After The Costume Party

In her stockings after the costume party. She went as a 1920s flapper. And to be historically accurate, she said, she didn't wear panties with her stockings. 

I didn't know if that was, in fact, historically accurate. But I wasn't going to contradict her. So I told her if we we going to be historically accurate, we should have anal sex, since in the 1920s they didn't have the pill, and doing it in the butt was a common form of birth control.

That is only partly true, but she was in too good a mood to argue details.

Reading This Blog

This is how I hope my Dear Readers experience my sexy blog...

(it's how I write it)

My Name is Jamie

I've been revisiting the TV show "My Name is Earl" on Netflix, just for fun. And it reminded me how sexy in a sexy-trailer-trash-way is the character Joy Turner, played by actress/model Jaime Pressly.

If you don't know who I am talking about, let me help. Here's a couple sizzling shots of Miss Pressly. 

For those inspired to research more, here's a lead: she posed nude for the March 1998 and February 2004 issues of Playboy, as well as the May 2006 issue of Allure. Several of these photos were republished in the Playboy Nudes special in december of 1998, and sort of oddly enough, a retrospective of sexy shots in the January 2002 issue of Playboy (Croatian edition). 

Thank you, Jaime.

An Ode To Hairy Female Armpits

One of the best articles to have been written on the subject, which seems to be getting more attention these days. Or, as the author points out, no wonder there is a "backlash" against the draconian shaving standards of today.

Here are a few excellent quotes:

"...whether armpit hair is lauded or loathed at any particular moment is just a matter of social mores, rather than anything deep-seated."

"...the hairless trend is a very recent phenomenon, a cultural construction that’s more about peer pressure than considered decision-making."

I believe the original article is here. But here is the article in full, for your reading pleasure:

AN ODE TO FEMALE ARMPITS

by Martin Robinson

I am not a pervert or a hippy or a serial killer, but I recently discovered that I find women’s armpit hair sexy.

Here’s what happened: over Christmas, my girlfriend and I took the opportunity to slob it up. Barely left the house, rarely changed clothes, drank anything displaying surface tension. One morning, my other half lifted up her arm, and said, with a filmy glint in her eye, “Check this out.” There it was: a smooth dark rug.

She did it to deliberately repulse me, just as I will sometimes show her the odd testicle while she is eating. Yet – hah! – it didn’t repulse. No sir. It may have been the way she was so cocky about it, but I dug it. “I dig it,” I said, unsure why I was slipping into beatnik speak, possibly because her armpit resembled Bob Dylan.

I felt compelled to touch her pit-fro, and tentatively did so. It didn’t bite me. It was velvety and not at all unpleasant. Disregarding what could have been seen as a feminist triumph, my girlfriend called me a pervert, and further access was denied. But the incident made me think.

Is armpit hair on women really so bad? I’d never truly encountered it before, and just assumed I’d be appalled. Having discovered it’s actually all right, you have to ask why it’s such a taboo. In 2012, a Swedish woman accidentally revealed a hairy armpit on live TV, and a screen-grab of it went viral on social media under the general theme ‘Laugh at the freak’. Why do we see it as so disgusting? Why have girls I’ve spoken to suggested they’d rather sport a swastika tattoo under their arms than a bush? Why has ShortList’s art editor been gagging as he’s been laying out this very feature? Why should we even care?

Well, from Armpits4August (‘Movember for chicks‘) to Cameron Diaz’s body hair-promoting book, the ultimate female taboo is cracking and hairy pits are coming your way…

HAIRY HISTORY

So what’s wrong with women’s axillary hair, to give it its medical term? Some religions reject body hair on both men and women altogether, but for Western secular types, the problem is less clear. Is it unhygienic? No, in fact it helps prevent bacteria breeding on the skin. OK, removal lessons the risk of pubic lice, but who’s still sleeping with 17th-century prostitutes anyway?

Is it simply so bloody ugly it’s just a basic human urge to hack the stuff off? Well, no, many areas in the world don’t mind it; South-east Asia, China, Latin countries, Grimsby…

Is it an accepted standard of beauty from the dawn of time? No, it’s gone in and out of favour throughout history. Total hairlessness was prevalent in Ancient Rome and the Renaissance and reflected in public art from those times, but that worked the other way too: female body hair was a private sight, a forbidden secret. And therefore pretty goddamn sexy. Michelangelo couldn’t put hair on the nudes in the Sistine Chapel as they tend to frown upon masturbating in church. When Goya broke the rules with his proudly pubic ‘Nude Maja’ in 1800, the Spanish Inquisition locked it away for being obscene (ie too friggin’ hot, señor).

