My friend Krista......is smart.....so smart.... a renowned university recently granted her the privilege of placing a PhD in back of her name.
She wrote an email to me a couple days ago and made a joke which involved the word "merkin."
Hmmmm....I said....not getting the joke.......perhaps there's a typo here....perhaps her fingers slipped ......I bet she meant to type "gherkin" not "merkin."
gherkins relaxing.Wrong.
Knowledge base expanded.
There are merkins in the world..........or I should say there are merkins attached to people in the world.
Merkins are pubic hair wigs.
They've been around since 1450....and were initially used by prostitutes to hide runny oozy syphilis sores from their customers. ( I'll pause now for the obligatory shiver of disgust.)
Then men thought merkins might be fun....especially transgendered men....and they applied them above and over (?) their male organ to look sleek and girly.
Merkin wearing is quite simple...... shave......(very close) .... apply some adhesive....(not Elmer's glue) and viola....you can hide....accentuate.....or titillate.
As you might expect.....Walmart doesn't carry merkins (and if they did ....would they keep them in the hat section?)....but there are merkin websites where you can order a pre-made wig or design your own. Merkindworld is a fun place to browse...complete with a short but excellent history of pubic wigs.
I was also intrigued with Wikipedia's discussion of the merkin....I didn't know merkins are a Hollywood stand-by.
In Hollywood film-making, merkins are currently used in films where they are worn by actors and actresses to prevent inadvertent exposure of the genitalia during nude or semi-nude scenes. If no merkin were worn, it would be necessary to restrict the shot to exclude the genital area; with the merkin in place brief flashes of the crotch can be used if necessary. The presence of the merkin protects the actor from inadvertently performing 'full-frontal' nudity – some contracts specifically require that nipples and genitals be covered in some way – which can help ensure that the film achieves a less restrictive MPAA rating.[7] A merkin is also used if the actor has less pubic hair than required for the role, as in the case of Kate Winslet in the film The Reader.
I am, at this point, ashamed to admit I moved The Reader to the #1 spot in my Netflex queue.
Why does an actress need a forest? When is a bush not enough?
You may think.....well all of this is silly.....but Merkinworld......relayed an interesting concept. Merkins can be fun and sensuous.
The wearing of a pubic wig is a sensory experience. The wig can allow the wearer a certain "jouissance" as it is made of a fibre/hair that has been selected by the wearer, and it is worn on an erogenous zone to attract and excite a partner.
Jouissance?
What a delicious word.
The word becomes relevant to cultural and literary studies through its usage by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to signify the condition or bliss, arrival, merging with the other, which can be associated with orgasm but also the obtention of any particularly desired object or condition - for the explorer, arriving at the North Pole perhaps.
Oh my....orgasm....bliss......poles.....
Is it hot in here or what?
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His and Her Merkins
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