Recently someone forwarded me an invitation to a cheeky Inauguration Day event called "Shave the Date." As organizer Kristen Chase explains on her Web site, "Show your love for your country, and as you watch our new president take his oath and feel your satin undies against your smooth nether region, you can take pride in knowing you've rid your world of bush once and for all."
Now, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone more eager than me to offer Junior a hearty farewell to wherever ex-president frat boys go. And the event is, indeed, a lovely act of unity. But I won't be participating in this brilliant call to action. See, it ignores one thing: W. may be leaving the White House, but when it comes to our most private places, bush is back.
"Absolutely," agrees April Barton, stylist extraordinaire and owner of Suite 303, the salon in New York's notorious Chelsea Hotel. "The new rule of thumb is: When you lift your leg, there shouldn't be any hair below the crease. Keep it clean in the back. And in the front, trim the hair right before its natural curl." She likens the look to a more trimmed, 21st-century version of '70s pubes: the tailored bush.
Or, as my friend Jen put it, "My landing strip has turned into more of a Dorito."
It should probably come as no surprise that the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression would inspire a little fuzz. Conspicuous spending is out, after all. And maintaining a stripper-worthy wax job ain't cheap.
"It's back to shaving in the shower for me," says Catlin, a brand manager for a Los Angeles fashion label.
"It's a fortune to keep a trim bush," bemoans Meredith, a healthcare marketing executive.
But it isn't just hard times driving this trend. After seeing the shaved beav of nearly every pop tart, after years of porn going mainstream, isn't the thrill of the bare vage getting a little stale? If not, you know, creepy?
That was Bill Maher's take, when he lamented on a Sept. 19 episode of "Real Time With Bill Maher," "Bring back a little pubic hair. Not a lot. I'm not talking about reviving that 1973 look that says I'm liberated ... and I'm smuggling a hedgehog. I just want a friendly, fuzzy calling card that tells me I'm not going to get arrested."
These days, even Playboy -- and it's hard to find better experts on the matter -- acknowledges a departure from a near-decade run of absolute clean living. Gary Cole, the Playboy photography director who has observed the region's changing landscape since 1975, says, "It started [in the '80s] with trimming and a landing strip, in part a reflection of the skimpier swimsuits. Then it went further to tiny patches, then to none at all. Now, the pendulum is swinging a little the other way."
I'm so glad bush is back.