Art, Porn and Grandma, I Can Zip Up My Own Damn Dress and Find a Relationship Too

“You can pretty much figure, that a man who likes a women to have Brazilians watches porn.“ That’s what my hairdresser told me recently, as she cut my hair, in a bit of a side track to her telling me all the things she was doing to prepare for her vacation in Thailand. After our appointment she scheduled a bikini wax for herself. Her explanation responded to a question I’d wondered about since an encounter a few weeks before.

Until then, in my experience, no one had requested or hardly commented on “down there”.  Though, I admit,  I wouldn't want to go full Brazilian, as I use the curlies as a way to affirm my continuing practice of coloring my hair. The man that made the request is a decade younger, so I wondered if it was generational or maybe cultural, he is not caucasion. A couple weeks before, I’d asked a friend closer to his age about her experience with men’s preferences. I knew her response would be biased by her feminist philosophy, but she commented that a bikini wax was for her own sense of “upkeep” and her husband nor any other man before him made a request for a full sweep. Ashley's explanation rang true.  

…Reminding that I connect dots… this led me to think about art of women. That same man asked about the shelf in my bathroom with three pieces on it, a vase I bought in a gallery in Chicago with a nude woman painted around it, a vignette of a brass sculpture of a bathing nude woman, given to me years ago by a guest, amidst stones and shells I’ve found on vacations since, and a bawdy, grey-scale, 1920s French postcard picturing the backs of two women in short rompers with their derrieres hanging out and their hands on each other’s cheeks. He inquired why I, a woman, would have other women displayed.  I told him to look around, there are several pieces of art though out my place that depict women – one reading a book that I bought in a gallery in Quebec in the nineties, one of a Hispanic opera singer I bought in a gallery in El Paso in the eighties and Changing woman… a gift from a dear friend, as I went navigated the earlier years of my divorce and grew my business, and, a body-image collage, I made myself from a size 14, bathing suit form I brought home from Costco one year.

The art I display, reflects who I am. My artist friend Nancy wore a t-shirt that impressed a point in my brain, Real Art Doesn’t Match Your Sofa. I don’t display art that matches anything for that matter, but my tastes and interests. I am aware that I have spent many years of my life hating my body. Media or maybe men’s view of women’s bodies have dictated how I am supposed to look and, frankly, I’ve never felt like I measured up. And, if anyone knows me, I am competitive and want to exceed expectations, but in this case, I don’t even come close when someone else sets the sites,, the objectives and the metrics.

Having art depicting women who look normal and pleasing and by the way, may look a bit like me is life giving. It eliminates the contradiction that plays on my self confidence. The postcard of the two women speaks to something else in me, maybe a sense of my whole person who loves other whole persons. I can’t look at my women friends  (or men friends for that matter) and just see their hearts and brains, the parts that particularly attract me. I see their whole person, the vessels, as we used to say, of what contains their whole body-mind-spirit and attracts me to them too. 

Over the last year or two same sex marriage has pervaded the zeitgeist. Early on it was about the other, that self defined group of gay and lesbians who saw a possibility of love with a larger world view. It’s helped me see a larger world view for myself. It’s helped me realize that I can explore a greater sense of the breadth and depth of me.

Since I was eleven, I’ve known that I have a strong masculine aspect to my personality. In wanting to zip up a turquoise sheath with six buttons aligned like tufts on a couch, down the front without help from my grandma, I learned from her that no man would ever have me, if I didn’t accept help. Last week on a date, a man asked me to stay in the car, while he came around to open the door, fuck that, I pulled the handle. Running a business for seventeen years took balls… in opening it, managing it and closing it. I was grateful my feminine side allowed me to cry, through out. For the greater part of my adult life, I’ve intentionally kept my hair short, make up to a minimum and nails trimmed so I had time to do other stuff. I never bought into the girly persona, though I know seduction. It comes in handy across the continuum… women, men, business (what else is sales?) love and religion. I feel more whole, more engaged when I respond from my whole masculine to feminine continuum.

The moment she said it, I knew I didn't buy into Grandma's sense of being had by a man. The last couple years, have helped me be more open to differences, to take the effort to be curious and interact rather than judge. Having art of nude women in my bathroom says nothing more than I like the art.