TMI?

I abbreviated the length of my comment over at Babyfruit, b/c I'd have been a comments blog hog.

Bringing a vital issue real to my life right up into pubic, errr, public, she raised a great point about pubic area grooming, feeling rather silly/honest/dirty/pragmatic in the process, I think. She also knew she could get away with it.

I can get away with it, too. To me, it is an source of hilarity. I think for her, too.

With regards to the region, I'm pretty much au naturel, although I will sometimes trim the bottom for nappy hygiene reasons, and sometimes in this (dating) world of anal mind sets and perceived perfection (or doing things at all cost to become closer to that perceived perfection), I was questioned about my au naturel-ness. One guy even recommended I see the flick, below. See, I have no Brazilian. I have no landing strip. I am no shaven maven. I do not resemble a wee little girl. Once again, I an not fashionable. Aw shucks.

I am shaggy (even tho it is all pretty straight) and beautifully so, I believe. I don't trim the edges to give me a pretty triangle.

Due to the interests of ex, I'd tried waxing after my son was born, but that really didn't make sense to me. If you need 2 weeks of (ingrown) growth to prepare for a "procedure" (such a nice way of saying "flaying alive") that only lasts maybe 6 weeks, that means that at least 25% of the time, you are shaggy. Further, there's the post-wax reacclamation waiting period of maybe a week until the stripped and weeping red bumps would go away. What's the point of all the torture?

As for the other primary method of hair removal, I can shave my legs and pits with abandon, but the groin abandons me. Shaving or waxing, it becomes Ingrown City. I've tried lotions and exfoliation to help, but nothing works. It's not really that I want them to work, if you want to know the truth.

I personally find Ingrown City much less attractive than au naturel. And to hell with the rest of the oh so perfect, triangular, and unhirsute world.

Because we all look for personal heroes in the movies, I found mine with Emily Mortimer in Lovely and Amazing. Following are a couple reviews (with my commentary once) and you can definitely tell which one was by the Neanderthal.


Per this review,"Lovely & Amazing" deals frankly with issues of body image and plastic surgery. The film's climactic scene comes when "Notting Hill's" Emily Mortimer asks Mulroney to analyze her body, as she stands naked for nearly six minutes on film.

Emily is an over sensitive actress seeking an honest appraisal of her body. One of the few negative things fellow actor, Dermot, says is when he comments on the size of her bush. Honestly, I swear her bush was bigger than mine and I figured must have had hair extensions in it - and figured that for a couple years now. However, I read review, below, that implied it was all Emily in all her glory! You go, girl!


Emily Mortimer: tired of movies where all the explosiveness comes from special effects?
Try this actress -

Interview a neurotic Hollywood actress, vividly played by Emily Mortimer, stands naked in front of the star (Dermot Mulroney) she has just slept with and asks him to describe what he sees. He bemusedly complies, commenting on the asymmetry of her breasts, the bountifulness of her pubic hair and, worst of all for her, the fullness of her upper arms. Although she has taken control of their fleeting tryst, she has also willingly exposed herself to humiliation--characteristic behavior for this ineffably pretty, tender young woman, who is in such need of love she picks up stray dogs.

GF: After she sleeps with the movie star. Kevin. she asks him to critique her body-- especially the things that embarrass her about it--as she stands naked in front of him. But obviously it's your body that's being described.

EM: Yes, Nicole and I wrote that speech together.

GF: So it was completely tailored to you?

EM: Apart from the line about the big bush, which was always there, though I have to say I did manage to come up with quite a big bush myself. [laughs] So, yeah, apart from that, I had to sit down and tell her all the things I find mortifying about my body.


The Girl Can't Help It
An Interview with Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News
By Aaron Aradillas
Lovely & Amazing is a lovely and amazing movie, with really interesting female characters and stories. A side note about that movie: [regarding] the scene where Emily Mortimer stands naked and vulnerable in front of Dermot Mulroney and asks him to appraise her body--I had a big argument with my colleague Jack Mathews about her bush. Actually, "bush" was his term. I'd say "pubic hair," myself.

I guess he's been seeing too many porn magazines where women shave and trim themselves because that's the style, but he thought Emily had used some prosthetic enhancement on her bush, because it was too wild to be natural. I argued vehemently. That's the way a natural bush looks! I interviewed Emily and the director and asked them, and, forgive my memory, but I'm pretty sure I was right and Jack was wrong. The details escape me now. I tend not to remember the details or the outcome of such an exchange, only that it was really fun that I have a male colleague with whom I can argue these finer points.

Anyway, male critics were, I'm guessing, titillated by seeing a naked woman stand so open to inspection, and women critics loved it because of its daring, its truth, and the poignancy of how women with perfect bodies never feel perfect because they don't allow their actual imperfections to figure into an overall perfection; well, I believe in this, anyway. That it is a collection of the imperfections that make something perfect. In movies, as in men and women.


Donovan's Toronto Film Fest 2001 Report
by Ryan Donovan
Fortunately, as soon as it seems to be getting ridiculously estrogized, along comes the scene where Brit beaut Mortimer stands completely nude in front of Dermot Mulroney, asking him to critique her body. "Your bush could use a trim," he advises. Viva, testosterone.

Indeed. Draw some blood and we'll find I have more than he does.