Watching Larry “I don’t work for they just license it for a fee” King Now on RT (rt.com), comedienne and 2 Broke Girls’ co-creator Whitney Cummings expressed as part of her spiel, indeed, her comedic copy, how porn is raising false expectations and misinforming young men today with an anecdote about how one was confused when confronted by a real woman with pubes.
Admittedly, its good tract for her act but have to say its use as porn—or “erotic art”—blaming anecdote is nothing new, not even nearly new, and just as easily debunked—especially with regards the sheer amount and novelity-seeking diversity prevelent in porn of which I find it hard to doubt an onlooker on any of the Tube sites or similar will not have been expossed to one feature at least featuring expansive bush—as when I first heard it—sometime in my teens and with the same porn-portrayal shaming dysmorphism—as being why pre-Raphaelite era critic John Ruskin was supposedly repulsed upon discovery of his wife’s public hair, leaving the marriage unconsummated:
Was art critic John Ruskin really repulsed by his wife’s pubic hair? (theguardian.com, Jul. 2014).
Was he, or is it long debunked with a much more world-wise reason being possible impotence and that his wife, who made the claim, left him for pre-Raphaelite prodigy John Millais at a time when leaving a marriage was a lot more scandalous and open to repudiation rather than that the pubic-hairless women “pre-porn” depicted in art up to and at the time had given him false pubic bald expectations, after all, the pre-Raphaelite’s took great delight in enlisting the services of models for pose and… yep, at a time when such trade was ever only a street or so away and coverable by a whole host of artist euthamisms.
“How does such a myth begin? Probably with a letter from Effie to her father that said Ruskin ‘alleged various reasons’ for never consummating the marriage, including ‘hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally … [he] told me his true reason … that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person [that] first evening’
“But that could be her making stuff up—especially if she wanted to run off with Millais. Perhaps. But Ruskin did say during their eventual annulment proceedings: ‘It may be thought strange that I could abstain from a woman who to most people was so attractive. But though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked it.’
“It’s not looking good for our hero, is it? But no one knows what those ‘certain circumstances’ were. Pubic hair and menstrual blood have both been mooted, but nobody knows.’”
Ya know, I’d not be suprised if even SelGo has pubes.
Recent/related stories
- Chelsea Handler gave fellow comedienne Whitney Cummings birthday teat tweet (Pick of the Week, 18th March 2015)
- The Pre-Raphaelites: Sanctity, sex and death (Pick of the Week, 24th September 2012)