OK, so is armpit hair off-putting in a primal way, given the fact that hairiness is more associated with men? Well, you’d think it would be in our primal instincts to be actively attracted to female armpit hair, since it signifies sexual maturity.

“Hair would suggest that our mating would be profitable,” says evolutionary science writer Professor Jesse Bering. “So why would something that signals sexual maturity actually be seen today as unattractive? Well, we do have an attraction to youth, so a combination of other sexual characteristics, like obviously developed breasts, coinciding with hairless armpits, might create the overall impression of youth, but relative youth that’s not indicative of reproductive immaturity entirely.”

OK, so a desire for youthfulness may overwhelm a desire towards armpits, but that doesn’t explain the deep modern repulsion for them. Bering says their biological role is just not significant enough anymore to withstand fashion. “Armpit hair would serve as a primitive odour trap which would help to perpetuate the wafting of pheromones. But the role of pheromones in human sexual behaviour is small, or at least unknown, so it’s maybe not enough of a biological force to have any cultural effect. Culture can prevail.”

There you have it. It’s an evolutionary leftover, so whether armpit hair is lauded or loathed at any particular moment is just a matter of social mores, rather than anything deep-seated.

Taboo-busting comedian Lenny Bruce put it perfectly during a bit on female armpit hair at his Carnegie Hall concert in 1961: “Why is it in bad taste? Is it from a theological point of view? Is it blasphemous? No. Is it hygiene? No, it doesn’t relate to hygiene at all, if it related to hygiene then you’d have to be consistent and shave the eyebrows, the head, the schmushka, the whole bit. So it does not relate to hygiene at all. What does it relate to? Style, that’s all. It only relates to fashion…”

Bruce was anticipating the late-Sixties hippies here, and indeed female armpit hair was perfectly acceptable into the Seventies. Mark Tungate, Paris-based author of Branded Beauty: How Marketing Changed The Way We Look, says, “I remember when I first came to Paris in 1979 as a schoolboy.

There were a lot of dark-haired French girls on the Metro in sleeveless dresses. Some of them had hairy armpits, which provoked pangs of pre-pubescent lust. It’s not difficult to work out why – it was like seeing pubic hair on public display. But this was the tail-end of the Seventies, when feminists displayed body hair as a protest against male oppression and the ‘norms’ of beauty.

“Actually women have been shaving for centuries,” continues Tungate. “For aesthetic and hygienic reasons. However, it will come as no surprise to learn that in the Western world, mass shaving of armpits by women was provoked by the beauty industry. Short-sleeved dresses became fashionable around 1915, which is when Gillette created its first razor for women – the Milady Décolleté – and ran a massive ad campaign to support it. The beauty industry has been encouraging hair removal ever since.” In this case, all it would take is for Kate Moss to weave daisies through her armpit hair at Glastonbury and within days every woman would have permed pits.



GROWING SUPPORT

A 2005 study of UK women showed 90 per cent removed hair from their underarms and legs, and 80 per cent from their pubic areas. A recent university study in Australia showed 76 per cent of young women undergraduates were shaving off everything. There are reports of young men growing up unaware that women are even capable of growing body hair.

It’s getting absurd, so no wonder a backlash is underway.

Armpits4August is a charity event drawing attention to polycystic ovary syndrome, a symptom of which is hirsutism. They say, “We believe the shame people feel about body hair is a consequence of a society [with] narrow beauty standards … there is no ‘normal’ pattern of body hair for men or women.”

Then there’s Cameron Diaz, who recently put her body hair in the public forum, declaring in her new Body Book that “pubes keep the goods private” and are “pretty draping”. Well, she’s Cameron Diaz, she could have Brian Blessed’s entire head down there and it’d still be sexy, but she makes valid points that the hairless trend is a very recent phenomenon, a cultural construction that’s more about peer pressure than considered decision-making. Naked vaginas are the Emperor’s New Clothes.

