FRESH
YARN PRESENTS:
Bush
By Aliza Sherman
I
want to talk to you about, well, my bush. You thought this was going
to be about the president, didn't you? Not by a long shot. After
extricating myself from a nine-year relationship and hitting the
dating scene again in 2002, I discovered something completely astonishing
to me.
Let me go back to the beginning. It all started when I relocated
to the Rocky Mountain region. I hadn't made many friends yet, and
I started dating a young stud I met on the Internet.
So
here I am in bed with a guy ten years younger than me (in his 20's),
and I notice something odd. A lack of hair "down there."
Not that he was "bald," mind you, but he was certainly
very close cropped. A man shaving his pubes? I was shocked, to say
the least. Why, I thought to myself, would a man remove his curly
cues?
I asked
my sister the same question. She didn't have a clue, but then again,
she has been in a dating dry spell for years so maybe we both just
missed some new fad. She asked her friend, a sex columnist for an
alternative paper, for an explanation. Her friend was flummoxed
so she included a question about men shaving in her next column.
Men
wrote in with thoughts on the subject ranging from the joys of "petting
the dolphin" to suggesting "if you want people to play
in your yard, you've got to trim the lawn." We still didn't
feel the mystery had been solved, but I chalked it up to getting
old.
When
the next guy I got naked with had the same thing going on, I began
to think this shaving thing was part of a cult ritual. Or maybe
men in their 20's were just weird about personal grooming. I finally
got up the courage to mention this to a few of my new girlfriends
one night over dinner. I suddenly realized they, too, were part
of the cult.
"Well,
you shave down there, don't you?"
What?
Me shave? Down there? Sure I did the occasional groin and thigh
hair whacking for those very rare bathing suit occasions. But trim
it down? Wouldn't that itch?
"You
mean you don't shave your bush?" they screamed in unison.
I shook
my head, half stunned that we were actually having this conversation,
loudly, at Outback Steakhouse.
"Do
you?" I asked them, and all three of them nodded furiously.
"I
would never go out of the house without a very trim crop,"
New Girlfriend #1 proclaimed.
"I've
even done shapes and special designs. Like a heart for Valentine's
Day or my boyfriend's initials," said New Girlfriend #2.
New
Girlfriend #3 was still staring at me slack jawed. "You mean
you really do have a...bush??"
"Yes,"
I replied, totally ashamed.
"You
mean you actually have pubes sticking out from the leg holes of
your underwear?"
"Yeah,"
I admitted weakly.
"Oh
my God!" they screeched.
I began
to think back on the two young men I had bedded and realized that
when they were asking to shave me, they weren't harboring some latent
prepubescent fixation after all but were actually trying to give
me a hint that my bush was too, well, bushy. I was horrified.
Why
didn't someone tell me that I was supposed to shave the privates?
Why was this important information not in any of the women's magazines?
I had bought Cosmo to re-learn how to give a blow job (hey, you
might think it is like riding a bike, but after nine years of missionary,
and rarely at that, BJ technique doesn't just come back like a long
lost friend), but even that sex-laden rag didn't tell me I was supposed
to trim the crop.
The
next day, in the privacy of my own home, I went onto the Internet
and ordered a bikini trimmer on the advice of Girlfriend #2, the
bush artiste, who insisted that razor shaving is a definite no-no.
Electric was the way to go.
Needless
to say, I began to keep a close shave. I do let it go sometimes,
like I let my legs or my pits go on occasion, but for the most part,
I am nice and short. Who knew it wasn't only clean underwear you
need to worry about in case you are in a car accident? I can only
imagine the look on the medical staff's face if they were confronted
with a monstrous bush. I shudder to think.
By
the way, men in their 40's like an untamed bush. I've been dating
one of those. And lately, I've noticed a few hairs peeking out of
my undies. He doesn't mind a bit.
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