Tag: shaving

Oliver Rath – Der Sommer Kommt feat. Phan Toma (2012)

I’m not sure whether this is a good image or not–but there is definitely a lot going on with it.

The depth of field is such that although it’s ostensibly clear that the person in the foreground is supposed to appear as if they are using electric clippers to remove pubic hair. (I am not entirely sure whether Rath paid Phan Toma to shave for the photos or if this was someone else’s hair and the scene was staged. My gut says it’s the later–although with Rath, it really could just as easily have been the former. In the favor of the latter is the fact that electric clippers don’t really get things that clean shaven–usually you need to use the clippers first and then bring a razor to bear.)

Also, although the toilet is not the venue I’d ever recommend as ideal for this sort of thing. The image has been staged in such a fashion as to make it read clearly that the model is in a bathroom and removing pubic hair. That post cannot be especially comfortable and usually the idea is that you sit on the toilet so that it’s less muscle strain and the hair can just be flushed. (Although, come to thinking of it: I think I’ve only ever known it to be dudes who favor the flush the pubes depilatory routine. (I don’t know a woman who does it like this–I lay out newspapers like I was taught by other women.)

I have mixed feelings about the fact that you can see the photographer bear feet and legs in the image. On the one hand: I am inclined to agree with the sentiments of those who find shots like this creepy AF. Further: the fact that this is a model and the photographer is straddling a leg while taking a picture of the removal of pubic hair is… intimate–but intimate in a way that the photo gives us zero context to discern whether or not the intimacy is consensual or coercive.

The image reads very clearly but in so doing it trades in ambiguity that is more interesting that any of the sum of its parts. The trouble is the ambiguity hinges on questions of voyeurism and propriety but relies upon the ambiguity of the presentation to head off any criticisms at the pass.

Source: rulingthumb

Molly Walsh – Pubes (2016)

This little comic is excellent for a number of reasons.

It’s simple, cute and spends a lot of energy contextualizing the action in a fully formed world, i.e. the shower with a polka dot shower curtain, soap, shampoo, a razor–in other words the detritus you’d expect to see in any normal shower; the nude beach is palm trees, tropical fronds and flowers but also other people go about there lives pretty much normally (except for the fact that their nude in public).

Someone a great deal wiser than me once gave me the following advice: never tell where it is possible to show.

A lot of folks on Tumblr like to talk a lot about how radical they are. There are folks that argue that the normalcy of the patriarchal expectation for women to shave down there has rendered the natural state of post-pubescent women as undesirable. To combat this, some people go overboard supporting personal autonomy w/r/t body hair to a point that is–for all intents and purposes–fetishization.

This cleanly cuts through all that mess by showing a woman who clearly inhabits a world similar to the viewers own. The ‘politics’ of it don’t enter into her decision–it seems she’s just curious how it’ll look and finds it cute.

Subsequently, her friend expresses surprise in a joking fashion but is super accepting and supportive. (Instead of being like oh look at you, you rebel you!)

In other words, this isn’t focused on theory or praxis, it moves straight to simple application and in so doing it presents something that’s equally legible to folks who’ve spent half a lifetime immersed in critical theory to folks who just stopped in for a momentary distraction.