So, I said I was gonna do it...

And now I'm gonna.

I begin with an excerpt (as we all know, none of my ideas originate internally): I felt little when my hair was gone down there and I couldn’t help talking in a baby voice and the skin got irritated and even calamine lotion wouldn’t help it. (Vagina Monologues, "Hair")

Just why have I co-opted Eve Ensler's work? We all know that I don't have a vagina (no, seriously), but I find interesting parallels with my recent shaving experiences. Last...Saturday (?) I engaged in the HOUR AND A HALF LONG shaving process at the possibility of having a threesome with a good-lookin' dude from Austin. The threesome never happened (much to several people's disappointment), yet I was left with the look of prepubescent boy.

Why, on God's green earth, did I do this?

Admittedly, I like the look. I like how it feels--in fact, shaving almost always make me more aware of my sexuality than when I harvest a vertible jungle between my thighs. But I hate the act of shaving. It's incredibly disempowering. All that hair, all that part of my (my "leaf around the flower") flushed down the drain while I'm sweating and bent in awkward positions. It. Effing. Sucks.

For a while, I promised myself I would never do it. "Anybody would just have to get used to it," I told myself. Yet the more and more gay men friends I acquired, the more I felt the pressure to shave. And I caved. The first time I did it, it took nearly two hours. Honestly, I thought it would never end. Plus, it was in the middle of summer. I would sweat, which would sting and burn--essentially urging me to take my everything off and sit in a tub of cold water until my dick fell off. I fantasized about that while I hobbled bow-legged down long DC blocks. Ugh.

Why do I still do this? Surely, I'm strong enough to resist some silly social pressure, right? Right?! Or is it even that simple? I've admitted to enjoying the end-result, but the actual process is what bites. Maybe if I just get it all lasered off...