Your first grey hair shocks. Your first grey pubic hair makes you feel close to death
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Version 0 of 1. The first time I saw one, I had to do a double-take. It happened around 4am, and I was a little drunk and very tired, sitting on the toilet to pee. I looked down. I thought, “What is that?” I looked down again. There was no question: growing in my bush, buried in the middle of my pubic triangle was a white – not blonde – hair. I was 37. Finding your first grey hair is an uncanny experience no matter where it is. My left eyebrow held my very first grey hair, somewhere around the age of 34. I don’t remember growing my first grey hair in my mane, but I think it was fairly recently – perhaps around the age of 48. But discovering grey hairs in these places pales in comparison to that moment in the loo when I spied my first grey pube. You can forgive the stray eyebrow hair and claim that one grey hair atop your head is “premature”; the stray grey short and curly, however, feels like an harbinger of mortality. In the years since I hit puberty, the hair on my head has been many colors – vibrant red, pale gold, bubblegum pink, beach-bunny highlighted, sable brown, and even its natural honey blonde. At 52, I have only a smattering of grey on my head; my choice to dye it has always stemmed from my enjoying other colors than from a feeling that I “need” to cover my greys. Regardless of the color I’ve chosen, dyeing or not-dyeing my head hair could never be construed as a feminist or political act. Were I to dye my pubes, it should be similarly free of subtext. I don’t kid myself, though. Choosing to go full bush, opting to dazzle with the vajazzle, landing on the landing strip, or going with the “pubic mullet” aren’t viewed as merely personal choices for ladyparts. These choices mark you as a kind of woman, both to your sex partners and to the people you tell about your grooming trends. I can’t say how many men I have dated who fully expected me to go bare – one even refused to shag me until I saw my waxer. While I don’t really care one way or another about my pubic hair (it waxes and wanes), I do find it curious that other people do. And by “people”, I mean men. Pubic hair – especially female pubic hair – is politicized in ways that most other hair isn’t. It’s true that armpit and leg hair carried the feminist weight in the 70s, when your choice to shave or not marked you as part of the dominant culture or the counter culture, but that embattled position has moved inward to the bikini area. These days, we women (and some men) are exhorted to pluck, wax, trim, laser, shave and otherwise bludgeon their pubic triangles into fashionable submission. We are also, increasingly, expected to dye it to maintain the illusion of youth. Ageing is no longer something that merely happens to women’s faces, hands or bodies. It’s no longer something that we need to fight with just our literal teeth and nails; our crotches also are expected to be fountains of youth. From the inside (hormone treatments and surgery) to the outside (dye kits and skin bleaching), women’s genitalia needs to appear pert and perky – or so suggests dominant culture. It’s interesting to note that while there are myriad products to dye chicks’ pubes, there is no “Just for Men, Pubic Edition”. Similarly, no man is getting testicle lifts – yet. As personal upkeep has become increasingly prolix – my hippie mom hardly wore mascara and rarely touched a razor to her limbs – so too has it become fraught with expectations, and one of those expectations is that of youth. I wonder, as I age, if there will be an increased expectation that my undoubtedly greyer pubic triangle will maintain a youthful glow. It’s a little alarming to consider, frankly. I’d like to think that Dame Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore or Julie Christie’s pubes, long or short, are their natural hues. Maybe they are; maybe they aren’t. Maybe they’ve gone full Brazilian and are bald as a cue ball. I do know that regardless of whether these women of a certain age have pubes that reflect their maturity, it’s their private affairs. I’d no sooner criticize a woman for dyeing the hairs on her pubic triangle than I would the ones on her head. It’s high time for the hairs down under to stop carrying the weight of our judgment. Your hairs, your choice – even if it’s not the one I would make. |