You can also blame porn. In that world, you shave off hair to reveal more to the camera, but porn is so all-pervasive today, its style has gone mainstream. A new generation are following its aesthetic standards. This also explains the return of the mullet. Some experts, like Professor Gordon Gallup from the University Of New York, have said this shaved ideal suggests latent paedophilia. That seems a stretch. I believe it’s just a fad being followed, and one we should question. Is it really that sexy? Doesn’t an overly-groomed woman seem a bit professional, a bit uptight. Surely sexiness is a lack of self-consciousness, about not giving a sh*t what anyone thinks?

A chemical-scrubbed and cut-back mound may look like an invitation to porn heaven, but the amount

of prep required hardly suggests wild abandon. The famously banned author Henry Miller – often unfairly branded a misogynist just because he slept with anything that blinked – wrote something that stuck in my mind: “I want a woman who sh*ts.”

Nice. But his point was he wanted honesty, not pampered people pretending the mucky realities of being a human being don’t exist. We may all soon be sporting Google Glass, but we’ll still have to nudge it to one side to pick our noses.

If we can see that hairlessness is mere fashion, not a deep-rooted taboo, then it can be changed. If you’ll agree with me that this porn ideal is a bit weird and, if it continues, sex will resemble two manatees wrestling, then it may be liberating to try something different.


PRAISE THE PITS

I’m not saying you should force your missus into growing some – it’s her choice, yeah – but if this backlash is happening, then men should support it. After all, how long before we’re shaving our armpits, too? Male hairlessness is no longer restricted to gay culture – everybody is hacking back now, and it’s only a matter of time before it all goes. And then we’ll be spending 20 per cent of our days shaving and the remaining 80 per cent itching.

No, let’s not run away from our animal sides. Encourage your partners, and let’s get some growth out there. I look forward to a time when a man and a woman can take off their clothes and not be nude. Free to fall into a hairy embrace and be stuck together forever in a Velcroish predicament.

That’s my vision. Who’s with me?

Certainly not my girlfriend:

“You can stop writing that piece, I’ve shaved them. It was disgusting.”

Cheers.

Shower Voyeur

Concentrating as she shaved her legs, she doesn't notice that sometimes I watch her. She's so sexy in the shower. A perfect moment captured.

Artistic is Timeless

Here's a modern image of a modern woman (the nipple piercing sort of gives it away.) And yet, there is also a timelessness about her, too. 

Classics do not belong to time; they are of no single generation, style, or period, but all, and always.

Diane Arbus

When this photo was taken, she was just 21. At the age of 18, she had married her sweetheart, Allan. She had been married for three years. World War II had been going on for three years, too. 

Her husband was a photographer, and was in the Signal Corps. Before that, he had taken photos for the department store owned by Diane's father. After the war, Allan and Diane would launch their photography business.

Diane worked as the Art Director and Allan as the photographer. They contributed to Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and other magazines even though they both "hated the fashion world."

After the war, Diane and Allan had two daughters, but then they sperated and eventually divorced. As a photographer, Diane would eventually become noted for black-and-white snapshots of dwarfs, giants, transgender people,nudists, circus performers or of "people whose normality seems ugly or surreal."

At age 48, having suffered from bouts of depression, Diane committed suicide. She is now considered one of the most significant photographers of her time.

But before all of that, she was 21. Nude, posing for her childhood sweetheart.

Photographer Diane Arbus by her husband, photographer Allan Arbus, 1944.

Marge Monday: Google Glasses

Marge is not thrilled to find Homer wearing google glasses in bed. Maybe she thinks he is watching a stream of the football game, as a distraction during "special snuggles." Or maybe she suspects he is streaming video of her in bed, to Homer's friends back at Moe's.

Laundry Day

This reminds me of doing laundry at my old apartment. The machines were down in the basement. It was a shared basement, but if I was doing laundry late at night, it was deserted. Usually, I'd put of doing laundry until the very last possible moment. That usually meant to the point where I no longer had anything clean to wear. 

If I was fast, I could strip down and wash everything at once. And I never got caught. 

Sometimes, though, I kind of hoped I would have gotten caught.

Her Toy Time

I once found a large purple dildo in the dresser drawer of Patricia. It was huge. We're not talking a 7" or 8" dildo... it was easily 10" and thick. I wondered how she could even manage it, and it was so big, I was sure she'd need two hands just to work it. Well, I was right.

She did need two hands.

