage turns the tables and makes the recipients get on top and whip it out.

Another freaky idea for the boob trap is one of those make life easy bras. US engineer Randy Sarafan believes he has come to the rescue of millions of men and women by inventing a bra that will come off with a clap of hands. I think it is unromantic and quite chauvinistic. It is like a master clapping to get services rendered, for the woman won’t be doing the clapping. If fumbling with hooks was a problem in the throes of passion, how will this stupid act not douse the fire?

Think about a man standing behind and clapping and then the garment falls off. He would have to stand behind or she would have to be face down or well they would have to think about when to clap and what to do next, all kind of planned. Besides, what if his hands are clammy?

Honestly, hooks aren’t all that tough. I understand men don’t like to ask for directions, but at least in this case women would be quite ready to just release themselves. Guys, you can save the applause for after you’ve got it right, not before.

The cup runneth over

Wasn’t there a Calvin Klein ad where the guy bites the edge of his trim partner’s panty? Ironically, the Botox and implant industries are thriving. So, isn’t there some dissonance here - the advertising agencies and designers on one side and the cosmetic surgery and boob vanity industries on the other?

Therefore, it came as a surprise that a lingerie ad has been banned from mainstream American channels because it has a plus-sized model.

Lane Bryant, the manufacturing company, has said, “ABC and Fox have made the decision to define beauty for you by denying our new, groundbreaking Cacique commercial from airing freely on their networks.”

There is nothing groundbreaking here. I have seen it and while the model is busty and she does strike a few sexy poses, which are mandatory in lingerie ads, and are quite happily shown in promos for cars, colas and icecreams where they are not, it is pretty routine stuff. Unless you get excited by a voiceover that says, “Mom always said beauty is skin deep. Somehow, I don’t think this is what Mom had in mind.”

To be honest, the model does not look like she is thinking about her mom at that moment. In fact, she is not thinking about anything but herself. It is at best self-love and at worst lingerie that you might want to take off rather than wear. I know 25 seconds are not good enough to judge a product, but that is good enough time to judge a bad idea.

Had the channels objected to it on grounds of poor quality, one would have understood. It is too self-conscious. Undergarments are meant to enhance and support. That they add to a woman’s sex appeal should make manufacturers sensitive to different types rather than getting into the big and small battle.

Fox apparently wanted the ad edited and finally relented and carried it. ABC remained resistant to DD.

Are these channels truly defining beauty for us? If that were so then Pamela Anderson ought to be banned. Reruns of films featuring Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Lauren, Elizabeth Taylor, Raquel Welsh should not to be permitted. And please do not telecast images of those spilling out of their designer threads on the the red carpet.

Both sides are taking moral positions for a part of the female anatomy. The bra guys are saying, “Our new commercials represent the sensuality of the curvy woman who has more to show the world than the typical waif-like lingerie model.”

More to show the world? Isn’t the lingerie for her? If the channels are indeed promoting the waif-like models, then they will talk about less to show. In all this there is the issue about portraying the ‘normal’ woman. Does anyone know what a normal woman is, or what her breasts are like? In a room there will be several normal women doing normal things and they could well be differently built, just as they would have different eyes, noses, mouths and ways to express themselves.

Each time new products are launched a normal woman is brought out of the closet and only those in charge seem to be privy to this character’s normalcy.

If a woman starves herself to fit into a pair of handkerchiefs, then she might think it is the most normal thing to do. A woman who decides to get herself pumped up because that makes her feel confident would think of it as normal. Then there are people who are comfortable with their bodies and genetically built in certain ways – skinny or big or medium.

If those looking at them have certain preferences or fetishes, then one may wish to measure their level of normalcy too. The bosom, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder.

A Bloody Nose for Bloomers?

A couple of days after he had drawn women’s undies, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi looked like someone back from battle.

The two events may not be connected, but it is interesting to find some connection.

Milan, December 13: At a political rally the PM is left with a fractured nose, two teeth knocked off and bloody cuts on his lips after a man hurled a miniature replica of Milan’s gothic cathedral at him.

After the attack

Brussels, December 11: At a meeting to discuss climate change, the Italian premier draws women’s inner wear and passes the papers around to other heads of state. It causes some embarrassment, some anger and some amusement.

The Daily Mail shows a sample of Victorian underwear

For a moment, imagine you are a world leader attending such a high-level meeting to discuss climate change. The pieces of paper have doodles that include the Egyptian loin cloth, Victorian bloomers, French satin panties, thongs, G-strings.

What would you do?

I think I'd see it as a symbolic representation of how women coped not only with social mores but also with how they chose to cover up intimate parts of their body. It might seem like stretching it a bit, but from the warm Egyptian clime to the cold English one, the way these undergarments were worn does give inkling into the climate.

As a moral issue, one could ask two questions:

1. Why did he choose women’s wear and not men’s? It is simple. He is not interested in men and men as nurturers of the womb of the earth do not have any totem value.
2. Does it become a head of state to indulge in such flippant gestures? It does not, but he could have sketched and not passed them around and then it would have been a secret and they’d imagine he was deeply interested in the talks that were taking place. Ethically, to mislead is wrong. It is quite probable that he was merely revealing the complete uselessness of such summits, and if it comes from someone who is rich and powerful, then it does send out the signal that the world needs to look deeper (and no pun this) instead of merely talking heads.

I am quite certain that were he asked to draw his own underwear he would have gladly done so.

How does it in any way connect with his bloodied face later? Some people were shouting out calling the PM a clown. Clowns are laughed at by people who see them as entertainment or for being silly. They are not seen as vicious enough to be physically harmed.

Was the man who lunged at him a moralist? He has been described as someone who has a history of mental health problems. It could be that he does not like Berlusconi’s politics. It could be that he does not approve of the scandals his PM is involved in. It could be that news of his drawing those thongs and things really was the final straw and he used a Biblical image, that too a medieval one rooted deeply in a spiritual union with god.

He did not use a camera tripod, the way another attacker had done several years ago when Berlo was less tainted.

In both instances the instruments made a pointed statement, and were phallic symbols, if one may say so.