Dept. Of Creeper Von Creepersberg’s Medicine Show: PhillyMag Ponders Main Line Kids’ Total War On Pubes
We know it’s difficult, but pay attention to PhillyMag long enough, and you’ll notice an annual ritual: The biting of the luxury class hand that feeds the mag, that has given it succor for so long when no others would, and the awkward silence that follows. These articles are usually muffled howls of frustration — you’d crank one out every so often if you had to write shit like this, too — but this month, Carrie Denny goes ballistic and shows the Main Line a deep, dark, truthful mirror. The subject? Why in the ball-fuck are Main Line Moms pruning their kids’ pubes before they even have them?
“I’ve actually been joking that I’m going to write a book called Where Has All the Pubic Hair Gone?” Janice Hillman, a doctor in the Penn Health System at Radnor who specializes in adolescent medicine, tells me. “It’s such a rarity to find it these days in 10- and 12-year-old girls, and older girls. I need to check for it at that age — it’s an indicator of puberty and development, how much there is, where it’s growing. And now, I need to ask girls, if it’s not there, ‘Do you wax? Do you shave?’ Because so many of them do.”
It goes on from there, and let us tell you, this is a HORRIFYING piece of journalism. Not just because of the obvious subject matter, but also because from whence it is issued. It’s like all of a sudden, PhillyMag got whacked in the face with the little red Communist book, woke the fuck up, and said, “What the HELL have we been doing for the last 30 years?” And trust us, this is a breakthrough moment you don’t really wanna be around for. What makes a woman start fires? Moe Tkacik ponders Carrie Denny:
Carrie is, like, fun and blonde and normal. She grew up in the area she’s writing about. She is one of those girls who probably inspires suitors to draw lame “sunshine” analogies to her personality, but the analogies would not be inaccurate. She is really super friendly. I always figured she thought I was weird. Because I am, but you know. Anyway, I point this out only because, like, lately I feel like I am hearing feminist outrage in my life from all the last people you’d expect to hear it.
Today is a dark day on the Main Line. A dark day, indeed.
PhillyMag: There’s No There There. Nor Is There Hair There.
Jezebel: This Is The Kind Of Thing You’d Expect From US, Not THEM
March 28th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Christ!
March 28th, 2008 at 11:52 am
This tripped an unexpected 80’s memory of a fellow I knew who went by Red Scare, from SJ hardcore band Misfortunes of Virtue (dead now, sadly). I remember he once showed up at a show with a body mohawk: a 1 inch-wide vertical strip of hair that ran from his head, down his face and chest, through his nethers, and up his back. Not sure what it proved, other than it could be done.
Red (Rob K.) was a good guy: I remember him in sixth grade. Two things you could always count on with Rob: 1) he’d be dressed like Baretta, and 2) he’d have a cute girl on his arm that towered over him.