Marge Monday: Something New

Marge enjoys sex just as much as Homer. Just as she likes to spice things up in the kitchen, she also likes to try new things in the bedroom. Homer tends to find what he likes and stick to it: beer, doughnuts.... ummmm, doughnuts. But, in general, he's always open to new adventures. Tonight, however, Marge wants to try something they've never done. 

Years ago, Marge and Homer discovered that Marge loved anal sex. Now, the table is turned. Marge has a new toy she wants to try out. Homer is willing, but a little worried...

Shaving In the Tub

As many Dear Readers know, I usually let my curls grow wild and free, as nature intended. However, I have to admit, I find the act of shaving very erotic. 

So sometimes I change it up. As they say, variation is the spice of life.

Nude Selfie, the OG

"My first nude photography was a self-portrait in the woods, 1906, on the University of Washington campus. I set it up and jumped into it, and that was it."

--Imogen Cunningham

Imogen was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883. When she was 18, she bought her first camera, a 4x5. But the story goes that she lost interest and sold it to a friend. When she was 23, she'd moved up to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. There she rekindled her joy of photography and took her first nude, serving as both photographer and model. 

Bed and Breakfast Bondage

When they checked into the victorian B&B, the proprietors asked if the couple was newlyweds or celebrating their anniversary.

"Anniversary," they answered, and exchanged a knowing look.

There was no question that the proprietor, a kindly woman who decorated with dollies, knew that young couples would come to the B&B for "romantic getaways," meaning, specifically, sex.

But did she have  any ideas how the curtain cord would be used?

Portrait of An Elevator Flash

While riding in her elevator, she turned to the mirror and lifted her dress. In her photography class, the professor had been discussing the history of self-portraits. He'd even shown a few early examples of female photographers taking nude self shots, such as Imogen Cunningham as far back as 1909.

Inspired by this, she decided to take a creative self portrait. 

She wondered what her professor would think.

Project Bush

Here's an interesting idea hatched by a creative agency in London called "Project Bush." Last fall, they announced an open call for ladies in London to come to their studio to have their lady parts photographed by famous fashion photographer Alisa Connan.

"For many women, it’s about choice," said the agency, Mother London. "Waxing culture has become so mainstream that some young women don’t see it as a choice. So Project Bush is about questioning the status quo, as a means to discuss the state of feminism in 2013."
The news of Project Bush spread quickly and more women queued up than the allotted time slots availible. The results, some 93 women dropped their drawers to reveal what style of pubic hair they were sporting at the time.

One of the things that I like about this project, is that unlike anonymous online surveys, the results speak for themselves. A challenge in online polls is that there is no way to verify who is filling them out. Its just as easy for a man to submit as a woman, and the end results could be less about what women are doing to their pubes, and more about what some men who fill out anonymous online polls pretending to be women feel about a woman's pubic hair. So, proof positive, 100% of the participants in Project Bush were women.

The other advantage is that the results are visual. Sometimes it's not totally clear what is "trimmed" and what is "bush." A woman might self report that she shaves, because she keeps a tidy bikini line, while another person might consider her triangle of curls a bush. Or, a woman that crops her hair to just a stubble might consider herself "trimmed" while others might see that as more of a "shaved" look because the skin and particularly the vulva are plainly visible. At least in this portfolio, its up to the viewer to make those distinctions.

The surprising thing is the diversity. Flipping through the pages of Playboy, one would conclude that 99% of woman today are waxed completely bare. Reading the sometimes hateful and distasteful comments online about pubic hair being "gross," "disgusting" and "out of fashion since the 70s." There are a surprising abundance of natural curls. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 of the woman have a thick triangle of hair down there.

There are some surveys of questionable sample sizes and populations that would lead people to believe that all women look the same or are trying to look the same in their grooming habits. What I find so refreshing in this project is the diversity.

It's very clear that by looking at this cross-section of Londoners, each woman has her own style. Pretty much every variation from bare to bush is represented, and in more or less equal measure. And that, more than anything, is a beautiful thing.

Glory Hole Fun At Home

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Shaving In Shower

As much as I advocate the glory of a natural bush, I have to admit there are few things sexier than the sensation of shaving one's vuvla in the shower. 

Motorcycle Monday: The Spirit of the Ride

So this isn't nude, or overtly sexual, but it is sexy. This is why we ride together.

How To Rock A Day

Here's how to rock a day:

Step One: Go on hike to secluded lake with friend

Step Two: Ditch clothes

Step Three: Shotgun beers